Charlie Gard’s parents must be given every chance to save their poorly son

I AM becoming increasingly upset and disturbed by the Charlie Gard case. The baby and his parents are still locked in legal limbo with the High Court and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The hospital doctors were unconvinced by the opinion of an American neurosurgeon who says that Charlie may improve under his care in the US. There will be yet another hearing next week.

I’m sure Charlie’s condition is desperate, and nothing may be able to save him, but to deny his parents the chance to feel they’ve done all they could for him, to force them to witness the deliberate termination of their son’s life, is unbearably cruel.

The GOSH doctors are convinced that Charlie’s brain damage is irreversible and also think he may be in pain. His parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, are positive that he is not. Obviously the doctors are the experts on the 11-month-old’s rare condition and they have convinced a High Court judge he should be allowed to “die with dignity”. The GOSH specialists are almost certainly right but I can’t understand why they are putting Charlie’s parents through such agony. If the baby dies, as he almost certainly will, why can’t the hospital afford his mother and father the comfort of knowing they did all they could for him?

Connie and Chris have raised sufficient money to have Charlie treated in America. I believe most people think they should be allowed to do so.

Charlie’s doctors are obviously not callous or hard-hearted and many of them are, rightly, deeply upset at the personal threats they have received from the usual loathsome suspects on Twitter. But Connie and Chris matter as well as Charlie. They will have to live with the outcome whatever happens. I don’t envy the judge his final decision. The judgment of Solomon, indeed. But to deprive Charlie’s parents of the balm to their souls they will so desperately need seems cold. They need the future knowledge that they did the best for their first-born.