WASHINGTON – Very soon, Charlie Gard will die.
Barring intervention from senior officials in the British government, 11-month-old Charlie Gard, who suffers from a rare genetic disease, will have his life support withdrawn soon by officials at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where Charlie now is hospitalized, although they have not yet named a time.
Charlie’s fight for life has drawn massive sympathy from around the world, with statements of support from figures as influential as Pope Francis and President Donald Trump. But so far, the British National Health Service has given no indication that its bureaucrats will allow Charlie to live.
“We’re not allowed to choose if our son lives and we’re not allowed to choose when or where Charlie dies,” Charlie’s parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard said in a recent Facebook post. At the time, they thought Charlie’s life support would be withdrawn on June 30, but the hospital gave them an indefinite reprieve to say goodbye.
Charlie’s parents have raised close to $1.7 million to take Charlie outside of Britain for treatment.
And an American hospital has offered to treat Charlie for free.
The Papal Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome also offered to treat Charlie. However, the NHS, Britain’s single-payer health-care system, will not let him go elsewhere receive care, even though it won’t cost a dime.
Charlie’s parents have argued for their parental rights to make the decision that is in the best interest of their son in front of many different courts, all the way up to the European Court of Human Rights. But they lost every step of the way, proving that in Europe, the state considers itself better equipped to make intensely personal decisions about the well-being of a child than his parents.
Great Ormond Street Hospital has said Charlie should be allowed to “die with dignity,” and that its officials do not believe there is any substantial chance treatment will be able to save Charlie, who is one of only 16 people ever diagnosed with this rare mitochondrial depletion syndrome.
However, another boy diagnosed with a very similar disease in America has defied all expectations and is now 6 years old – after being told he had only two months to live upon being diagnosed as an infant.
An Italian child also has a similar story about beating a similar illness through treatment.
Veteran journalist and best-selling author of “The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom,” David Kupelian believes the rise of socialism in Europe, as well as the deterioration of Western morality, is to blame for the uphill battle Charlie’s parents are fighting.
“The whole ‘die with dignity’ phrase, however well-intentioned, is tainted with the arrogance of socialistic government that has, at least in Britain and Europe, replaced the Judeo-Christian culture that once dominated the West,” Kupelian told WND. “In that culture, parents would have unquestioned authority over their own children, unless they were severely abusive, criminal or insane.
“What ever happened to common sense?” he continued. “Charlie’s parents, who love him, are obviously responsible people, and who have raised over a million dollars for their baby’s care, have the natural right to take him to another hospital, even one in another country.”
As to why the British government does not want to allow the parents to try and save Charlie, even though it won’t cost it a thing, Kupelian speculated, “Perhaps the British authorities fear establishing a precedent that parents have the final authority over their children, since that notion is in mortal conflict with socialist sensibilities according to which, to quote Hillary Clinton and others, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.'”
There is a danger for stories like Charlie’s to appear whenever a country turns to socialized, single-payer health care provided by the government.
“Under socialized medicine, the government pays for everybody and, therefore, is in control of everybody’s lives. In short, the government knows best,” Kupelian said. “That’s why Ronald Reagan warned that the surest way to completely subjugate a society under socialism was through socialized health care.”
An editorial at the Chicago Tribune agrees with Kupelian.
“Why does the British government have such wide authority over Charlie’s treatment?” it asked. The answer: “Because the government funds a single-payer health system, picking up medical costs for British citizens.”
The Tribune warns that the U.S. might not be so far off from Britain’s government-run health care, either: “Now that Obamacare is faltering, talk of a single-payer national plan has surfaced anew in Democratic circles,” it said. “[No one could] predict that a critically ill infant far from U.S. shores would provide one more reason for Americans to remain wary of a single-payer system.”
