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Senator Ted Cruz, conservatives speak out for Alfie Evans

'While the people of the UK are busy celebrating a royal birth, its government is brushing off a commoner’s right to life.'
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Calvin
Freiburger
Calvin Freiburger

IMPORTANT: For live updates on the Alfie Evans case click here.

April 26, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – As the plight of 23-month-old Alfie Evans continues to intensify, a growing chorus of prominent American conservatives has begun calling for the child to be released from Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and taken to Italy for medical care.

On Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, took to Facebook and Twitter to publicize the details of Alfie’s story and call for action.

“It is a sad irony that while the people of the UK are busy celebrating a royal birth, its government is brushing off a commoner’s right to life,” Cruz wrote, as well as a “grim reminder that systems of socialized medicine like the NHS vest the state with power over human lives, transforming citizens into subjects.”

“I urge the UK government to grant the Evans family’s request to treat their precious child in Italy,” the senator continued. “I encourage all my fellow Americans to join me today in praying for Alfie and his family.”

Alfie’s doctors say he has an undiagnosed neurological condition that has resulted in serious and irreparable brain damage. He was removed from his ventilator on April 23 just after 9:00 p.m., but has since defied expectations by breathing on his own. His parents Tom Evans and Kate James have since fought to secure oxygen, water, and food for their son.

“My heart breaks for #AlfieEvans and his parents,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, tweeted. “Each and every life is so full of potential and Alfie is no exception to that. I’m hoping and praying that Alfie is shown compassion.”

In comments to Fox News, former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee agreed that Alfie’s plight was “what happens when the government gets in complete control of the healthcare system.”

“There is no such thing as a disposable human being, as an expendable, worthless, human being,” Huckabee said. “But that is the decision the British government has made.”

Retired Army Lt. Col. and former Rep. Allen West, R-FL, also tweeted support for Alfie, calling for his story to “be shouted from the rooftops” and warning of a future in which parents are “helpless before the gods of socialized medicine.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed support for Alfie as well, asking for prayers that his family be allowed “to seek new forms of treatment,” and that “the dignity of Alfie’s life and all human life, especially those who are most vulnerable, be respected and upheld.”

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin has also recapped the story in the following video for Conservative Review TV, as well as explained its significance in a column for the Daily Signal.

 

She noted that hopeless medical diagnoses are often wrong in similar cases, such as that of 11-year-old Haleigh Poutre of Massachusetts, who was pronounced “virtually brain-dead” in 2005. She began to stir shortly before doctors planned to remove her life support, and today she is a young woman who “laughs, smiles, lives,” and attends school despite being confined to a wheelchair.

“So, where are all the left’s human rights champions when you need them?” Malkin asked. “Once again, there have been no rallying cries from Hollywood celebrities, no tweet storms from the self-anointed guardians of children who embrace gun control in the name of saving lives and abortion in the name of choice.”

Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro took to Twitter to highlight multiple double-standards the case presented:

 

In an editorial Wednesday, the editors of National Review called on British authorities to allow Alfie’s transfer to Rome.

“Justice Anthony Hayden of the High Court wrote that artificial ventilation was an assault on Alfie’s ‘dignity,’ as if modern intensive-care units themselves were a barbarity,” the editorial notes. “That doctors in Rome can prolong Alfie’s life and even improve his medical condition may be a long shot, but the assumption that their trying would somehow put him at risk makes little sense at this juncture. Risk of what?”

“The British courts have failed to make their case for barring him from the plane that stands ready and waiting to fly him to Rome,” National Review concludes. “They will either reverse their decision or suffer a permanent loss of credibility.”

On Thursday, Alfie’s father Tom Evans announced that he was shifting his focus from getting Alfie out of the country to working with Alder Hey. He said he would no longer be speaking to the press, and asked supporters to return to their normal lives. The statement he read contained eerily similar language to a statement Alder Hey released yesterday. This is the first time Tom has read a prepared statement.