The Fixsler family
The Fixsler familyCourtesy

Alta Fixsler, the two-year-old girl whose family fought for months against a court order to take her to Israel or the US for treatment, has died after she was taken off life support Monday.

Alta was born with severe brain damage and had been on life support since birth.

Alta’s parents, Avraham and Chaya Fixsler, endured a months long legal battle with the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust to have their daughter taken to either Israel or the United States for specialized care.

Earlier this month, Justice Alistair MacDonald of the Family Division of the High Court ruled that it was in the girl’s “best interest” to be at a children’s hospice when her life support was turned off, despite her parents' wish that it be done at home.

In August, the family exhausted all options after a final appeal by the parents to the European Court of Human Rights was rejected. The Fixslers had sought to reach an agreement with the Trust, who had ruled that the sick toddler should be withdrawn from life support in either a pediatric care setting or a local hospice, but not at home.

In his ruling, MacDonald said he was confident his decision had taken into account Alta’s end of life needs along with her parents' religious beliefs as Orthodox Jews.

“I am satisfied that this option best accommodates Alta’s welfare need for specialist care at the end of her life under a reliable, safe and sustainable system of high caliber care protected from disruption, whilst allowing, in so far as possible and consistent with Alta’s best interests, the family and the community to perform the sacred religious obligations of the Orthodox Jewish faith,” the judge ruled.