When parent’s child is critically ill, they’ll do whatever it takes to provide them with the best treatment possible…unless, of course, their oppressive government blocks their efforts for seemingly no reason at all. Such is the horrific situation being faced by the parents of infant Charlie Gard after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that his parents were not allowed to privately fund an attempt to save his life.
Charlie suffers from a rare genetic condition known as called mitochondrial depletion syndrome. British doctors have declared that the infant is beyond saving, however, experimental treatments in the US offer a glimmer of hope for Charlie Gard and his desperate parents. These treatments were not covered under the UK’s single-payer healthcare system, so the parent’s of Charlie Gard, Chris Gard and Connie Yates decided to fund the treatments themselves.
The two were able to raise over £1.3 million through crowdfunding – enough to cover the treatment. There was just one problem: in spite of the fact that they raised the money themselves, the ECHR is still not allowing Charlie to be taken to the US for treatment.
Acting as what some US politicians have referred to as a “death panel”, the ECHR said in their statement that baby Charlie was too ill for treatment and must be allowed to “die with dignity” in the UK. Both Charlie’s parents and the thousands of people who helped them raise over £1.3 million of private funds strongly disagree with this assessment. Yet in a country that has become frighteningly totalitarian, this doesn’t seem to matter.
On July 3rd, the horrible mistreatment of Charlie Gard and his parents caught the attention of President Donald Trump, who tweeted, “If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.”
Trump’s mention of the Pope is in reference to the fact that Pope Francis and the Catholic Church at large have spoken out in support of Charlie Gard and in condemnation of the ECHR that is sentencing him to death. Nevertheless, not even the President of the United States and the Pope combined have the authority to overturn a decision made by a European court. In this case, the ECHR has already stated that their decision is “final”.
To add insult to injury, the hospital where baby Charlie is being kept will not even allow his parents to take him home, insisting that he die within the hospital’s walls. Connie, the baby’s mother voiced her sorrow in a video release.
“We chose to take Charlie home to die … that is our last wish, and we promised our little boy every single day that we would take him home, that is a promise we thought we could keep,” she said.
“We want to give him a bath at home, we want to sit on the sofa with them,” Charlie’s father Chris added in the same video. “We want to put him in a cot he’s never slept in. We’re now being denied that.”
It’s a story that is heartbreaking for Charlie and his parents while at the same time terrifying for those on the outside who are shocked to see just how much parental rights the UK is stripping away. Of course, such is the danger of a single-payer system where complete control of healthcare is given to the government rather than the individual.
For the majority of people on the left who laud the single-payer system as the gold-standard of healthcare, the nightmare that it has caused for Charlie Gard and his family should serve as a sobering wake-up call.
For baby Charlie, though, it’s too late to hope for the system to change. It’s already failed him by stealing away his one and only chance for survival. While there is hope that enough outside pressure from powerful authorities such as President Trump and Pope Francis could convince to court to revisit their decision (Helen Ferre, the director of media affairs at the White House, did confirm that members of the Trump administration have been speaking with Charlie’s family) it doesn’t seem as if the ECHR will be changing their ruling at all, much less in time for Charlie Gard’s life to be saved.
~ Conservative Zone
