Midrar Ali: Court of Appeal to deliver verdict on baby's future
A couple from Manchester who want doctors to keep providing life-support treatment to their brain-damaged baby son are waiting to hear if they have won a Court of Appeal fight.
Three appeal judges are due to decide what is in Midrar Ali's best interests on Friday.
Sir Andrew McFarlane, Lord Justice Patten and Lady Justice King analysed arguments from lawyers representing Midrar's parents Karwan Ali and Shokhan Namiq, and doctors, at a Court of Appeal hearing in London on Wednesday.
A High Court judge has concluded that Midrar is brain stem dead.
Mrs Justice Lieven, who analysed evidence at a trial in the Family Division of the High Court in Manchester, recently ruled that life-support treatment could lawfully end.
Midrar's parents, who live in Manchester, say treatment should continue and want appeal judges to overturn Mrs Justice Lieven's ruling.
They say Midrar is still growing and say doctors cannot be sure that he will not improve.
Mrs Justice Lieven heard that Midrar had been starved of oxygen due to complications at birth and had been placed on a ventilator.
Bosses at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester asked the judge to rule that ventilation could lawfully be withdrawn so Midrar could be allowed a "kind and dignified death".
Lawyers representing the hospital's governing trust, the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, said three tests had confirmed brain stem death.
Mrs Justice Lieven said she had "no doubt" that Midrar was brain stem dead.
She said the medical evidence was clear and consistent.
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