On Tuesday afternoon, the parents of sick 23-month-old baby Alfie Evans lost a last-ditch legal challenge to take their son to Italy to seek treatment.
“Alfie Evans family has lost its legal challenge to fly him to Italy for treatment in what judge calls the ‘final chapter in the case of this extraordinary little boy,'” reports Josh Halliday of The Guardian.
Baby Alfie is believed to suffer from encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. His parents wished to seek further treatment for their boy and continue to fight for his life; the U.K. courts sided with Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, which claimed keeping Alfie on life-support was not in his “best interests.”
On Monday, Alfie had his life-support removed, but to the medical staff’s surprise, the little boy is still alive and fighting, sustaining his own life for over 20 hours, six of which were without oxygen, food, and water, per the hospital’s denial.
The Italian Embassy came to the family’s defense and granted baby Alfie citizenship in hopes the boy could leave the U.K. and seek treatment there. After this was denied, the parents made another legal challenge at a hearing on Tuesday. “A High Court judge is preparing to consider further issues in the case of a 23-month-old boy who has been at the centre of a life-support treatment battle. Mr Justice Hayden is scheduled to oversee another hearing in Alfie Evans’s case in the Family Division of the High Court in Manchester in the next few hours,” reported Metro on Tuesday morning.
The parents were denied this right and the judge effectively sentenced the baby to death, yet again.
Here’s more from inside the courtroom pre-ruling, per Halliday: