November 3, 2021
I'm not sure that the word "Jewish" means anything here. I don't see any anti-Semitism as, it seems to me, that this judge would have rendered this same ungodly decision regardless of the babies religion. One may not execute a human being by removing life support. The decision to put someone ON life support is a different kind of a question, and depends on many factors. Whether to put someone on a "mechanical" life support, and what to do about it later, are Godly questions, and wrong answers can seriously affect what will be for a person when judgment arrives...and judgment always arrives.
2-year-old disabled Jewish girl dies after UK court orders the removal of her life support
Two-year-old Alta Fixsler, the girl at the centre of a years-long court battle over her right to life, has died in a hospice. Following an effective death sentence handed down by a British High Court in May, a raging legal battle to save Alta’s life concluded this month, all possible legal recourse exhausted. Her last battle was to be granted permission to have her life-support removed at home, rather than in a hospital or hospice. Even this small mercy was withheld. On October 18, just over an hour after having her life-saving treatment removed, Alta died in a children’s hospice.
“Sad news, little Alta Fixsler’s life support was turned off this afternoon and she died at the hospice with her parents by her side,” a family spokesman said in a written statement.
Alta was 8 weeks premature when she was born in December 2018. She suffered from severe brain damage at birth as doctors spent around 10-15 minutes resuscitating her. Since then, Alta remained on mechanical ventilation and received 24-hour, life-sustaining care at a hospital under the operation of the Manchester University National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust in England, during which time she grew and developed.
In May 2021, however, hospital staff advised her parents that Alta, then 2-years-old, would not recover from her condition and, even with round-the-clock care, might only live another two or three years. Doctors added that, in their opinion, “the burdens of treatment are going to produce pain and suffering” for Alta, and that her “quality of life is severely limited.” ~~~~~~~~
Alta’s parents insisted that condemning their child to die was not only against their wishes as those who had brought Alta into the world, but abhorrent to their Orthodox Jewish faith, which upholds the sanctity of life. They showed that hospitals in Jerusalem were willing to receive Alta in order to continue her treatment at no expense to the British public purse and argued that they should be allowed to transfer their daughter.
Ultimately, MacDonald declared that “no medical benefit” could be found in Alta being taken to Israel, adding that further care provides “no prospect” of recovery. The judge therefore ruled, in line with the opinion of Manchester NHS doctors, that it was in the child’s “best interests for the treatment that is currently sustaining her precious life now to be withdrawn” on May 28 and instead suggested that “a palliative care regime be implemented,” again insisting that this “is in her best interests.”
The British courts do not consider the removal of life support from brain-injured people who cannot breathe, eat, or drink without medical assistance to be euthanasia.