Opinion

Shapiro At ‘National Review’: The Charlie Gard Story Exemplifies The Left’s War On Parents

   DailyWire.com

On Monday, two very different videos went viral. The first featured an eleven-year-old boy, Tyler, from Conyers, Georgia. Tyler was 18 months old when his stepfather, Don Gause, entered his life. The video shows Tyler approaching his stepfather and reading a letter: “When I was one and a half years old, something happened to me: God sent me a real dad. . . . Dad, I have been your child in love since I can remember, but I want to be your son legally. Will you please adopt me?” Don says yes, at which point he embraces the crying boy in a bear hug.

It’s nearly impossible not to have the odd speck of dust in your eye while watching it.

Meanwhile, another heartrending video made the rounds. This was video of Chris Gard and Connie Yates, parents of infant Charlie Gard, announcing that they would no longer attempt to remove Charlie from the United Kingdom for treatment. Charlie suffers from a rare degenerative condition that ends in death; the Great Ormond Street Hospital refused to release him to his parents so that they could fly him to the United States to seek experimental treatment, instead deciding that little Charlie should “die with dignity.”

Chris stated, “We knew our son, which is why we continued fighting. Charlie has been left with his illness to deteriorate, devastatingly, to the point of no return.”

Juxtaposing these two videos is awkward for the political Left. It’s awkward because while the Left likes to claim that it stands with parents, it actually promulgates policies antithetical to parental control of their children. The Left will pay lip service to motherhood and apple pie, but if a mother gives her child too much apple pie, it will call on the state to do something about it.

That’s what happened with Charlie Gard. The question isn’t whether you agree with Gard’s parents or not — perhaps the doctors were right, and his parents were grasping at straws in a desperate attempt to ignore the agonizing reality of the situation. The question is whether parents have the right to make such decisions to begin with. We’re not talking about abusive parents who physically harm their children; we’re not talking about a child endangerment scenario. We’re talking about parents choosing a culture of life with which the prevailing leftist sentiment disagrees.

Read the rest here.

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