Yet another tweet from President: Charlie Gard

[_Jersey Girl]

As far as this terminally ill child goes, I am once again struck with how human beings are more humane toward cats and dogs than we are people. If you love someone, you let them go.

Human beings (so far as we know) are the only creatures who live their lives knowing they're going to die. I think it's got to be the hardest thing in the world to think you may have failed your child in some way, particularly for the mother who birthed the child. She could easily be blaming herself for his illness and trying desperately to do right by him.

But I hear you. I definitely hear you. There comes a time when intervention shifts from support to imprisonment.

[_Chap]

Vatican has offered to take Charlie Gard into their hospital.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/04/health/ch ... index.html

That's very nice of them. However, as the report you mention states:

"The domestic courts concluded that it would be lawful for the hospital to withdraw life sustaining treatment because it was likely that Charlie would suffer significant harm if his present suffering was prolonged without any realistic prospect of improvement, and the experimental therapy would be of no effective benefit," the court said in a news release.

This child's condition and prospects have been discussed dispassionately and in great detail before judges who have heard detailed medical and scientific testimony about this child's condition and future prospects. If you have any doubts as to how the decisions were made, please follow the links I gave and read the evidence.

The Vatican, to put it bluntly, is committed on religious grounds to the position that any human life, however full of pain and however empty of any positive feature apart from the continuation of core vital processes, must always be continued as long as possible, and that no human decision may ever end it.

That means, for instance, that if I suffer certain neuro-degenerative diseases, the official Roman Catholic position is that I must (irrespective of my wishes) continue to live a life in which I am incapable of motion or any act of communication with the world around me until I finally die of 'natural causes' that doctors cannot interfere with. Their attitude to this child is part and parcel of this. The degradation and suffering of this child has zero weight against their position that only the Christian deity may end human life.

Frankly, I think that point of view is wrong in principle and generally pernicious in its effects.

[_Jersey Girl]

Vatican has offered to take Charlie Gard into their hospital.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/04/health/ch ... index.html

That's very nice of them. However, as the report you mention states:

"The domestic courts concluded that it would be lawful for the hospital to withdraw life sustaining treatment because it was likely that Charlie would suffer significant harm if his present suffering was prolonged without any realistic prospect of improvement, and the experimental therapy would be of no effective benefit," the court said in a news release.

This child's condition and prospects have been discussed dispassionately and in great detail before judges who have heard detailed medical and scientific testimony about this child's condition and future prospects. If you have any doubts as to how the decisions were made, please follow the links I gave and read the evidence.

The Vatican, to put it bluntly, is committed on religious grounds to the position that any human life, however full of pain and however empty of any positive feature apart from the continuation of core vital processes, must always be continued as long as possible, and that no human decision may ever end it.

That means, for instance, that if I suffer certain neuro-degenerative diseases, the official Roman Catholic position is that I must (irrespective of my wishes) continue to live a life in which I am incapable of motion or any act of communication with the world around me until I finally die of 'natural causes' that doctors cannot interfere with. Their attitude to this child is part and parcel of this. The degradation and suffering of this child has zero weight against their position that only the Christian deity may end human life.

Frankly, I think that point of view is wrong in principle and generally pernicious in its effects.

I understand the situation completely, Chap. Your post raises the question of religion and who should/shouldn't end human life.

This: The degradation and suffering of this child has zero weight against their position that only the Christian deity may end human life.

Those were some of the thoughts I struggled with prior to making the decision to remove life support when I was the only family member in a position to do so. Yet, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I listened to what the doctors were telling me and in the beginning I couldn't accept that they were encouraging me to remove life support when my mother was still conscious and communicating. For example, a doctor told me that she was unresponsive when I knew that she was responsive. I asked him to step out of the room and as he looked and listened through an adjacent window, he was shocked to see her responding to my questions. The doctors typically know what the outcome will be, but they might not have the timing exactly right.

I talked to different doctors, the hospital chaplain, her own doctor back home and my childhood Pastor who was still her pastor. I considered all things and all I can say is that I knew the time was right when I knew. The only regret I had was that she never got to see the baby I delivered 3 weeks later, but I squared that in my mind in my own way.

If you have followed the story of Jahi McMath and particularly if you look at the comments on the Facebook page "Keep Jahi McMath on life support", you'll see that for years now, believers have constantly expressed that they were praying for the Lord to raise her up.

When you think about how selfish that is, that the only answer to your prayer should be a "yes" to what you want, from a believing perspective, that is to ignore God's sovereignty over your life.

There is such a thing (and I relate this to my own story) as man interfering with the will of God. We have machines that can support healing and sustain life. I look at those machines as also having the ability to interfere with God's will.

The hard part is exercising wisdom in using the capabilities that we do have.

Even harder still, is the mother who faces letting her child go when he hasn't even begun to start his little life.

[_The CCC]

Sometimes the best answer is not a good answer. It is time to let Charlie go.

[_Jersey Girl]

Sometimes the best answer is not a good answer. It is time to let Charlie go.

It's easy for us to say. We're not in love with Charlie Gard.

[_The CCC]

I had to sit by and watch as my mother died from a bleeding aortic aneurysm. It was not so easy.

[_Jersey Girl]

I had to sit by and watch as my mother died from a bleeding aortic aneurysm. It was not so easy.

None of these events are easy. I think they're the hardest things you ever do in your life.

[_Jersey Girl]

I want to elaborate on something I said, because I didn't include it the first time. Keep in mind this isn't an infant we're talking about, but an adult. I won't tell everything because there are treasures I'll never share publicly and hardly ever do share even privately.

For example, a doctor told me that she was unresponsive when I knew that she was responsive. I asked him to step out of the room and as he looked and listened through an adjacent window, he was shocked to see her responding to my questions. The doctors typically know what the outcome will be, but they might not have the timing exactly right.

What happened there, was that I went to visit. The doctor came in the room and right in front of my mother, we had the conversation about removing life support. He said she was unresponsive, I told him that she responded to me. I'm sure he thought "Okay, honey, I'm sure you believe that." Anyway, I proved it to him. I asked him to leave the room. The bed was right next to a window and I opened the blinds, then he watched me talk to my mother.

I asked her if she could hear me. Nodded her head yes. I asked her if she heard what the doctor was talking about. Nodded her head yes. I asked her if she wanted to do that. Shook her head vigorously "NO". I asked her if she wanted to keep fighting. Shook her head vigorously "YES". Then I promised her something and then said I needed to step outside and tell the doctor.

The doctor saw and heard everything and was completely shocked. He said she must have been saving her energy for me. I told him she was probably afraid to answer him and the nurses.

In any case, I told him what he was going to do and he did it. And in the end, I fully kept my promise. No regrets whatsoever except the one I mentioned above.

Like I said, the doctors probably know the outcome, but they don't know everything. In the case of Charlie Gard, the docs have weighed in that treatment won't change his condition. I know that sounds crazy for a parent to want to try it anyway.

But none of us here are in love with Charlie Gard and they can't even take him home.

[_Jersey Girl]

Chap,

I'm short on time so if you know the answers to these questions, would you mind posting them? I might have missed this information.

Does the UK have hospice care in the ped hospital?

Can Charlie's parents visit him and hold him?

Can they sleep in his room and sleep with him if they want?

Is there any way that the UK court would let them take him home accompanied by hospice? My guess is that he wouldn't last long off life support, but is this a possibility?

[_The CCC]

It is not a good solution, no one with any feelings for their fellow man would feel it is a good thing to let Charlie go, but it is the best solution available.