President Donald Trump offered to help a terminally ill British baby on Monday, saying on Twitter that “if we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.”
If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2017
Charlie Gard suffers from a rare genetic condition and is unable to breathe unaided. Last week, his parents lost a legal battle to take him to the U.S. for trial therapy. His parents and a London children’s hospital said Friday that the 10-month-old boy will be given “more time” before life support is withdrawn.
White House spokeswoman Helen Aguirre Ferre said that members of the Trump administration have spoken to Gard’s family.
“Although the president himself has not spoken to the family, he does not want to pressure them in any way, members of the administration have spoken to the family in calls facilitated by the British government. The president is just trying to be helpful if at all possible,” she said, calling the situation “heartbreaking.”
There is little Trump can do to help, because U.K. and European courts have deferred to the hospital’s decision not to allow Charlie to be sent to the U.S. for trial therapy.
Pope Francis on Sunday called for Gard’s parents to be allowed to do everything possible to treat their child.
In a statement, the Vatican press office said Francis “is following with affection and sadness the case of little Charlie Gard and expresses his closeness to his parents. For this he prays that their wish to accompany and treat their child until the end is not neglected.”
On Tuesday, the parents lost a bid to take Charlie to the U.S. for trial therapy when the European Court of Human Rights sided with earlier rulings that continued treatment would cause “significant harm” and that life support should end. Specialists have said the proposed therapy wouldn’t help Charlie.
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
3 Responses
> “significant harm”
The baby will be, by their own version of events, dead within days, and yet experimental therapy will cause “significant harm”? They apparently mean the baby will “suffer” if kept alive longer. Both parents wish the baby to receive treatment, paid for by money already collected from crowd-funding, not a single penny coming from the government , and no U.K. resources will be usurped (the treatment is the United States). Not hard to imagine how this hubris could lead to the same idealogues to unilaterally impose anything and everything that their whim desires. There would never have been a Helen Keller with these guys, they would have put her out of misery (sic and sick). Who would ever have imagined parents in a “western” society would be blocked from taking a dying baby to treatment, especially when they are paying for it from private funds?
There is nothing Trump can do. if the UK allowed the parents to come to the US, the treatment has already been paid for. The issue is whether the UK “single payer” system should allow someone to go “out of plan”. The case illustrates a serious flaw with the “single payer” model. if the “death panel” decides you are untreatable, you are as good as dead, with no option to go out of plan with your own money, or money raised by charities – and even if there are treatments not approved up by the “single payer” agency.
Since Trump has no role to play, I believe his tweets on the matter are to call attention to the “fatal” flaw in the Democrats’ “single payer” proposal.
I see British murderous mindset did not change much over the last 72+ years. During WW2 British were so worried about the welfare of poor Jewish refuges that they chose to allow Germans to “take care” of them.