Parents end legal fight to take terminally ill baby to U. S.

‘ Time had run out’ to help Charlie Gard

A five- month legal batLONDON tle to get permission to take terminally ill baby Charlie Gard to the United States for experimental treatment ended Monday after his parents told a British court they were withdrawing their legal challenge.

Grant Armstrong, a lawyer representing Chris Gard, 32, and Connie Yates, 31, told Britain’s High Court that “time had run out” and that the 11- month- old’s parents had made the decision after the American doctor who offered to treat the baby told them it was too late and wouldn’t work.

Yates told the court that she “only wanted to give him a chance of life” and hoped that his life had not been in vain.

Armstrong said the pair now wanted “to spend the maximum amount of time they have left with Charlie.” The court previously ruled that Charlie’s lifesupport machine should be switched off.

Charlie has a rare, incurable genetic disorder, and his disease has left him with brain damage and unable to move. He can’t see or hear and needs a ventilator to breathe. His parents, supported by Michio Hirano, a neurology professor at Columbia University Medical Center, and Italian medical researchers, were seeking the legal right to take him to the U. S. to receive an untested therapy they admitted would not save him.

The London hospital where Charlie has received all his treatment believed there was no medical evidence to support claims the therapy could work. It also feared it could prolong his suffering. In Britain, disputes between families and doctors over how to treat a patient are decided by courts. In the U.S ., the family makes that decision.

But Armstrong said the parents decided to withdraw from the case after Hirano was no longer willing to administer the therapy after he saw the results of a new MRI scan of the infant’s brain. He concluded his brain and muscular damage were too severe.

Charlie’ s parents had raised almost $2 million to treat his illness, known a sen cep halomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome.

CARL COURT, GETTY IMAGES Chris Gard and Connie Yates have ended their legal battle to take their son, Charlie Gard, to the U. S. to receive experimental treatment.