A legal fight in the United Kingdom over whether a terminally ill child should be allowed to leave the country for medical treatment has captured the attention of American conservatives.

The case of Alfie Evans, a 23-month-old child with a neurodegenerative disease that has left most of his brain destroyed, has received extensive coverage from outlets like Fox News and become a rallying cry for social conservatives.

The child’s parents have pushed a British court to allow the child to fly to the Vatican for emergency medical treatment after doctors agreed all further treatment was futile and had his life support withdrawn. However, a judge in Manchester ruled against them, the latest in a series of court decisions where judges have agreed that there is no hope of recovery.

The Texas senator Ted Cruz tweeted several times about the case on Wednesday. He used it to criticize British health care system, saying: “It is a grim reminder that systems of socialized medicine like the NHS vest the state with power over human lives, transforming citizens into subjects.” Cruz went on to ask the British government to support Evans’s parents. “I urge the UK gov to grant the Evans family’s request to treat their precious child in Italy. Americans strive to achieve the promise of ‘life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness’ for all our citizens, no matter how young or old,” tweeted Cruz.

This was echoed by Mike Huckabee, who has twice unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination. He went on Fox News to say that the British government was treating Evans as “disposable and expendable” and warned that “this is what happens when government gets in complete control of a healthcare system”. He went on to say that “the British government is deciding it’s God and it is going to make the decision of life or death”.

Other American conservatives struck even more ardent notes. The former Republican congressman and radio host Joe Walsh tweeted: “Why does an American need an AR-15?’ To make sure what’s happening to #AlfieEvans never happens here. That’s why.”

Erick Erickson, a leading conservative activist and commentator, tweeted: “The British press is not a free press or a moral press. If it were, it’d be making a really big deal about the UK killing Alfie Evans.”

In the United Kingdom, police issued warnings after staffers at the hospital where Evans is being treated have received “unprecedented personal abuse” according its chair, Sir David Henshaw.