survival.

In fact by June the parents had been forced to fight this out in the court system for several months while the doctors fought to have the child taken off life support. Those precious months cost Charlie dearly as he wasted away in the Great Ormond Street Hospital(GOSH).

He did not have to deteriorate that way. It was the doctors fighting to bring an end to his life that caused this stain on the British health system. The parents only did what came natural to them, which was to protect their child and seek the best for him.

The doctors at GOSH claim that, by pulling the plug early, they were seeking what was in “the best interest” of Charlie. It is possible that they really felt this way, or perhaps their ego would not allow for some “non-medical” person to have the last say contrary to the doctor’s orders.

 The world may never know what the doctors at GOSH were thinking. Doctors in a socialized health system are, in many ways, part of the “intellectual class”, and therefore, likely see themselves as “knowing what is best for the greater good.”

 It is certainly not far-fetched that they might prevent parents from seeking the help of an outsider who may actually prove them wrong. After all, we see this sort of behavior in academia all the time, and particularly so in the UK.  In a story posted in June of 2017, InternetDeputy.com reported on a National Union of Teachers conference in the UK whereby the teachers asserted that they would teach LGBT lifestyle to toddlers against the wishes of parents.

This entire situation raises serious questions regarding parental rights. Some will claim that the rights of the parents to decide for their child are not as important as the doctors’ educated ability to decide “what is best.” They will often support their argument by talking about parents who refuse medical treatment, such as blood transfusions or parents who are outright abusive.

But neither was the case with Chris Gard and Connie Yates.  They sought continued life for their child and in no way refused medical treatment. In fact they worked hard to raise $1.4 million in order to have their child receive an experimental treatment in the United States. Five months ago, they were ready to take their child to the US and the only thing that stopped them was the doctors and self-interested bureaucrats of a socialized health care system.

The doctors of GOSH never articulated exactly what harm would have been caused by taking Charlie to the United States. According to them, he felt no pain and had no cognizance while he was on life support. It would not have cost the UK health system and tax payers any money. So, again, what was the harm in the parents being able to exercise their right in seeking alternative treatment for their child?

Even at only a ten percent chance of the experimental treatment doing any good there is no reason why Charlie Gard’s parents should not have been able to seek what was best for their child.

Many progressives have argued that teachers know, better than non-college-educated parents, what is best for students and yet have no empirical data to support such a claim. Many great academics and achievers have come from families where uneducated parents made the decisions regarding their children’s education.

It is this same failed thought process that decided that Charlie Gard’s parents were not smart enough or too-less educated to decide what was best for their child. Denying parental rights even with the very slim chance for survival ensured certain death no matter what. There is not a person alive who can say, with complete certainty, that the treatment would have failed. There are, after all, hundreds or even thousands of cases in medicine where miraculous recoveries have taken place with absolutely no explanation.

Culture in civilized nations like the UK and the US are becoming increasingly dominated by the intellectual class or the elite. But “intellectual” in this case does not necessarily indicate more intelligence. It is simply comprised of a group of collectivist thinkers who assumes they are more intelligent than the masses they classify as being on a lower scale in society.

With this onslaught of elitist thinking, societies have traded their time-honored, steadfast values for a system of beliefs that are continuously changing and often based on arbitrary assertions. These quick-changing assertions are referred to as “ethics.” In the past, however, the issue of Charlie Gard would most certainly have been spoken in terms of morals and not ethics.

Morals are deep-rooted and applicable to all, coming from that which is much greater than the society itself. Whereas ethics come from individuals based on what they think values should be and often even conflict with the ethics of others.

Moral values, in the case of Charlie Gard, place the right to decide for Charlie’s well-being squarely on the parents. Doctors from GOSH, however are a part of the intellectual class, and therefore follow their own “ethics”, without regard to the morals with which they conflict.

A child’s life has been lost. His parents fought what will likely be the most difficult fight of their lifetime, spending at least 10 months of their lives in hospitals and court rooms. While the world will quickly forget the British infant on life support, Chris Gard and Connie Yates will spend the rest of their lives wondering “what if?”

The idea that their beautiful baby boy wasted away while, no matter how hard they tried, they could do nothing, will replay itself over and over in their minds.  There is little reason to doubt, that after such a long and grueling ordeal, their path to recovery will be just as long and never complete. For not only will they have to grapple with the loss of their child, they will also have the grim reminder of the freedom they discovered they did not have.

Jake Fogg, Managing Editor of InternetDeputy.com wishes to extend his thoughts and prayers to Chris Gard, Connie Yates, and of course Charlie Gard, who as a family, taught the world a valuable lesson.

Rest In Peace, Charlie Gard.