Britain's Top Court Won't Let Dying Baby Go to US

Parents of Charlie Gard have one last appeal left
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 9, 2017 7:10 AM CDT
Britain's Top Court Won't Let Dying Baby Go to US
Charlie Gard remains on life support.   (GoFundMe)

The British parents of a dying 10-month-old have just one more chance to win permission to bring him to the US for experimental treatment. Chris Gard and Connie Yates filed an emergency appeal with the European Court of Human Rights after Britain's Supreme Court ruled against them on Thursday, reports the BBC. Their son, Charlie Gard, has an extremely rare and fatal disease called mitochondrial depletion syndrome, and they want to bring him to the US for treatment. But British health officials won't allow it, saying the treatment won't work and might cause Charlie undue harm, and that he should be allowed to die with dignity. In Thursday's decision, the judges said he should be kept on life support at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London until the ECHR rules at some point Friday.

"How can they do this," cried Yates as the decision was announced, per the Guardian. "They are lying. We are going to America." The parents have raised more than $1.6 million on GoFundMe for the trip and medical bills. One of the judges praised the parents' devotion but said "the child's interests must prevail" under human rights law. "It is never easy when medical and judicial opinion goes against the wishes of the parents, but our first responsibility at Great Ormond Street Hospital remains to put the interests of the child first and foremost," the hospital says in a statement. No details have been released about where Charlie—who cannot see, hear, move, cry, or swallow—would get treatment in the US. (These parents are desperately trying to raise $750,000 for their sick son.)

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