THE PARENTS OF CRITICALLY ILL BABY CHARLIE GARD DROPPED A LEGAL EFFORT MONDAY THAT HAD DRAWN WORLDWIDE SYMPATHY. TIME HAD RUN OUT AND IT WAS TIME TO LET THEIR SON DIE, THEIR LAWYER SAID.
Parents relent in their bid to save terminally ill tot
Her son, says Connie Yates, “has touched more people in his 11 months than most people do in a lifetime.”
With tears streaming down her cheeks, Yates, the mother of terminally ill infant Charlie Gard, read a statement to a British court Monday after it was announced that she and her husband, Chris Gard, were ending their highly publicized bid to keep their son alive.
“Our son is an absolute warrior and we will miss him terribly. One little boy has brought the world together,” Yates said.
Both parents wept in the packed courtroom at the High Court in London as their lawyer, Grant Armstrong, announced the end to their five-month legal battle.
With breaking voice, Armstrong said the couple was withdrawing their bid to have Charlie sent to the U.S., where a doctor had offered to try to treat his rare genetic condition. The decision came after new tests showed the 11-month-old, who has brain damage and cannot breathe unaided, had irreversible muscular damage.
“This case is now about time,” Armstrong said. “Sadly, time has run out.”
Gard and Yates, who are in their 30s and from London, have fought ferociously for their son, who was born in August 2016 with mitochondrial depletion syndrome, a rare genetic disease.
The baby has been treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals. Doctors there say Charlie is in pain and further treatment would only increase his suffering. They had permission from the courts to switch off his life support and allow him to die peacefully. But his parents resisted.
The case gained international attention after Charlie’s parents received support from Pope Francis and U.S. President Donald Trump.
At a hearing earlier this month, Dr. Michio Hirano, a neurology expert from Columbia Medical Center in New York, said there was a 10 per cent chance of a significant improvement in Charlie’s muscle use with a treatment known as nucleoside therapy. But he conceded it had never been tried on a human with Charlie’s exact condition.
Hirano went to London last week to examine Charlie. After seeing the results of new tests, the baby’s parents agreed to drop their case, meaning Charlie’s life support can now be removed.
But they still believe Charlie could have been saved had months not been spent in legal wrangling about whether he should get treatment. The hospital disagreed.