On April 7, 12-year-old Archie Battersbee was found unconscious at his parents’ home in the UK. A very serious brain injury is detected. It is a dangerous and stupid Tiktok challenge, as he assures from his mother, Hollie Dance. The boy would have tried to perform the “blackout challenge”, popular on the stage, which consists of holding his breath until he passes out.
Since that date, Archie has been placed in a coma and is being kept alive artificially in a London hospital. Doctors say his condition is not expected to improve and have asked that the treatment be stopped. An unthinkable decision for Archie’s parents. His mother Hollie and his father Paul Battersbee have multiplied the legal proceedings, keeping the media around the Channel on edge and triggering a lively debate about the end of life in the country.
“If there was even the slightest chance that treatment would lead to improvement, it could be proportionate and helpful. But since the treatment here is useless, it undermines Archie’s dignity, robs him of his autonomy and is contrary to his well-being, ”said the justice at the end of May.
Dismissal of all appeals
One by one, the different authorities fired the parents. On Wednesday, a final decision by the British Supreme Court ordered the cessation of care at noon. It was without the determination of the Battersbee family that they decided to take over the European Court of Human Rights. In vain. The Strasbourg-based institution considered the application inadmissible. So Archie Battersbee should go offline very soon.
“It’s so unfair. The fact that as parents we have no rights over our children. It’s disgusting. I promised to fight to the end, and that’s exactly what I did,” his mother, Hollie Dance, told the cameras. Since the beginning of the legal brawl that she has undertaken, she has spoken very regularly with the media.
She assures, along with her husband, that Archie still shows signs of life, especially at eye level and with the pressure of his fingers. Supported by a Christian organization, the parents add that the child’s religious convictions must be taken into account. A sports fan, Archie would have become a believer watching athletes pray before competitions.
Inadmissible arguments from the medical point of view. “His body, his organs and his heart are in the process of extinction,” Judge Andrew McFarlane of the Court of Appeal stressed on Monday, quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
At least seven dead children around the world
In the UK, like the Vincent Lambert case in France, the Archie case sparked a lively end-of-life debate. Some find the therapeutic ruthlessness of parents regrettable. The words of Hollie Dance, who considered that the NHS -social security on the other side of the Channel- was committing a “choreographed execution” against her son, sparked controversy.
The drama also shed light on the “blackout challenge” present on Tiktok, which caused Archie’s condition. Following the death of two girls aged 8 and 9 in the United States while attempting to carry out this challenge, her families took legal action in the United States in early July. They criticize Tiktok for not sufficiently regulating the content it broadcasts, incriminating its algorithm.
“TikTok had undisputed knowledge that the deadly ‘Blackout’ challenge was spreading through the app and that its algorithm was offering it to children, including those who lost their lives,” the complaint says.
According to the media the edge Whoever obtained the complaint, the parents of the two girls assure that five other children died in the world in relation to this challenge, raising the number of victims to 7. Among the tragedies cited, the case of a 10-year-old girl stands out. She died in Palermo, Sicily, after being filmed putting a belt around her neck.
Source: BFM TV
