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After the long legal and political battle, between the United Kingdom and Italy, the fate of little Indi Gregory has been decided. To put a definitive point on the end of life of the 8-month-old English girl, suffering from a very serious mitochondrial pathology, decreed as terminal by the doctors of the Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham and by the British judges, the detachment from the main vital devices was carried out yesterday, more times announced and postponed. Detachment finally carried out under police escort in a local hospice, as imposed by the courts of the Kingdom on the family, starting from the interruption of assisted ventilation and the connection to alternative instruments which should guarantee the little girl not to suffer, while they will be administered the palliative drugs responsible for accompanying her “gradually” towards death.
What will happen
The strenuous opposition of the parents, Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, was useless. Togas and white coats from across the Channel have decided on what is indicated as the least cruel and painful solution possible, however tragic, to be adopted “in the best interests” of the unfortunate baby. An epilogue that remains suspended until Indi’s heart stops beating. It could take a few hours or a few days. For Alfie Evans, at the center of an almost identical story in 2018, it took 5 whole days. In a tweet, lawyer Simone Pillon, from the Gregory family’s legal team, wrote last night: that Indi Gregory “for the moment has survived extubation and is breathing with a mask. The protocol requires that the oxygen supply be timed determined. It also provides for the suspension of treatment and the prohibition of resuscitation in the event of a crisis.”
The controversies
The case has raised controversy, doubts of conscience, cross-recriminations between Italy and the UK. On the Italian front, those left to make themselves heard are the activists who have supported and strenuously promoted the family’s battle – together with a team of lawyers and English Christian pro-life associations – in favor of an extension of assistance and then the option of transfer Baby Jesus was made available a couple of weeks ago by the Roman pediatric hospital as in other similar previous situations. But also members of Giorgia Meloni’s majority, who have personally committed themselves in recent days to ensuring the rapid granting of Italian citizenship to Indi (as was done in vain 5 years ago also for Alfie) and then attempting a whole series of subsequent steps. Until the unprecedented appeal to the Justice Minister of Rishi Sunak’s Tory government, Alex Chalk, to “raise awareness” of the judiciary to try to induce it to cede jurisdiction over the dossier to Italy, on the basis of a broad interpretation of the Convention of The Hague of ’96 on international judicial cooperation.
The choice of judges
Interpretation given by the three judges of the London Court of Appeal, protagonists of the last resort verdict. they rejected in peremptory tones. On the one hand, dismissing the Gregorys’ “legal tactics” as the result of “manipulation” by the activists; on the other, denouncing – in the position of judge rapporteur Peter Jackson – “the intervention of the Italian authorities” as “a total misunderstanding of the spirit of the Hague Convention”. And in any case endorsing “the strong evidence” in support of the prognosis of the Nottingham doctors, linked to a now definitive absence of “interactions” on Indi’s part and to the signs of his “significant suffering” caused by the “invasive” treatments . Words that the girl’s parents continued to contest to the end, saying they were “disgusted” and branding the no to their last resort as “a final kick in the teeth”. And which according to Jacopo Coghe, of Pro Vita & Famiglia onlus, would actually hide “totally euthanasic parameters on the dignity of life”. Pope Francis has chosen to offer in these hours “closeness and prayers to Indi, to her mother and her father”.
Source-tg24.sky.it