Charlie Gard Parents Lose Appeal

[Prudie]

I'd be interested to hear what your opinions are on the case of this poor baby that the parents wants to send to US for treatment and they have lost another appeal today. He cannot see, hear, move, cry or swallow and has been in ICU since last October. My view is it would be kinder to let him slip away then but he's not my baby.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40206045

[woofgang]

I think that this could have been less painful and difficult if the hospital team generally had behaved better. Those words in the memo “the spanner in the works” may have been dismissed as a slip but to my mind, slips like that say a lot about the underlying attitude.

[Dahlia_Lama]

Ladybirder
No-one knows if he has pain in fact even the 'guardians' counsel today conceded that the likelihood would be he'd suffer pain only when he had a tracheostomy .
In the interim period he could have have had the treatment in the US and we could be awaiting a miracle . Every journey , even in medicine , starts with one step . Charlie has nothing to lose but his life , he deserves a last gasp chance .

[cassa333]

I would be the best parent I could be for him. That would be to hold him in my arms and sing him a lullaby while he slipped away.

My son was born with a heart condition that the surgeon said, was not compatible with life UNLESS he had OHS. We were prepared for the worst and accepted, that if it didn't go well his life would have been in a vegetative state.

We made the decision then before we signed the consent forms that if that were the case we would let him slip away. Luckily it went well.

This little boy has such a minute chance of success and that success would not bring much relief from his present state that I feel the parents are being cruel and inhuman.

To everyone who thinks he should be kept alive. Look at him and forget for a monent he looks like any cute and cuddly baby but look at how he is, look at what he can do, understand, communicate, what he can feel physically without medication, what he THINKS and imagine what he FEELS emotionally with all the above.

Now, do YOU want to be in that state? Right now, right were you are?

[rowanwitch]

The parents have to live afterwards and I guess for them to not have tried everything would make it so much harder. I believe his condition has now deteriorated to the point where even the U.S. specialists are not sure they can offer treatment. If that is the case then I think the courts are right to make an objective decision.

[Old_Geezer]

One can understand a desperation to allow one's child to live, but stepping back and looking at the whole thing dispassionately, one can see that the adults are favouring what makes them feel they want rather than what is fair for their child. There comes a time when one needs the strength to let go.