The family of seriously ill UK toddler Alta Fixsler have made a last minute plea to the government to prevent her from being taken off life support.
Alta’s parents, Avraham and Chaya Fixsler, have endured a lengthy legal battle with the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust to have their daughter taken to either Israel or the United States for specialized care.
After exhausting all options – a final appeal by the parents to the European Court of Human Rights at the beginning of August was rejected – the Fixslers are seeking to reach an agreement with the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, who had ruled that the sick toddler should be withdrawn from life support in either a pediatric care setting or a local hospice, but not at home, the Jewish Chronicle reported.
Alta Fixsler was born with a catastrophic brain injury and has been under round-the-clock care by the NHS since her birth.
On Friday, the parents issued a statement saying they only wanted “the very best for our little girl.”
“We ask Boris Johnson and [Health Secretary] Sajid Javid to intervene and request the Trust reconsider their position and allow Alta to come home to her family,” they said.
The Orthodox family have said that ending their daughter’s life support would go against their religious beliefs.
Rabbi Moshe B. Parnes, southern regional vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, described the trust’s decision to remove the toddler from life support as “akin to murder.”
“Judaism recognizes the sacred value of every human life. Once a child has been placed on a ventilator, Jewish law unequivocally prohibits deliberately discontinuing the ventilation so as to hasten the approach of death, as this is akin to murder,” he said in a statement.
“Similarly, to deny food to any person is simply a cruel act. We appeal to the good conscience and high ethical standards of Britons to respect the child’s religious traditions, and permit the helpless child to be transferred to a facility in America or to Israel willing to continue to provide the highest standards of medical care.”
In July, Senator Chuck Schumer obtained a US visa for the two-year old so she could come to the US for treatment, as her father is an American citizen.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)