London, England, Jun 28, 2017 / 03:36 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A final appeal to allow continued life support for a U.K. baby whose parents want to seek experimental treatment in the U.S. has been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights.
According to the BBC, the European Court judges agreed on the decision to withdraw life support, stating that the experimental treatment would only expose the baby, Charlie Gard, to “continued pain, suffering and distress,” while adding “no prospects of success.”
A legal battle has been ongoing since early March, after Charlie was diagnosed with Mitochondrial Depletion Syndrome – an extremely rare disease which progressively weakens muscles and causes brain damage.
Specialists in the U.S. offered Charlie nucleoside therapy, an experimental treatment, which his parents were hoping would be a second chance for their son, and asked the court to keep him on life support.
Charlie’s parents – Chris Gard and Connie Yates – had raised nearly $1.6 million on GoFundMe, an online fundraising site, to cover the experimental treatment in the U.S.
The nearly 11-month-old baby is thought to be one of only 16 people in the world who suffer from Mitochondrial Depletion Syndrome. He has thus far suffered severe brain damage and is only able to survive by a feeding tube and an artificial ventilator.
Charlie’s life support machine is expected to be turned off within the next few days. His parents have said that the money they raised will be donated to a charity to help other children with their son’s condition.
Charlie’s case was initially taken up by the Family Division of the High Court at the beginning of March.
A decision was reached in April, with the judge, Justice Francis, saying, “There is unanimity among the experts from whom I have heard that nucleoside therapy cannot reverse structural brain damage. I dare say that medical science may benefit, objectively, from the experiment, but experimentation cannot be in Charlie’s best interests unless there is a prospect of benefit for him.”
The judge applauded the efforts of Charlie’s parents, praising “their absolute dedication to their wonderful boy, from the day that he was born,” but still made the decision to pull life support from the child.
An appeals court agreed with the lower court in a May ruling.
However, the lawyer for Charlie’s parents maintained that the experimental treatment would not cause further harm or suffering. And the young boy’s mother Connie told the BBC that even if the experimental treatment did not help her son, she would like to be a stepping stone in developing a treatment that might save the lives of other babies with similar diseases.
“We just want to have our chance. It would never be a cure but it could help him live. If it saves him, amazing. I want to save others. Even if Charlie doesn’t make it through this, I don’t ever want another mum and their child to go through this,” she said.
Article Archive
UK parents lose final appeal to keep baby alive for treatment
Related Articles • More Articles
Father David Waller will become the first bishop Ordinary of the Ordinariate. / Credit: Courtesy photo / Bishop's Conference of England and WalesNational Catholic Register, Apr 29, 2024 / 18:45 pm (CNA).The Vatican has announced a new leader of the ordinariate in Great Britain.Father David Waller, 62, a parish priest and vicar general of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, will replace Monsignor Keith Newton, 72, who is retiring after serving over 13 years as the ordinary of the ecclesiastical structure for former Anglicans.In a statement, Newton called the Vatican's April 29 announcement "momentous" given that Waller, who is a celibate, will become the first bishop ordinary of the ordinariate. As someone who was already married as an Anglican clergyman before entering the Church through the ordinariate, Newton was not allowed episcopal consecration.Established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 through his 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the ordin...
Landscape view of Sacrofano, Italy, north of Rome. / Credit: Dmitry Taranets/ShutterstockRome Newsroom, Apr 29, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The World Meeting of Parish Priests for the Synod opened on Monday to discuss "how to be a synodal local Church in mission," allowing priests from around the world to discuss questions raised during the ongoing synod and share their personal pastoral experiences. The four-day meeting, which is taking place from April 29 to May 2 at the Fraterna Domus retreat house in Sacrofano, Italy, just north of Rome, is attended by about 300 priests from around the globe and is divided into several sessions, taking cues from different themes and questions raised in the synod's synthesis report. "The parish priest is a man of the people and for the people. Like Jesus, he is open to the crowd, constantly open to the crowd, to help each and every one understand that they are a letter from Christ," said Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Gen...
Archbishop Christopher J. Coyne. / Credit: Diocese of Burlington, VermontCNA Staff, Apr 29, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).A New England prelate is urging Catholics to both minister to transgender-identifying individuals in the Catholic Church while still continuously affirming "the goodness of human creation" as male and female.Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne of Hartford, Connecticut, told CNA last week that he would make it a point not to challenge a transgender-identifying man or woman when they present as the opposite sex.Coyne appeared on Connecticut Public Radio earlier this month arguing against the basic claim of gender ideology, which argues that men and women who "identify" as the opposite sex should be treated as such."Biology is biology. You're either XX or XY. That's a scientific fact. You can't un-prove that fact," the bishop told public radio. But, he argued, the LGBT debate has "pulled me more into a place of understanding and care," including regarding trans...