The High Court has dismissed a health board challenge to a couple's decision not to permit the PKU screening test on their baby son. The test is administered to newborn babies through blood taken from their heels.
Mr Justice McCracken said yesterday the case raised important constitutional issues relating to the powers and duties of the State to act for the benefit of children and the relationship between parents and their child.
But, he found, "if the State were entitled to intervene in every case where professional opinion differed from that of parents, or where the State considered the parents were wrong in a decision, we would be rapidly stepping towards the Brave New World in which the State always knows best".
If the State believed it had an obligation to make it unlawful for parents to refuse to allow their children undergo such tests, the State could introduce legislation.
The couple, who the judge said should not be named, were opposed on religious grounds to their son having the test for four metabolic conditions which can lead to mental handicap unless detected early and one endocrine condition. The test has been done for 30 years, usually within 72120 hours of birth.
A working group on the test, set up by the Minister for Health in 1990, produced a report recommending that where parents refused to allow their child be screened, the responsibility for any possible adverse consequences shifted to them.
Instead of having a blood test administered, the couple had argued their son could be screened for the same conditions through hair or urine samples. Their religious belief was that no one should injure any other person.
The North Western Health Board had asked the High Court to declare that the test was in the child's best interests, and for an order restraining the parents from preventing the test.
In his reserved judgment dismissing the board's application yesterday, Mr Justice McCracken noted there were only six cases annually where parents refused to allow the test.
All the conditions were treatable, but once damage had been caused by them it was irreversible, the judge said. It was medically considered of great importance to have the condition diagnosed as early as possible.
He noted that the legislature had not made participation in the PKU screening process compulsory.
He said Section 3 of the Child Care Act, 1991, imposed an obligation on health boards to protect the welfare of children who were not receiving adequate care. The rights of parents and the position of the family unit must also be taken into account.
In this case, he was being asked to balance those rights against the rights of this child as an individual. The board argued that he should do this by ascertaining what was in the boy's best interests.
In his view, the decision by the parents, who were acknowledged to be caring and conscientious, could not be said to constitute an exceptional case justifying State intervention.
