London, England, Jul 25, 2017 / 03:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- For the past few months the world has watched closely as the parents of a gravely ill British infant fought an intense legal battle over whether or not his life was worth further treatment, which has raised crucial questions.
Among the most potent of these questions regards the ethics of a court stepping in and denying parents the right to seek a treatment which may benefit their child.
British and European courts had sided with officials from Great Ormond Street Hospital, who sought to bar Charlie Gard’s parents from seeking treatment for their child overseas.
In comments to CNA July 25, Benjamin Harnwell, founder of the Rome-based Dignitatis Humanae Institute, said he thought that “the hospital – and the courts – crossed a totalitarian line in refusing to hand the baby over to his parents at their request, so that they could seek further medical attention in the U.S., for which they had secured the funding.”
“I don’t think it’s ever appropriate” for a hospital or court to step in and “advocate” for a patient, especially in the case of a minor whose parents are involved, Harnwell added.
While the Church “certainly doesn’t teach that people should be kept alive ‘at all costs,’” he said “the question isn’t so much about knowing ‘when to let go’ but about the moral responsibility of parents wanting to choose when to make that decision for themselves.”
Harnwell reflected that Church teaching says “the primary role of medicine is to heal, and then to alleviate suffering when being healed is no longer a possibility.”
Harnwell spoke after the parents of British infant Charlie Gard announced July 24 that they decided to end their court case seeking further treatment for the terminally-ill child.
Gard, 11 months, suffers from a rare genetic condition called mitochondrial depletion syndrome, which causes progressive muscle weakness and is believed to affect fewer than 20 children worldwide. He has been in intensive care since October 2016, and has suffered significant brain damage due to the disease; he is currently fed through a tube, requires a ventilator to breathe and is unable to move.
His case first garnered international attention when his parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, were denied the right to transfer him to other hospitals by U.K. courts, despite having raised funds for an experimental treatment from an American doctor. They appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, but were denied a hearing.
Judges argued that prolonging Charlie’s life would inflict unnecessary suffering on the infant, and gave doctors at London’s Great Ormond Hospital, where Charlie is being treated, permission to take him off life support without his parents’ permission.
His life support was to be turned off at the end of June; however, the courts granted an extension so Charlie’s parents could have more time with their son.
After international leaders including Pope Francis and U.S. President Donald Trump voiced their support for Charlie and his parents, the courts allowed medical experts to conduct additional tests on the infant.
American neurologist Dr. Michio Hirano, who had been willing to offer Gard nucleoside bypass therapy, while acknowledging it would not necessarily heal him, traveled to London for the tests. However, after seeing a new MRI scan this week, Hirano declined to offer the therapy.
The child’s life support is expected to be pulled in the next few days, just two weeks shy of his first birthday.
In a tearful statement after the announcement of their decision to drop their court case, Charlie’s parents said, “this is one of the hardest things we will ever have to say and we are about to do the hardest thing that we will ever have to do, and that is to let our beautiful little Charlie go.”
“The American and Italian team were still willing to treat Charlie after his recent brain MRI and EEG performed last week, but there is one reason why treatment cannot now go ahead, and that is time,” they said.
“A whole lot of time has been wasted. We are now in July, and our poor boy has been left to lay in a hospital bed for months whilst lengthy court battles have been fought. Tragically, having had Charlie’s medical notes reviewed by independent medical experts, we now know that had Charlie been given the treatment sooner, he would have had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy.”
In addition to the devastating end to this story, Harnwell pointed to a larger debate society faces.
This, he said, is the debate on whether the state ought to be “the health care provider of last resort,” stepping in as a third party who gets to decide where it’s limited resources will be spent.
Inevitably, under a socialized model “it will be the state that decides when to divert its limited resources to other patients it feels will benefit more.”
Harnwell stressed that while he didn’t want to “make a political point out of other people’s terrible tragedy,” there is a “very real debate to be had” on the issue.
For Harnwell, Charlie Gard’s case is a perfect illustration of the risks involved in allowing third parties “to assume the role of providing our own safety net.”
Socialized healthcare, he said, “offers a universal reach available (ostensibly) to all irrespective of means, but eventually rationing – decided by bureaucrats, and presumably backed up by the courts – will kick in at some point.”
However, while private healthcare is generally available only to those who can afford it, under this system “the customer is king,” Harnwell said, adding that while people generally have good reasons for choosing one or the other, “my own instinct is always to trust people to chose responsibly for themselves.”
The issue also touches on the debate surrounding the push for euthanasia and living wills currently taking place in several countries.
Fr Francesco Giordano, Director of Human Life International in Rome, related the Charlie Gard case to the euthanasia mentality, saying the problem with living wills is that “it basically takes away from the family the right to make decisions.”
In fact, in reality it “takes away the right of the individual, because when an individual in the case of the living will, the person might not be feeling sick at that time, but when they are sick that person might change his or her mind,” he said, noting that sadly, this is often not permitted.
“So basically what’s happening is the rights of individuals, the rights of the family unit, are being taken away by the states. That’s what we’re seeing here, that’s what’s most concerning for all of us.”
Regardless of the ongoing debates, Harnwell stressed that most importantly right now, “Charlie’s family is suffering unimaginably, and they need our prayers.”
Material from EWTN News Nightly was used in this report.
[…]
Which “homosexuality” are they referring to? The sanitized for Western consumption, post-AIDS homosexuality where “gay marriage” is still largely “open marriage?” Or the inherently self-injurious “gay lifestyle” due to psychological and physical challenges to immunity (including substance abuse)even in the most accepting of cities, communities?
In the spirit of Aristotle will “gay awareness” include the actual facts/statistics?
Which one is a “misread” of Scripture?
Every single one of them should be pitched out of whatever offices they hold, and laicized, perhaps even excommunicated. And if I were the civil police I would be carefully investigating to see what crimes they have been committing that makes them want this evil legitimized.
Here is more evidence of the spread of the influence of Satan through sexuality. Homosexuality is a deviant sexual behavior along with Pedophilia and TransGenderism. We have already seen liberals calling for an “understanding” and acceptance of Pedophiles as simply another sexual orientation. They want to open the doors to public acceptance of child abuse. So far they have begun to make legal infanticide so it’s not that far a leap to child sexual abuse given the ease at which they have reduced a living human being to nothing more than a clump of cells even after birth. The evil of the past is showing it’s face and the destruction of the human soul starting with the most innocent has begun.
A synodal church to be.
In short, “We make these demands! Have a nice trip to Rome and say hi to the pope for us.”
What is Holy Mother Church in America doing about punishment for convicted child molesters? Celibacy is one of the vows a priest makes when receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Obviously when a priest breaks his vow of celibacy he needs to speak with not only his bishop, to find out if he would be better suited as a married man; but, he also needs to speak with a licensed trained psychiatrist to help discover why he should remain a priest or live the rest of his life as a married Roman Catholic husband and future father of children. I’ve seen priests who were almost forced into the priesthood by parents who simply had to have one son who would be the priest of the family. Child molestation is another matter altogether. Convicted pedophiles should never be shuffled from parish to parish. These men are preditors and not merely men who made poor career choices. The Roman Catholic Church should never try to hide these men. Of course pedophiles require intensive therapy by trained psychiatrists. As an almost 68 year old Roman Catholic woman, I am ashamed that my beloved church has covered up for these men. I truly believe that the pedophilic priest must be defrocked and never, even as a Roman Catholic layman, be permitted to work with children as long as he lives. Permitting the pedophile to continue as a priest is wrong. He is a mentally disturbed person who needs help, of course. He is not a man to be trusted with the innocent child, ever again. The priest should always be able to be trusted by children and adults, especially those who have no one else to comfort them in their day to day life. I’ve always put my priests upon a pedistal because I realized, especially as I became an adult, they gave up married life, a wife and family, to deserve me calling him, with the greatest of love, “Father.” When I go to Confession and hear a priest encouraging me to empty my heart of troubles, as I say, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”, I know that the holy and celibate priest, who deserves all my respect for all his sacrifices, knows how to help me make peace with God and he will absolve me of my transgressions. There is no room for convicted pedophiles in the priesthood of Holy Mother Church. He has stolen the innocence of a trusting and helpless child. He has murdered Innocense itself, as surely as those Roman soldiers tried to murder Baby Jesus while killing the Holy Innocents.
“Obviously when a priest breaks his vow of celibacy”
If I’m understanding correctly, “celibacy” means not marrying. So the problem with most of those priests is that they are not being chaste, as we are all called to be according to our states in life.
“he needs to speak with not only his bishop, to find out if he would be better suited as a married man;”
That should have been done before he was ordained. Added to which, something like 80% of the “pedophilia” cases were actually cases of homosexual assault on post-pubescent boys, which isn’t actually pedophilia.
“he also needs to speak with a licensed trained psychiatrist”
I wouldn’t trust a psychiatrist. Listening to psychiatrists’ advice was part of what led to moving abusers around; and the psychiatrists’ association also decided that homosexuality is not a mental disorder anymore, and that “transgenderism” is just fine.
“I’ve seen priests who were almost forced into the priesthood by parents who simply had to have one son who would be the priest of the family.”
Somehting which, again, should have been discovered during the discernment process, during their time in seminary – in short, *before* they were ordained. Why wasn’t it? How many priests was this that you’ve seen? When? How did you know that was why they became priests?
“poor career choices.” The priesthood isn’t a career, it’s a calling. Any man who thinks of it as a career shouldn’t be one.
The only absolute Dogma Cardinal Marx believes in is the Church Tax he and his cohorts extort from the Catholic Faithful in Germany.
More probing than spearhead. Prominent Catholic Black Ops Led by Fr Wucherpfennig openly homosexual rector mission to test enemy assets Cardinal Marx their Quisling [since it’s so ludicrously obvious I’m compelled to resort to humor however true]. As prev acknowledged the true enemy are advocates of normalizing the abomination of homosexuality posturing heroic aware as devious cowards they have Vatican and majority societal support. Quislings abound among German Hierarchy very few comparable to 1941 Hierarchy led by Augustus Cardinal von Galen. Although there are a few good men among them. With faith and God’s arm they can win the day. Even if vanquished by the morally disabled their strong resistance is in itself victory.
Open Letter to a group of Nine prominent German Catholics who want a new morality, women priests, etc. Your demands are not exactly a news bombshell. The Catholic faithful worldwide have been hearing this rubbish on and off for over 50 years. Your heretical gripes are getting old and boring. And there exists a fast solution to your unjust gripes: Leave the Roman Catholic Church and start your own church. It’s that simple. No sense sticking with the Church with over 2,000 years of constant teachings about morality and doctrinal beliefs when you Nine prominent German Catholics can start your own new-wave type of church. Frankly, I have more respect for the 16th century Protestant Reformers who left the Church instituted by Christ rather than sticking with it when they no longer believed in its core teachings. You have the full freedom to leave because no one is pointing a gun to your prominent heads, demanding your life or your consent. Parting advice: It is not psychologically sound to with an institution which you find abhorrent.