BRITAIN: A gravely ill premature baby living in constant pain will be allowed to die if she stops breathing, a High Court in London decided yesterday writes Lynne O'Donnell in London.
The judge turned down a request by the baby's parents that he order doctors to keep their daughter alive at all costs.
Charlotte Wyatt has spent most of her 11 months in a hospital oxygen crib since she was born almost three months premature, weighing 16.16 ounces and measuring just five inches.
The court heard from paediatric specialists that Charlotte suffers constant pain, is blind and deaf, and endures a "terrible" quality of life that is unlikely to improve.
Her doctors at the Portsmouth Hospitals National Health Service Trust described Charlotte's under-developed lungs as badly damaged and said she was likely to contract infections in the coming winter. She would only survive if she was artificially revived - she has already been resuscitated three times.
Mr Justice Hedley, the presiding judge, granted the baby's doctors permission to let her die if she stops breathing, in contravention of her parent's wishes.
The parents, Mr Darren Wyatt (33) and his wife, Debbie (23), had brought their case to court in the hope of forcing their daughter's doctors to do everything possible to keep her alive. But they accepted the judge's decision and said they would not appeal.
The case of baby Charlotte has touched the hearts of Britons as her distraught parents pleaded with the judge to give her time to gain strength and bond with them.
Committed Christians who are expecting their third child, the Wyatts said they had not given up hope that a miracle of either divine provenance or science would help their daughter live, if only for a couple of years.
In what was generally regarded as a compassionate decision, Mr Justice Hedley said he did not believe that "further aggressive treatment, even if necessary to prolong her life" was in Charlotte's best interests.
"I know that may mean that she may die earlier than otherwise she might have done, but in my judgment the moment of her death will only be slightly advanced," he said.
"I have asked myself: what can now be done to benefit Charlotte? I can only offer three answers: first, that she can be given as much comfort and as little pain as possible; secondly, that she can be given as much time as possible to spend physically in the presence of and in contact with her parents; thirdly, that she can meet her end whenever that may be in what Mr Wyatt called the TLC of those who love her most."
He said Charlotte's case evoked "some of the fundamental principles that undergird our humanity". Those principles were not to be found in Acts of Parliament or decisions of the courts, "but in the deep recesses of the common psyche of humanity, whether they be attributed to humanity being created in the image of God or whether it be simply a self-defining ethic of a generally acknowledged humanism".