When and Who Can Kill Your Darlings: Revisiting the Best Interests Test for Children’s Medical Treatments
Introduction In Dance v Barts Health NHS Trust (Dance), Archie Battersbee, a 12-year-old boy, suffered from a catastrophic hypoxic-ischaemic brain injury and was kept alive only by mechanical ventilation.1 Accordingly, the High Court concluded that Archie had ‘no prospect of meaningful recovery’ and authorised the withdrawal of continued ventilation on the basis that it was not in his […]