The Case of Charlie Gard

Charlie Gard case has grave consequences for the rights of parents and the family. We should be very concerned.

The case of baby Charlie Gard has the gravest consequences for the rights of parents and the autonomy of the family. This assault against the family and life stretches beyond the borders of the UK, and we should all be very concerned.

For those unfamiliar with the case in question, Charlie Gard was born in the UK in 2016 with mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, a severe condition that left him struggling for his life. This past March doctors told his parents that there was nothing more they could do. They recommended removing his ventilator and letting him die.

Undeterred, Chris Gard and Connie Yates searched for alternatives. They discovered an experimental treatment that offered the small possibility of a cure. The catch? It’s extremely expensive, and is only offered in the United States.

Still undeterred, Charlie’s parents launched an online crowd-funding campaign and received tens of thousands of donations. In all, the parents raised over 1.3 million British pounds (nearly $1.7 million U.S.) – more than enough to pay for the treatment.

For the first time, there was a glimmer of hope for Charlie.

Then, inexplicably, the hospital where Charlie is being kept – Great Ormond Street Hospital in London – refused to release Charlie. They said they had determined that the proposed treatment was unlikely to help the boy, and would only prolong his suffering.

Shocked, Charlie’s parents appealed that decision. A court ruled that Charlie should be permitted to “die with dignity” (a chilling phrase, for those familiar with pro-death rhetoric). They appealed the case all the way up to the UK Supreme Court. At every step, they lost. Then, last week, the parents’ last recourse – the European Court of Human Rights – refused to overrule the UK court.

With that decision, Charlie’s case exploded onto the international stage. A ferocious public debate ensued, with global figures including President Trump, Pope Francis and many others weighing in. Charlie remains on life support, but at any moment the hospital could decide to remove his ventilator.

Sadly, confusion has plagued the emotionally fraught case. Even some pro-lifers seem to have been misled by the rhetoric of the hospital and the court system, while the core issue – the natural rights of the parents to make this decision for their child – has been lost.

Moreover, many were shocked after an initial statement from the Vatican’s own Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) seemed to side with the hospital, which was met with a fierce backlash from Charlie’s supporters. Thankfully, shortly thereafter Pope Francis issued his own statement. The Holy Father rightly pivoted the Vatican’s focus away from the complex and ultimately tangential issue of the nature of the proposed treatment, to the rights of Charlie’s parents. Speaking of the parents, the statement said: “For them [Pope Francis] prays, hoping that their desire to accompany and care for their own child to the end is not ignored.”

Equally as important, the Vatican followed up with concrete action: Bambino Gesu, the Vatican’s own hospital, offered to take Charlie and care for him, for free. This was a strong, and much-needed gesture.

It is important that we be 100% clear what this case is not ultimately about: the distinction between “aggressive” or “extraordinary” care, and ordinary care. The Catholic Church has always been very clear that there is no moral obligation to use what the Church labels “extraordinary” means – which can include artificial respiration – to prolong life. As Pope John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae:

In such situations, when death is clearly imminent and inevitable, one can in conscience “refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, so long as the normal care due to the sick person in similar cases is not interrupted”. … To forego extraordinary or disproportionate means is not the equivalent of suicide or euthanasia; it rather expresses acceptance of the human condition in the face of death.

However, at the same time, the Church has also never said that there is a moral obligation not to pursue extraordinary means. That must be evaluated on a case by case basis. More importantly, the decision about whether to pursue extraordinary care should rest with the rightful authority – in this case, clearly Charlie’s parents.

So what is the fundamental issue? One thing only: a struggle for power.

That is: The hospital, and the UK government, believe that the state, and not Charlie’s parents, should have the power to decide what is best for Charlie (and, presumably, others like him). And to drive that point home, they were willing to fight this case all the way to the EU Court of Human Rights.

If they succeed, what this means for parental rights is terrifying. As Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture summarized:

The injustice here is not that Charlie will be (maybe already has been) taken off his life-support system. The decision to turn off a ventilator is always painful, but sometimes justified.

The injustice is that Charlie will die when the hospital administration wants, and where the hospital administration wants. His parents have been deprived of their right to supervise his case. They could not take him the U.S. for experimental treatment. They could not take him home, to die in peace. As one of our readers observed, Charlie was essentially kidnapped, so that the authorities would be sure that he died on schedule.

The Catholic Church has always defended the primary rights of parents over the welfare and education of their children. Wherever those rights have been eroded, totalitarianism has not been far behind.

Indeed, it is no accident that Communism, fascism, and other totalitarian ideologies have always sought first to sever the bond between parents and children. Once the family has been dismantled, it is an easy matter for the totalitarian state to fill the void.

The hospital and the courts may believe that they are doing what is best for Charlie. But in reality, their actions are at root totalitarian. They have robbed the parents of their natural rights, and set the state up instead as the final arbiter of life and death.

Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a U.S. pro-life activist who is spearheading protests in the UK on behalf of Charlie, warns that what is at stake in Charlie’s case is “universal.” The issue is, he says, “will parents be at the center of making decisions for their children? Or will those decisions be ripped from them by hospital officials, judges, and government bureaucrats?”

“This is not a liberal, conservative, or political issue at all. It’s a human rights issue,” he continued. “It’s the simple notion that parents should not be excluded and shut out from making critical decisions that impact the health and future of their children.”

The concerns and moral questions about this case will continue; meanwhile, Charlie and his parents deserve our steadfast support and prayer. Charlie’s parents have the best interests of their son at heart, and we must demand that the government respect their decision, as well as acknowledge and secure Charlie’s inherent dignity.

As president of Human Life International, Fr. Boquet is a leading expert on the international pro-life and family movement, having journeyed to nearly 90 countries on pro-life missions over the last decade. Father Boquet works with pro-life and family leaders in 116 counties that partner with HLI to proclaim and advance the Gospel of Life. Read his full bio here.

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12 Comments

  1. Prolifemama on July 10, 2017 at 12:14 AM

    PAV (Pontificia Accademia pro Vita) President and Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia states “We must do what advances the health of the patient, but we must also accept the limits of medicine and, as stated in paragraph 65 of the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, avoid aggressive medical procedures that are disproportionate to any expected results or excessively burdensome to the patient or the family.”

    In Charlie’s situation, the “limits of medicine” have not yet been reached, as Charlie has yet to undergo the treatment they seek for him.

    As for “aggressive medical procedures that are disproportionate to any expected results or excessively burdensome to the patient or the family” … how does anyone know how Charlie will respond to this therapy until he receives it? And 1.7 million has been received from donors who don’t want Charlie’s parents to worry for one second about “who’s going to pay for this”.

    Until Charlie’s parents have the freedom to choose treatment for their son, they are literally being held hostage by their country’s government, their God-given responsibility for their son usurped by a legal entity that is – to put it euphemistically – greatly overstepping their bounds.

  2. Blaise Milburn, MD on July 9, 2017 at 11:27 PM

    The rights of the parents are not absolute. The hospital and especially the medical providers have rights as well to deny further care that they see as offering no hope of recovery and only prolonging suffering and delaying inevitable death. Without knowing the specifics of this case, it would seem that the use of extraordinary means would seem to only prolong the suffering of this child. This case is not black or white, but definitely lies within the gray. End of life care often is. Doctors and hospitals are not out to just ration care and view patients as expenditures. We want the best for our patients and work hard toward achieving that. We need to be careful not to politicize these situations. They happen every day all over the world.

  3. Suzanne Jamieson on July 9, 2017 at 9:20 AM

    Thank you for defending Charlie Gard and his parents that they should have primary rights over his care. Until it was made plain in your article, I would not have believed that the UK has slipped so far down the line that the courts and the state are severely eroding parental rights as primary carers and educators of their children. May God Bless Charlie and his parents.

  4. Maya J. Philip, M.D. on July 9, 2017 at 6:39 AM

    Should huge sums of money be charged for experimental treatments? In the remote possibility of the treatment being successful, will the developers share patent revenue with the patients whom they have charged for their experiments? Charlie Gard’s case is not so simple. If the experts in London doubt the ethical standards of the American researchers are they not justified in preventing the exploitation of poor Charlie Gard?

  5. Teglasy, Imre Ph.D. on July 9, 2017 at 6:23 AM

    Some additions to my previous commment. The dangerous ideas by Francis Galton and Charles Fourier are exposed in the dramatical work by the Hungarian writer Imre Madách in the middle of 19th century. His description on the socalled falanster as the idea of the utopistic socialists could be applied to our post-Christian societies ruled by scientific “democracy” praticised by powerfull human designers and healthprofessionals like this:

    “THE AGED MAN
    Away with them. Why tarry ye with her?
    EVE
    My little son. Lo, I have nourished thee
    With my heart’s blood. What force is there to break
    The bond between a mother and her child?
    And am I then to yield thee evermore
    And lose thee in the multitude and gaze
    In vain with questing eyes to find mine own
    Amid a hundred others all so like?
    ADAM
    Oh, men, if ought ye hold as sacred yet,
    Leave to the mother now her little child.
    EVE
    O blessed stranger, plead my cause for me.
    THE AGED MAN
    Thou playest, stranger, a game perilous.
    If we let live the ancient prejudice
    In favour of the ties of family,
    Then speedily shall crumble and fall down
    All that which sacred science hath achieved.
    EVE
    For science, icy hearted, what care I?
    When nature speaketh, let it fall and yield.
    THE AGED MAN
    Enough. The child!
    ADAM
    Ha! See ye touch him not.
    There lies a sword and I will teach thee how
    The sword is used.”
    See at: http://mek.oszk.hu/00900/00918/html/

  6. Imre Téglásy on July 9, 2017 at 5:48 AM

    The phenomenon of overwriting the most intime matters of the families against the will of powerless parents by the state is rooted in the ideas of the English philosopher Francis GALTON: “What nature does blindly, slowly and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.”
    So it is about the power of the modern, eugenic state which wants to impose the death to this boy instead of trying to save him. God may save the right of this boy and his parents for life!

    • Eileen Sullivan on July 9, 2017 at 9:55 AM

      You didn’t fully comprehend the points made here, did you, Doctor Philip? As the article clearly points out, this case is about the right of parents to make decisions for their child and the attempt by the state to wrest control from the parents.

  7. Jerry on July 8, 2017 at 10:31 PM

    Correction: Please, President Trump, continue considering what measures we may morally take to save Charlie and the rights of the family, be they extreme or not.

  8. Jerry on July 8, 2017 at 7:19 PM

    President Trump: Invading Europe to save her people from Hitler was both extreme and morally justified. Conferring always with the mind of the Church, please continue considering what measures we make morally take to save Charlie and the rights of the family, be they extreme or not.

  9. Chuck Rose on July 8, 2017 at 5:56 PM

    The newest god: Governmental Single Payer Health Care

  10. Mary Sue Laing on July 8, 2017 at 5:37 PM

    God loves the little children. Charlie and his parents are likely to end up in heaven for all eternity. Even on earth they did what was right, and they can be happy about that.

    On the other hand, those who attack children are not happy either in this life, nor in the next unless they repent. In the end there is perfect justice.

    Let us pray.

  11. Karen on July 8, 2017 at 5:28 PM

    God Bless and protect Charlie Gard, and his mother and father Connie and Chris.

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