A High Court judge in the United Kingdom created legal history, by granting a mother the right to terminate her severely disabled daughter’s life after she lived for 12 years with several life limiting diseases.
Nancy Fitzmaurice was born blind with hydrocephalus, meningitis and septicaemia, could not walk, talk, eat or drink, the Mirror reported
Things got even worse for the struggling 12-year-old when a routine operation left her screaming and wailing in excruciating pain and agony.
As her health worsened, she required 24-hour hospital care and had to be fed, watered and medicated through a tube
She was administered Morphine and Ketamine, but her mother, Charlotte Fitzmaurice, could no longer stand to see her child suffer.
Such was the suffering of Charlotte’s child that she made the suggestion to end her child’s life as she saw no possibility of a quality for a child her age.
"My daughter is no longer my daughter, she is now merely just a shell, the light from her eyes is now gone and is replaced with fear and a longing to be at peace” she said in a statement during the court application.
According to the Metro UK, her application was granted immediately, setting a precedent. It was the first time a child breathing on her own, not on life support and not suffering a terminal illness has been allowed to die in the UK.
“The love, devotion and competence of her mother are apparent. In her own closed world she has had some quality of life. Sadly that is not the case now,” Justice King said
Nancy Fitzmaurice died in hospital on August 21.
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