Culture & Ethics Icon Culture & Ethics
Medicine Icon Medicine

A New Hearing for Charlie Gard

charlie gard

The huge popular pushback against bioethical aggression in the Charlie Gard case — parents told their baby WILL be taken off life support, and NO, they CAN’T obtain another doctor or hospital — seems to be bearing fruit. From the Sky News story:

Great Ormond Street Hospital says “claims of new evidence” in the treatment of Charlie Gard have prompted it to seek a new hearing at the High Court. In a statement, the hospital said: “We have just met with Charlie’s parents to inform them of this decision and will continue to keep them fully appraised of the situation.

“Two international hospitals and their researchers have communicated to us as late as the last 24 hours that they have fresh evidence about their proposed experimental treatment. “And we believe, in common with Charlie’s parents, it is right to explore this evidence.”

The cynic in me worries that the hospital wants to discredit the proposed experimental treatment and/or the ability to move Charlie to a different hospital.

Bad Wesley! That would just be a PR move that would have nothing to do with acting in the “best interests” of Charlie. So let us assume the hospital is acting in good faith until we have reason to believe otherwise.

In any event, it almost surely means the boy’s life support will not be immediately removed.

It is truly heartening that the life of a dying baby can still move the world.

Photo credit: © Kwangmoo — stock.adobe.com.

Cross-posted at The Corner.

Wesley J. Smith

Chair and Senior Fellow, Center on Human Exceptionalism
Wesley J. Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to National Review and is the author of 14 books, in recent years focusing on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and has been honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia. Wesley’s most recent book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement.

Share

Tags

babyCharlie GardGreat Ormond Street Hospitalhospitalparents