In a national fight that has echoed concerns about Obamacare here in the United States, sad reports from LifeNews this morning as the parents of Charlie Gard indicate that they have exhausted all legal measures, stating that it is now too late for experimental treatment to save Charlie’s life:
A lawyer representing the couple told Justice Francis that “time had run out.” The attorney for the family said that irreparable damage had already been done.
Grant Armstrong said: “This case is now about time. Sadly time has run out. For Charlie it is too late. The damage has been done.”
The decision means that the 11-month-old will stay in Britain and will have his life support removed.
More from the UK Independent on this sad story. This was a national story that touched the hearts of many just as the American public was debating the merits of Obamacare and the realities of rationed care here at home.
President Trump even extended the hand of friendship at one point during this saga, offering to have Charlie Gard treated here in the United States. Even Pope Francis intervened on behalf of the 11-month old.
These are not easy cases. Medical ethics has a very gray line between what modern science can do and what is termed “extraordinary care” — unnaturally prolonging human life beyond the endurance of the patient. Yet in the Western tradition, the words of Cicero still echo: Dum anima est, spes est.
One questions whether experimental treatment in the case of Charlie Gard would not have helped future Charlie Gard’s have a better chance, or better still, have saved Charlie’s life. Such are the discussions for scientists and medical ethicists wrapped in their craft.
For the common man doing the working, living, and dying? It is readily apparent that social ethics demanded a positive response.
The values of the public, perhaps, haven’t caught up to the realities of the medical ethics boards or the courts, suggesting a disconnect between the values of our elites and the values of the working class. That’s not a problem the public is obligated to resolve, as ostensibly these health care systems are being run for our benefit — not to provide positions where the well-heeled can wring their hands.