English court denies parents’ appeal, allows removal of boy’s life-support
July 27, 2022
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CWN Editor's Note: A comatose 12-year-old boy could be removed from life-support systems after an English appeals court denied his parents’ bid to preserve his life.
Archie Battersbee has been unconscious since April, and doctors have announced that he has no chance of survival. But his parents have pleaded for life-sustaining treatment. An appeals court ruled against the parents on July 25—leaving them with only a possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights as the last chance to save their child.
Bishop John Sherrington, an auxiliary of the Westminster diocese, lamented the court’s decision. “The Catholic Church requires moral certainty before it recognizes death,” he said. He called for the boy “to be treated with full dignity” unless and until “there is a clear agreement that his death has occurred.”
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