Parents win fight to keep baby alive

LONDON - The parents of an 18-month-old boy with a terminal muscle-wasting disease won a legal battle on Wednesday to stop doctors turning off the ventilator keeping him alive.

Doctors had argued that the boy, who suffers from severe spinal muscular atrophy, had an "intolerable" life. He cannot breathe for himself, has to be fed through a tube, and can only move his eyebrows, feet, and fingers very slightly.

But his parents said the boy, from the north of England, who can be identified only as MB for legal reasons, could still enjoy the company of his family and was not mentally impaired.

At the High Court, Justice James Holman described the life of the boy - who is expected to die within a year - as "helpless and sad" but he rejected the doctors' request to turn off the ventilator.

"I am not persuaded that it is currently in the best interests of M to discontinue ventilation, with the inevitable result that he would immediately die," he said.

"He continues to see and hear and feel touch and to have awareness of his surroundings and in particular of the people who are close to him - his family - and to have the normal thought process of a small child of 18 months," said the judge.

"I ... consider that currently it is positively in his best interests to continue with continuous pressure ventilation and with the nursing and medical care that properly go with it."

The case was believed to be the first in which doctors had asked to allow a patient who is not in a persistent vegative state to die.

Although siding with the boy's parents on the main issue in the case, the judge also said he could not endorse other medical treatment which could inflict additional pain on the baby.

"If that point is reached, it would be in his best interests then to withhold those procedures even though he would probably die," he said.

- REUTERS