Alta Fixsler: Family friend says U.K. hospital can remove toddler’s life support ‘any time’

The legal battle over her life began in May when Manchester University National Health Service Foundation Trust petitioned the British High Court for permission to remove her life support. The trust argued that Alta didn’t have quality of life and was experiencing pain.

Others disagreed. Multiple pediatric neurologists said that Alta did not feel pain. But the courts still sided against the Fixsler family, even when they turned to the U.K. Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, and the European Court of Human Rights.

“It’s obviously very, very difficult for the parents to process what has been happening over the last few weeks,” Gestetner said. 

He criticized the courts for “essentially saying that parents do not have the right” to decide what is in the best interest of their own child. As court after court rules that the National Health Service (NHS) can decide little Alta’s fate, “it is devastating,” he said.

“It’s like (the U.K. government has) control, literal control on people’s medical decisions, especially once the person is within a medical institution and especially if it’s the case of a child,” he cautioned.

While Alta’s parents moved to the U.K. in 2014, they are Israeli citizens. Her father is also a U.S. citizen. As Orthodox Hasidic Jews, Abraham and Chaya Fixsler want to keep Alta on life support, in accordance with their faith and Israeli law.