Save Alfie Evans! Tell the hospital to let his parents take him home. Sign here.
LIVERPOOL, England, April 23, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Thomas Evans has instructed lawyers to appeal to the European Commission to save his son’s life.
Evans, 21, is the father of Alfie Evans, a 23-month-old baby who is lying critically ill in a Liverpool children’s hospital. Alder Hey National Health Service Foundation Trust has been ordered by Court of Appeal to remove the child’s life-supporting ventilator today. But in the latest of several attempts to extend his child’s life, Tom Evans has instructed an Italian law firm to plead his case at once before the European Commision.
In a statement released today, Evans wrote:
We, Thomas Evans and Kate James, as parents of our son Alfie Evans, give notice that we have instructed Zunarelli Law Firm (located in Bologna, Italy), to file an immediate appeal before the European Commission to defend the rights and interests recognized by EU law against the United Kingdom.
Stop the execution of our son while we wait for the decision of the European Commission.
A similarly last-minute petition, signed by almost 200,000 people supporting Alfie and his parents, has asked that the child be permitted to go to a hospital of his parents’ choice.
Yesterday LifeSiteNews obtained a copy of the hospital’s proposed plans to end the child’s life. It is as yet unknown whether or not doctors at Alder Hey have already removed the child’s life support. Thomas Evans reported on social media this morning that the extubation would begin at 1:30 PM.
Alfie’s parents have already brought Alfie’s case before the European Court of Human Rights. In March, a panel of three judges ruled that their appeal to take the boy elsewhere in Europe for medical care was “inadmissible” and that the child’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights were not being violated. The court also refused to block the February ruling of the UK High Court allowing doctors to remove Alfie’s life support.
The child’s family want him to be transferred to the Bambino Gesù, the Vatican’s children’s hospital in Rome. The Italian hospital is willing to treat Alfie, and Pope Francis met with Thomas Evans last week to hear the father’s concerns. The pontiff praised the young man’s courage in defending his son.
The family’s penultimate attempt to move Alfie from Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool to Rome was defeated on April 20th, when the UK Supreme Court denied their appeal. The panel of three justices said that the hospital must be “free to do what has been determined to be in Alfie's best interests.” The British courts have ruled that Alfie’s best interests are to cease living.
After the Supreme Court’s ruling, Tom Evans released a press statement through the advocacy group Christian Concern.
“Like all Alfie’s family, I am very disappointed by the new decision of the Supreme Court which justifies Alfie’s imprisonment in Alder Hey Hospital, and refuses to let him go to Rome on the invitation of the Pope,” he said.
“Lady Hale, Lord Wilson and Lord Kerr are the same three judges who upheld Alfie’s original ‘death sentence’ back in March.”
Save Alfie Evans! Tell the hospital to let his parents take him home. Sign here.
“We have asked them to watch the recent videos of Alfie, and their decision now admits that Alfie ‘looks like a normal boy’,” Evans continued. “However, their paperwork still says his brain no longer exists, his life is futile, he may not be allowed to go, but must be made to die – all in his own best interests. Only the paperwork matters to these people – the real child does not.”
“This is not justice. This is cruel bureaucracy.”
He indicated then that he would be appealing to the European Commission.
“We will not give up,” he concluded. “We will continue to fight, by all means available to us within the law, to save our son’s life.”