12-year-old Arthur Battersby, whose condition has been followed by the whole of Britain in recent weeks after his family waged a cross-country legal battle to keep him on a ventilator despite being diagnosed as brain dead, died on Saturday afternoon about two hours after his doctors took him off oxygen.
As you may remember, Arthur was injured while playing at home in an accident that was defined as "unimaginable" and has since remained in a coma and his doctors determined that he suffered irreversible brain stem damage that will prevent him from regaining full consciousness.
His family appealed to several courts in Great Britain and reached the Supreme Court, and then the European Court of Human Rights, but in all cases the doctors refused to intervene or agreed with the doctors' determination that it was better to let him die.
The case fascinated Britain, and resurfaced the question of whether it is permissible to withhold medical treatment even if the chances of recovery are zero.
"He fought until the end," his mother Holly Dance said outside the hospital after telling the media about his death.
"I am the proudest mother in the world."
After losing the legal battle, the parents requested that they at least be allowed to transfer him to a hospice so that he would die in more comfortable conditions, but the hospital stated that such a transfer would involve a serious health hazard in light of his unstable condition and would in fact only hasten his death and the court agreed with the hospital.
According to the case law used in the United Kingdom, when there is a dispute between the doctors and the family about the way to deal with a minor patient, the court usually sides with the doctors, with the understanding that they know what is best for the patient, even if this deprives the parents of the freedom to decide about their children.
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