Judge Rules to Take 11-Month-Old Baby with Brain Damage Off Life Support Against Parents' Wishes
A London mother and father are fighting to save their 11-month-old son after a judge ruled that doctors could take the baby, who has brain damage, off of life support against the parents’ wishes.
Takesha Thomas and Lanre Haastrup, both 36, appeared emotional as they left a High Court hearing on Monday in which Judge Alistair MacDonald ruled that doctors can stop providing intensive care treatment to their son Isaiah Haastrup, the Associated Press reports.
“I see a child who is injured. He needs love. He needs care. I have it. I can give it,” Thomas said in court, according to the BBC. “To say it is so poor, it is not worth living, that is not right. It is not their decision to make.”
Doctors said in court that little Isaiah suffered “catastrophic” brain damage at birth due to oxygen deprivation, adding that further treatment would be “futile, burdensome and not in his best interests,” according to the AP.
Still, his parents want treatment to continue and have started a GoFundMe page to cover medical and travel expenses.
“Our son did nothing wrong. He formed perfectly for the entire nine months; he deserves to live,” the family wrote on the GoFundMe page.
Doctors said that Isaiah is unable to move or breathe on his own, and did not respond to stimulation, the BBC reports. However, his mother disputed the claims in court, saying of her son, “When I speak to him he will respond, slowly by opening one eye.”
The parents started the Life for Isaiah Haastrup Facebook page for their son, where friends and family members can share messages of encouragement.
In photos on his own Facebook account, Haastrup has shared several photos of his ailing son, calling Isaiah his “little soldier.”
The situation is similar to that of another London couple, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, whose son, Charlie, died in July after a lengthy court battle to treat the terminally ill 11-month-old baby. Charlie had a rare genetic disease, infantile onset encephalomyopathy mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome (MDDS), which resulted in brain damage and left him without the ability to move his arms and legs, eat or breathe on his own.
The family went to London’s High Courts in an effort to gain permission to bring Charlie to the U.S. for treatment. Eventually, it was determined by a series of tests that his chance of improvement did not exist.
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