I don't know if Theresa May knows something, or if Theresa May is trying to send a message . . . or if she's just spitballing. But what she's not saying is: Look, this is over and the kid's going to die where he is. Let it go.She is most definitely not saying that:
The family’s local MP, Labour’s Seema Malhotra, used PMQs to say that while the chances of the US treatment helping Charlie were low, doctors could say within three months whether he was responding.
Talking about the possibility of Charlie being sent to the US, Malhotra asked May: “Would the prime minister do all she can to bring the appropriate people together to try and make this happen?”
Saying her thoughts were with the infant and his family, May said she could “fully understand and appreciate that any parent in these circumstances would want to do everything possible and explore every option for their seriously ill child”.
The prime minister added: “But I also know that no doctor ever wants to be placed in the terrible position where they have to take such heartbreaking decisions.
“The honourable lady referred to the fact that we have that court process here. I’m confident that Great Ormond Street hospital have and will always consider any offers on new information that has come forward, with consideration of the wellbeing of a desperately ill child.”
Huh. Why would she think a hospital that went all the way to the European Human Rights Court to defend its determination to let Charlie die would suddenly be open to "any offers on new information"? What new information could that possibly be?
The fact that there are doctors in the United States who are willing to try treating Charlie is not new information. That's been known for months. It was the whole point of the case. And it's obviously not new information that Charlie's parents want to take him out of Great Ormond Street and to America, nor that they have raised the necessary money and are financially able to do so.
I think the "new information," such that it is, is that much of the world is going thumbs down on the hospital's determination that it must be the decision-maker, regardless of the parent's wishes or the availability of other doctors that are willing to try where Great Ormond Street's doctors are not. I suspect that when the hospital and the British NHS went to court to defend its position, it did not anticipate much if any publicity would result from the case. Now that Pope Francis and President Trump have weighed it, they're not just dealing with a legal matter but with a massive global PR disaster.
As they should be. They're presuming the moral authority to pronounce a death sentence on a child over his parents' objections, even though there are at least some doctors who think - however long a shot it might be - that there may still be a way to help the boy.
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That said, I suspect administrators at Great Ormond Street are very reluctant to cave on this, however badly they realize this is going for them. They seem to reject any notion that, once they believe a case is hopeless, that families should have the right to overrule the hospital's judgment. They went to court to prevent that from happening. If, having won their case in court, they now cave to public opinion, they surely know that it will scarcely matter in the future what a court has to say. The next case will get just as much coverage, and they'll have to accede to the family's wishes just as they will have done in the Charlie Gard case.
Of course, that's what they should do anyway. It is monstrous beyond belief that these people think they can disregard the wishes of Charlie's parents and simply let Charlie die. But they don't care what's right. They only care about maintaining the sole discretion to make the decision.
If Great Ormond Street Hospital caves and releases Charlie Gard to be brought to America, it has to be because someone in a very influential and powerful position told them that they had no choice. Is Theresa May going to do that? Is it even possible for her to do it?
I'm not sure, but we already know there is help waiting for Charlie on this side of the pond. I guess as long as Charlie is still alive, this represents one more ray of hope - however faint. Keep praying for him.
I don't know if Theresa May knows something, or if Theresa May is trying to send a message . . . or if she's just spitballing. But what she's not saying is: Look, this is over and the kid's going to die where he is. Let it go.
She is most definitely not saying that:
