The parents of baby Charlie Gard have received critical backing for a law pushing for parental rights of sick children. Charlie&#8217;s Law was inspired by the tragic ordeal parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard went through in 2017 when courts ordered the couple to bypass possibly life-saving experimental treatment for their infant son, instead being forced to watch baby Charlie die in a London hospital.
&#8220;If the proposal is backed by Parliament, the parents of sick children who disagree with doctors on life-and-death decisions will have more rights over treatment,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7139685/Parents-11-month-old-Charlie-Gard-backing-Charlies-Law.html">reported</a> The Daily Mail on Thursday. The law would reportedly have a &#8220;significant harm&#8221; test, meaning parents would have the right to seek treatment for their sick child at other hospitals as long as it wouldn&#8217;t cause the child &#8220;significant harm.&#8221;
&#8220;Charlie&#8217;s tragic death on 28th July 2017 exposed the limitations of current processes available to parents, doctors and the NHS in efforts to ensure the best outcomes for seriously ill children,&#8221; <a href="https://www.thecharliegardfoundation.org/charlies-law/">outlines</a> the Charlie Gard Foundation, which was set up by Gard and Yates in the wake of Charlie&#8217;s death. &#8220;Charlie&#8217;s fight highlighted an urgent need for changes in the law, policy and legal and health practice to support families, as well as medical and legal professionals involved in what are deeply emotive, difficult and life-changing circumstances.&#8221;
Charlie&#8217;s Law has received backing from &#8220;prominent peers, doctors and lawyers,&#8221; The Daily Mail reported. &#8220;This has my full support and that of many colleagues from all sides of the House,&#8221; former president of the British Medical Association Baroness Hollins said, per Gard.
As previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/19111/baby-charlie-gard-has-died-amanda-prestigiacomo">covered</a> by The Daily Wire, baby Charlie suffered from a rare condition known as encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. Though Gard and Yates raised a stunning $1.6 million on their own to pursue experimental but potentially life-saving treatment in the United States, court rulings decided it was in the baby&#8217;s best interest to remain at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London to die.
The clear government overreach surrounding Charlie&#8217;s case sparked reactions across the globe, including President Donald Trump and Pope Francis offering support for the Gard family.
&#8220;Our beautiful little boy has gone, we are so proud of you Charlie,&#8221; the couple announced in a heart-wrenching social media post on July 28, 2017. Charlie was just a week shy of his first birthday.
&#8220;I have been contacted by dozens of parents who cannot agree with doctors over the treatment for their sick children. They quickly find themselves locked in painful disputes, some of which end up in court,&#8221; Yates said, according to The Daily Mail. &#8220;Charlie&#8217;s Law would put a stop to this. These situations are bad for doctors, bad for parents and bad for the reputation of the NHS.&#8221;
Gard added, &#8220;In Charlie&#8217;s final hours, I made some promises to him, ones I will never break, and among them was that we would go on fighting in Charlie&#8217;s name to help other children. This would be Charlie&#8217;s legacy and I wanted him to know it.&#8221;

Parents Of Baby Charlie Gard Get Backing For ‘Charlie’s Law’ After Son’s Death

Charlie Gard

Health Care

London

Socialism

Baby Alfie Evans has an ally in the Charlie Gard family.
You may recall how last year, a baby named Charlie found himself in a similar situation to Alfie: the hospital deemed his terminal illness hopeless and wanted him pulled off life support, while the parents wanted to take him to the United States for experimental treatment, which was denied by the U.K. courts.
How quickly history repeats itself. Almost one year later exactly, and already a similar controversy is now unfolding with baby Alfie Evans.
Connie Yates, Charlie&#8217;s mother <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/charlie-gards-parents-back-fight-to-save-alfie-evans">said</a>, &#8220;For those who have not been in a situation like this, it is impossible to understand the pain Tom and Kate are going through.&#8221;
&#8220;When we were fighting for our son, Charlie Gard, to be given a chance to try a treatment that could have improved his quality of life, we realized that cases like these would keep happening until the law was changed,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;Tragically, this has proven to be true.&#8221;
Since that awful day in July last year when their son died, Connie said that she and her husband, Chris, have been working with pediatricians, medical ethicists, lawyers, politicians and other parents on proposing a new law to prevent this from happening in the future. The law proposed is aptly titled &#8220;Charlie&#8217;s Law.&#8221;
&#8220;This involves addressing problems around the &#8216;best interests&#8217; test as well as creating a platform for transparency and openness so that cases like these can be dealt with before they ever reach the courts,&#8221; said Yates.
&#8220;Once cases are public it is difficult for people to be fully aware of the complexities and this often leads to ill informed judgements on both sides and creates unnecessary conflicts,&#8221; Yates said. &#8220;We have something that is better for everybody &#8211; hospitals, healthcare professionals, families with sick children, the NHS, and the reputation of our own government.&#8221;
Yesterday, Steven Woolfe, MEP, announced he will be working alongside the &#8220;Parliament Street&#8221; lobby group on ways to stop parental rights from being curtailed in the future.
&#8220;Parents are being side-lined in the care of their children, in what are highly complicated moral decisions,&#8221; said a spokesman for the group. &#8220;We strongly believe it is time for a change in the law to re-empower parents to have a say in the treatment of their children. We know that MPs have the power to change this to help children and their parents in [the] future, and call on them to address this.&#8221;

Charlie Gard’s Parents Call For The Protection Of Alfie Evans, Demand New Laws

Abortion

On Friday, baby Charlie Gard died after his life support was withdrawn. Heartbroken parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates, who&#8217;ve been put through hell during this whole ordeal, <a href="http://www.lifenews.com/2017/07/28/charlie-gard-dies-after-life-support-is-switched-off-mother-says-our-beautiful-boy-is-gone/">wrote</a> via social media: &#8220;Our beautiful little boy has gone, we are so proud of you Charlie.&#8221;
Just one week shy of his first birthday, Charlie died in hospice, as mandated by courts which rejected the parents&#8217; wishes to take their son home to die with his family.
&#8220;We promised Charlie every day we would take him home. It seems really upsetting, after everything we&#8217;ve been through, to deny us this,&#8221; said Yates.
Gard suffered from encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, a rare disease of which there are only 16 current cases. Though Gard and Yates raised a stunning $1.6 million on their own to pursue experimental but potentially life-saving treatment here in the United States, Orwellian court rulings decided it was in the baby&#8217;s best interest remain at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London and die.
Simply put, the parents were forced by the government to forgo possible life-saving treatment; they were forced to stop fighting for their baby&#8217;s life and watch him die.
The heart-wrenching story triggered strong reactions from the United States and abroad; from Pope Francis to President Donald Trump to hundreds of thousands of petition-signing baby Charlie supporters, there was a palpable outrage over the boy&#8217;s treatment and the government&#8217;s clear over-stepping.
On Monday, after a long, drawn-out legal battle, the parents, via their lawyer, announced they would no longer pursue an avenue to get Charlie treatment; the bureaucratic red tape burned out the clock and their baby suffered irreversible brain damage.
May baby Charlie rest in peace.

‘OUR BEAUTIFUL BABY IS GONE’: Baby Charlie Gard Has Died

Martin Gottesfeld, who has been jailed for fighting against a hospital&#8217;s abuse of a teen girl, spoke out against the British court&#8217;s treatment of baby Charlie Gard on Monday.
Gottesfeld was arrested in 2016 after waging online hacking attacks against Boston Children&#8217;s Hospital for keeping Justina Pelletier in a psychiatric ward away from her parents and denying her treatment for mitochondrial disease; the state intervened on behalf of the hospital.
He issued a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FreeMartyG/posts/1468005489919666">statement</a> on Facebook that read:
<blockquote>
When Charlie Gard&#8217;s parents wanted to discharge their baby from Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), there was hope for treatment elsewhere. Sadly though, Charlie never got that chance because doctors weren&#8217;t willing to let his parents leave with him. Instead, they insisted no one could help and the case went to court because they wanted him off the ventilator. In the time taken in the ensuing legal battle, Charlie&#8217;s window of opportunity for life-saving treatment for his mitochondrial disease closed and now we&#8217;ll never know what might have been.
Nobody could tell me how much better off Justina might be today if she had been able to resume her mitochondrial disease treatments one day earlier. Would she be walking again? How about figure skating? Like Charlies case, we&#8217;ll never know.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Charlie and his family tonight. 
&#8211;Martin &#8220;MartyG&#8221; Gottesfeld 
</blockquote>
Charlie Gard has been left for dead by the cruel, sterile nature of Britain&#8217;s government-run health care system after they wouldn&#8217;t let his parents take him to the United States for experimental treatment for infantile-onset encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3625391/">condition</a> that results in organs being unable to function properly due to a lack of energy production. Instead, the British courts decreed that Charlie be left to &#8220;die with dignity&#8221; in the hospital, which is nothing more than bizarre Orwellian-speak for saying that the state maintains control with an iron fist.
Charle&#8217;s parents are now giving up their appeal against the British government-run health care system, as their baby has reached the point of no return with his condition.
Justina Pelletier didn&#8217;t face the same fate as Charlie Gard, as she was eventually returned to her parents. But both are reflective of the cold-hearted nature of government bureaucracy when it gets involved in health care.
Gottesfeld could face up to 25 years in prison for his hacking efforts against the hospital for their treatment of Justina. For more information about his case, check out <a href="https://freemartyg.com/">this website</a>. 
<a href="https://twitter.com/bandlersbanter">Follow Aaron Bandler on Twitter.</a>

Jailed Hacktivist Speaks Out On Charlie Gard

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: &#8220;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?&#8221; Don says yes, at which point he embraces the crying boy in a bear hug.
It&#8217;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 &#8220;die with dignity.&#8221;
Chris stated, &#8220;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.&#8221;
Juxtaposing these two videos is awkward for the political Left. It&#8217;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&#8217;s what happened with Charlie Gard. The question isn&#8217;t whether you agree with Gard&#8217;s parents or not &#8212; 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&#8217;re not talking about abusive parents who physically harm their children; we&#8217;re not talking about a child endangerment scenario. We&#8217;re talking about parents choosing a culture of life with which the prevailing leftist sentiment disagrees.
<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449837/charlie-gard-parents-not-state-should-decide-treatment">Read the rest here</a>.

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

The story of 11-month-old U.K. baby Charlie Gard is equally heartbreaking, maddening, and terrifying. The boy&#8217;s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, were barred from pursuing experimental but potentially life-saving treatment in the United States on their own dime by European bureaucrats who said it was in Charlie&#8217;s best interest to die, in their hospital, on their terms.
The story triggered a strong reaction here in the United States and abroad; President Donald Trump, Pope Francis, and hundreds of thousands of petition-signing Americans and Brits were all appalled by the horrors of a court mandating parents (who had not forfeited their rights because of neglect or abuse) pull the plug on their infant son and stop fighting for his life.
Authoritarianism, the repercussions of socialized medicine, and the culture of death are all fully on display in the tragic case of little Charlie. 
But Ian Kennedy, a professor of health, law, and ethics at University College London, <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/24/charlie-gard-tragic-respect-courts">writing</a> at The Guardian has a different take, one consistent with the pure leftist ideology: infant Charlie Gard &#8220;does not belong to his parents,&#8221; he belongs to Big Brother, and he should be sentenced to death. 
&#8220;The first is the most fundamental: as a society, we must choose how to decide such heartbreaking cases,&#8221; writes Kennedy in a piece titled &#8220;Despite Charlie Gard&#8217;s tragic story, we must respect the process of our courts.&#8221;
&#8220;These are the steps. The first is to recognise that children do not belong to their parents,&#8221; he writes. 
In other words, caring, fighting parents, like Chris and Connie, do not have the final say over their child&#8217;s life; the government knows better. 
Let that sink in.
Kennedy then doubles-down on his big government take: &#8220;Second, when a claim is made that parents have rights over their children, it is important to step back and examine the language used. We need to remind ourselves that parents do not have rights regarding their children, they only have duties, the principal duty being to act in their children&#8217;s best interests. This has been part of the fabric of our law and our society for a long time. Third, if we are concerned with the language of rights, it is, of course, children who have rights; any rights that parents have exist only to protect their children&#8217;s rights.&#8221;
Again, are Connie and Chris not fighting to protect their child&#8217;s most basic right, his right to life? When is it the government&#8217;s role to force parents to euthanize their child; in this case, a child who had a one-in-ten shot at potential life-saving treatment? 
&#8220;Now, in giving effect to a child&#8217;s rights, the parents&#8217; views as to their children&#8217;s interests should usually be respected,&#8221; writes the professor. &#8220;But parents cannot always be the ultimate arbiters of their children&#8217;s interests.&#8221; It&#8217;s the courts which should have the say in such matters, not the parents, he argues: 
<blockquote>
[T]there has to be a mechanism to decide the circumstances in which parents&#8217; views should not prevail. That mechanism has to be a trustworthy and independent source of authority, sometimes a local authority, but ultimately, as ever in a civic society, a court.
</blockquote>
Kennedy goes even a step further, arguing that it&#8217;s important that no one dare &#8220;attack the institution of the courts,&#8221; which might spit out a decision to murder your son:
<blockquote>
Campaigns against the courts, whether led by tabloid newspapers, organised through social media or exploited by sectional and religious groups, are increasingly a feature of modern discourse. It is one thing to comment on or criticise a particular decision. It is a very different thing to attack the institution of the courts.
</blockquote>
The professor concludes that parents like Chris and Connie, motivated by &#8220;passion,&#8221; as he disparagingly notes, should not be given the authority to try to save their own child&#8217;s life. The courts know better: 
<blockquote>
Here, in Charlie Gard&#8217;s case, the call has been to keep the courts out; they don&#8217;t understand. Only the parents should decide: let passion prevail. Those behind such calls should reflect on what they wish for in case they get it. A whole system designed to address dispassionately the rights and interests of children would be pushed aside. 
</blockquote>
Kennedy perfectly highlights the rampant culture of death so prevalent on the Left. Baby Charlie would suffer, doctors say, he would not live a &#8220;normal&#8221; life, according to the courts, and therefore he should die. This is the same line of thinking which prevails in the pro-abort community, where doctors advise pregnant mothers to abort their child because of a Down Syndrome detection. 
All life should be protected, particularly the voiceless and vulnerable, and there is no way in hell some government bureaucrat should be forcing parents to pull the plug on their child who, at the time, had potentially live-saving options to pursue.

Ethics Professor On Charlie Gard: ‘Children Do Not Belong To Their Parents’

Children

Europe

Murder

The Guardian

The tragic story of severely ill infant Charlie Gard that has captivated the world over the last few weeks reached a turning point on Monday when, according to their lawyer, Charlie&#8217;s parents gave up their fight to have their son released for experimental but potentially life-saving treatment in the United States after medical experts determined it was now too late to save him.
The Associated Press reported on Monday that the attorney for Chris Gard and Connie Yates, Charlie&#8217;s parents, says &#8220;they have withdrawn their legal bid to treat the infant.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
BREAKING: Attorney for Charlie Gard&#8217;s parents say they have withdrawn their legal bid to treat the infant.
&#8212; The Associated Press (@AP) <a href="https://twitter.com/AP/status/889477425167466496">July 24, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;For Charlie, it is too late &#8230; treatment cannot offer a chance of success,&#8221; attorney Grant Armstrong <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/24/health/charlie-gard-decision/index.html">told</a> the British High Court Monday. Experts, he said, have determined that the &#8220;window of opportunity no longer exists.&#8221;
As for Charlie&#8217;s heartbroken parents, he said, &#8220;Dark days lie ahead for these parents,&#8221; and they &#8220;want to spend time with Charlie.&#8221;
The decision comes after weeks of a heartrending struggle between the eleven-month-old&#8217;s parents and the British justice system. Though Charlie&#8217;s parents raised an incredible $1.6 million to have their son transported to the U.S. for an experimental treatment for his rare genetic condition, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3625391/">infantile-onset encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome</a>, the British authorities determined that Charlie should instead be allowed to &#8220;die with dignity,&#8221; refusing to let his parents remove him from the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London &#8212; even just to die at home with his family. 
After announcing that they would remove the boy from life support at the end of the week, after massive public outcry, British authorities held off on terminating the boy&#8217;s life. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands have signed a petition demanding the hospital release Charlie to his parents and the couple has received support from several entities, including <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18410/new-developments-hope-charlie-gard-case-amanda-prestigiacomo">the Vatican</a>, <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18209/trump-we-want-help-charlie-gard-amanda-prestigiacomo">President Donald Trump</a>, and the <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18750/congress-gives-baby-charlie-gard-legal-resident-ben-shapiro">U.S. Congress</a>, which granted the boy legal resident status just days ago.
Despite all of the support, the British have only delayed the action they announced they would take weeks ago. A few weeks ago, a British judge warned that the family would be breaking the law if they removed Charlie from the hospital and took him to another country without his express permission. 
&#8220;It would be entirely wrong for him to be transferred without my being involved,&#8221; the judge <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18750/congress-gives-baby-charlie-gard-legal-resident-ben-shapiro">said</a>.
Now, according to their attorney, Charlie&#8217;s parents have given up. After months of suffering under his rare condition, young Charlie is believed to now be severely brain damaged, blind and deaf. 
<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18103/evil-european-court-human-rights-sentences-10-ben-shapiro">Read Ben Shapiro on the &#8220;evil&#8221; of the British courts&#8217; handling of the case of Charlie Gard</a>.

BREAKING: Charlie Gard’s Parents Give Up Appeal To Treat Baby

Great Britain

United Kingdom

In a move designed to free him from the strictures of the British justice system, eleven-month-old Charlie Gard, who suffers from a severe disorder that has caused British courts to say that his parents must let him die, has now been <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4709122/US-expert-fails-Charlie-s-doctors-reconsider.html">granted legal permanent resident status</a> in the United States. Gard is now blind, deaf, and unable to move.
According to Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), Congress just passed an amendment that &#8220;grants permanent resident status to #CharlieGard and family so Charlie can get the medical treatment he needs.&#8221;
The British claim that no matter his passport, they won&#8217;t let him leave; a judge said last Friday that the family would be breaking the law if they spirited Charlie out of the country without his permission, explaining, &#8220;It would be entirely wrong for him to be transferred without my being involved.&#8221; The hospital won&#8217;t even allow the Gard parents to remove Charlie from the hospital so he can die at home.
The move by Congress to help Gard is overdue; nearly three weeks ago, I wrote in this space that Congress <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18237/heres-what-president-trump-and-congress-could-do-ben-shapiro">should move to help Gard by naturalizing him</a>. It may not help &#8212; the British system may be more concerned with forcing Gard&#8217;s parents to let the baby &#8220;die with dignity.&#8221; But good for Congress for at least attempting to change the math here.

Congress Gives Baby Charlie Gard Legal Resident Status In Attempt To Save His Life

Congress

There is huge breaking news in the Charlie Gard case:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/URGENT?src=hash">#URGENT</a>: A British judge will allow US physician Michio Hirano to examine Charlie Gard in London early next week.
&#8212; Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/885853264977199104">July 14, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
This acceptance by the British judge that more evidence should be presented in the case of the severely ill 11-month old is a crack in the British justice system&#8217;s prior insistence that Charlie Gard <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18185/little-charlie-gard-stays-life-support-now-pope-joseph-curl">remain in the United Kingdom to die</a>, rather than be flown to the United States for treatment. Chris Gard, Charlie&#8217;s father, had said, &#8220;He&#8217;s a little fighter&#8230; but we&#8217;re not allowed to fight for him anymore. Our parental rights have been stripped away. We can&#8217;t even take our own son home to die. We&#8217;ve been denied that. Can we take our little boy home to where he belongs, to die?&#8221;
In the last week, the British High Court <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18410/new-developments-hope-charlie-gard-case-amanda-prestigiacomo">accepted</a> &#8220;new information&#8221; into the baby&#8217;s condition provided by researchers from the Vatican&#8217;s children&#8217;s hospital. Charlie Gard suffers from infantile-onset encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome.
Hirano is a neurologist affiliated with New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell. He received his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
Hirano was <a href="http://quest.mda.org/article/mitochondrial-disease-research-talk-michio-hirano">awarded several MDA research grants</a>, and co-directed the MDA neuromuscular disease clinic at Columbia University and served on the Association&#8217;s Medical Advisory Committee. He specializes in disorders of the mitochondria.

BREAKING: British Judge Will Allow U.S. Doctor To Examine Charlie Gard

On Thursday, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, the parents of Charlie Gard, the deathly ill child whose case has become an international cause celebre, <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/charlie-gard-parents-storm-out-u-k-court-hears-sick-n782491">stormed out of a British court</a> after the judge asserted, &#8220;It seems extremely unlikely that we&#8217;ll reach the stage today that will make a final determination either way.&#8221; 
Chris Gard said, &#8220;I thought this was supposed to be independent,&#8221; according to ITV News. On Monday, Justice Nicholas Francis had stated that he would allow new evidence to be presented challenging earlier rulings agreeing that doctors were correct to remove the child&#8217;s life support. 
The parents returned an hour later when there was a break in the proceedings.
The Gard family spokesman, Alasdair Seton-Marsden, had said before court started:
<blockquote>
We are continuing to spend every moment working around the clock to save our dear baby Charlie. We&#8217;ve been requesting this specialized treatment since November and never asked the hospital, the courts or anyone for anything except for the permission to go. We have raised over £1.3 million ($1.7 million) and had invitations from specialized doctors in the U.S. and Italy. We hope that the courts and the judge will finally rule in favor of us seeking treatment elsewhere. We love him more than life itself. If he is still fighting then we are still fighting.
</blockquote>
On Wednesday, Seton-Marsden told<a href="https://twitter.com/ainsleyearhardt/status/885095250573840384"> FOX News</a> that the child, who suffers from MDDS, or mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, was essentially <a href="https://twitter.com/ainsleyearhardt/status/885095250573840384">being held &#8220;captive.&#8221;</a> On Thursday, he noted that seven petitions relating to Charlie Gard had garnered 800,000 signatures.
The hospital where Charlie is being treated, Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), said last week it had applied for a new court hearing &#8220;in light of claims of new evidence relating to potential treatment for his condition.&#8221; The Associated Press reported that the new evidence was offered from researchers at the Vatican&#8217;s children&#8217;s hospital and another facility outside of Britain.

Charlie Gard’s Parents Storm Out Of Court

On Friday, two Republican congressmen, Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona and Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, introduced legislation which would grant American citizenship to critically ill 11-month-old Charlie Gard as a last-ditch effort to save the child. 
Baby Charlie is diagnosed with a rare mitochondrial disease for which there is no treatment in the U.K., where the family resides. The boy&#8217;s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, have raised over $1.6 million for experimental treatment offered in the United States, but the courts in the U.K. have denied Gard and Yates the right to remove Charlie from Great Ormond Street Hospital and have instead sentenced the boy to death via removal of his life support.
By granting baby Charlie citizenship, the parents will now have the freedom to bring their child to the U.S. for potentially life-saving or life-prolonging treatment. 
&#8220;Our bill will support Charlie&#8217;s parents&#8217; right to choose what is best for their son, by making Charlie a lawful permanent resident in the U.S. in order for him to receive treatments that could save his life,&#8221; explain the congressmen. 
&#8220;Despite Charlie&#8217;s heartbreaking condition, his parents have refused to give up hope,&#8221; they write. &#8220;They have advocated for him fiercely. They have raised over £1 million to pay for their son to receive experimental treatment in the United States. They have kept fighting for his life.&#8221;
&#8220;Should this little boy to be ordered to die &#8212; because a third party, overriding the wishes of his parents, believes it can conclusively determine that immediate death is what is best for him?&#8221; ask the lawmakers. 
[[{&#8220;fid&#8221;:&#8221;22339&#8243;,&#8221;view_mode&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;fields&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;The parents of terminally-ill, 10-month-old Charlie Gard, Chris Gard (R) and Connie Yates (L) walk out before a spokesperson delivers a statement to the media outside the High Court in London on July 10, 2017. &#8220;,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;NIKLAS HALLEN/AFP/Getty Images&#8221;},&#8221;type&#8221;:&#8221;media&#8221;,&#8221;field_deltas&#8221;:{&#8220;1&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;The parents of terminally-ill, 10-month-old Charlie Gard, Chris Gard (R) and Connie Yates (L) walk out before a spokesperson delivers a statement to the media outside the High Court in London on July 10, 2017. &#8220;,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;NIKLAS HALLEN/AFP/Getty Images&#8221;}},&#8221;attributes&#8221;:{&#8220;alt&#8221;:&#8221;The parents of terminally-ill, 10-month-old Charlie Gard, Chris Gard (R) and Connie Yates (L) walk out before a spokesperson delivers a statement to the media outside the High Court in London on July 10, 2017. &#8220;,&#8221;title&#8221;:&#8221;NIKLAS HALLEN/AFP/Getty Images&#8221;,&#8221;class&#8221;:&#8221;media-element file-default&#8221;,&#8221;data-delta&#8221;:&#8221;1&#8243;}}]]
&#8220;Every human life has dignity, including the lives of those who cannot speak up for themselves,&#8221; they argue. &#8220;When government is able to overrule a parent or guardian in determining a patient&#8217;s best interest, every vulnerable patient is put at risk. We offer Connie Yates and Chris Gard our heartfelt support as they seek to care for their son.&#8221;
This very idea to grant baby Charlie citizenship was <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18237/heres-what-president-trump-and-congress-could-do-ben-shapiro">proposed</a> by Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro on July 3.
&#8220;Congress has the power under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to &#8216;establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.&#8217; This gives Congress plenary power over naturalization,&#8221; wrote Shapiro. 
&#8220;So, why can&#8217;t Congress pass a private bill sponsoring Charlie Gard and his parents as American citizens? That would then give us legal standing to challenge Charlie&#8217;s inability to travel to the United States at the behest of his parents,&#8221; he explained. 
The heartbreaking case has gained attention from Pope Francis, who contends that the parents&#8217; wishes should be granted; the Vatican&#8217;s children&#8217;s hospital even offered to take in baby Charlie. 
President Donald Trump also weighed in, tweeting his support for the parents and offering America&#8217;s help. 
The parents headed back to High Court on Monday following &#8220;new information&#8221; from the Vatican&#8217;s children&#8217;s hospital. &#8220;The judge gave them 48 hours to present new evidence of how the experimental treatment will benefit their son,&#8221; <a href="http://www.lifenews.com/2017/07/10/congressmen-to-introduce-bill-to-help-bring-charlie-gard-to-the-u-s/?utm_content=buffercf9e2&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer">notes</a> Life News. 
A day prior, the couple protested outside Charlie&#8217;s hospital, presenting a petition with over 350,000 signatures asking for Great Ormond Street Hospital to allow the parents to bring their sick child to the U.S. for treatment before they kill him via life-support withdrawal. 
&#8220;He&#8217;s our son, he&#8217;s our flesh and blood and we feel that it should be our right as parents to decide to give him a chance at life,&#8221; said Yates. &#8220;For a medication that is just an oral medicine, no known major side effects, you know, there is nothing to lose. He deserves a chance.&#8221;
Gard and Yates disagree with Charlie&#8217;s doctors and argue that the baby has no &#8220;catastrophic brain damage.&#8221; 
Gard said the treatment has a chance of &#8220;up to 10% of working&#8221; with &#8220;no known major side effects.&#8221; 
&#8220;He should have had this chance a long time ago. They said it wasn&#8217;t fair to leave him on a ventilator for three months with a treatment that they didn&#8217;t think was going to work; he&#8217;s now been left for seven months with no treatment, so he could have had it twice over. He deserves this chance at last and hopefully we will get it,&#8221; said Gard.

Congressmen Come Up With Creative Idea To Save Charlie Gard

Republican Party

The parents of sick baby <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18155/heartbreaking-parents-uk-baby-barred-potential-amanda-prestigiacomo">Charlie Gard</a> are headed back to High Court on Monday following &#8220;new information&#8221; into the baby&#8217;s condition provided by researchers from the Vatican&#8217;s children&#8217;s hospital, <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/charlie-gards-parents-head-back-to-court-in-latest-attempt-to-save-him-10943158">reports</a> Sky News. 
Such &#8220;new information&#8221; comes on the heels of baby Charlie and his parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, receiving public support from Pope Francis and an offer from the Vatican&#8217;s children&#8217;s hospital to take in baby Charlie.
The Pope <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18201/pope-francis-issues-new-stronger-statement-charlie-james-barrett">stated</a> that Charlie&#8217;s parents&#8217; &#8220;desire to accompany and care for their own child to the end will be respected&#8221; and issued a tweet about preserving all life.
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<blockquote data-lang="en">To defend human life, above all when it is wounded by illness, is a duty of love that God entrusts to all.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) <a href="https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/880856610687549440">June 30, 2017</a></blockquote>
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President Donald Trump also added pressure on the U.K. to support the parents&#8217; will when he tweeted out America&#8217;s support for the family.
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<blockquote data-lang="en">If we can help little <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CharlieGard?src=hash">#CharlieGard</a>, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881875263700783104">July 3, 2017</a></blockquote>
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The 11-month-old suffers from a rare mitochondrial disease for which there is no treatment in the U.K. The boy&#8217;s parents subsequently raised over $1.6 million for experimental treatment in the United States in an attempt to save their child&#8217;s life.
But Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, where Charlie is being treated, said the parents could not take their son for the treatment; instead, the baby must stay put in their hospital and be removed from life support so he can &#8220;die with dignity.&#8221; The High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights all sided with the doctors, effectively stripping Gard and Yates of their parental rights.
The parents protested outside of their son&#8217;s hospital on Sunday, speaking to a crowd of supporters and presenting a petition boasting 350,000 signatures which calls on doctors to allow them the freedom to bring their own child to the U.S.
&#8220;He&#8217;s our son, he&#8217;s our flesh and blood. We feel that it should be our right as parents to decide to give him a chance at life,&#8221; said Yates.
&#8220;There&#8217;s nothing to lose, he deserves this chance,&#8221; she added.
According to Charlie&#8217;s parents, the experimental treatment has &#8220;up to 10% chance of working&#8221; with &#8220;no known major side effects.&#8221; Gard and Yates also argue that their son, contrary to what his doctors say, has no &#8220;catastrophic brain damage.&#8221;
&#8220;He should have had this chance a long time ago now,&#8221; said Gard.
Baby Charlie was scheduled to have his life support removed last Friday, but the baby&#8217;s death was postponed after Gard and Yates made a gut-wrenching video pleading for more time with their son.
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