EUROPEAN RIGHTS COURT REJECTS CASE OF TERMINALLY ILL TODDLER

PARIS The European Court of Human Rights on Monday rejected a case from British parents who want to take their terminally ill toddler to Italy for treatment instead of allowing a U.K. hospital to remove him from life support.

The Strasbourg-based court said it received an application from the parents of 23-month-old Alfie Evans on Friday to potentially delay Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool from removing him from life support.

The court rejected the application as “inadmissible,” but wouldn’t specify on what grounds. Justices at Britain’s Supreme Court last week upheld a lower court’s conclusion that it would be pointless to fly the boy to Rome for treatment. Doctors say Alfie is in a “semi-vegetative state” as the result of an unknown degenerative neurological condition.