Charlie Matthew William Gard (Baby Charlie), R.I.P.

We here in the United States have been hearing about
the horrors of national health care programs in other
countries; your somber Peasant shall share with you,
my grand readers, a story which ranks as one of the
most heartbreaking to date.

A British baby, Charlie Gard, not even one year old,
was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder which
robbed him of his vision, hearing, and ability to breathe
without assistance, and caused brain damage. The doctors
at Grand Ormond Street Hospital in London halted treat-
ment and sent him to a hospice to die. In the meantime,
Charlie's parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates heard
about an experimental treatment which could help
their suffering son. It meant having to take Charlie
to New York, and the cost for everything --- the
treatment, travel, lodging, etc. --- would be out of pocket,
but Charlie's parents told of their plight on GoFundMe
to raise money for it all, as the Birtish state health care system
would not pay anything toward it.

Well, Britain's NHS also would not allow Chris and Connie
to take little Charlie to New York, or anywhere outside
of Great Britain for treatment of any kind; Charlie's
doctors refused to release him, and went to the British
High Court to overrule the parent's treatment decision
for their baby. The High Court did so. Next, Charlie's
parents appealed to the European Court of Human Rights;
that court upheld the first court's ruling.

Many people and organizations entered the fray. A hospital
in Rome affiliated with the Holy See offered to admit Charlie,
as did a New York hospital affiliated with Columbia
University. On July 24, as Charlie's condition grew more dire,
the attorney for Charlie's parents withdrew their request to
transport their baby to New York for the experimental
treatment, but could Charlie remain on artificial ventilation
for just one more week? Nothing doing was the reply from
the High Court. Four days later, Baby Charlie died.
His parents were crushed, the doctors victorious, and the
NHS smug and arrogant. Although Great Britain has long
ago abolished capital punishment for deadly criminals,
the British government and its state-run health care system
in effect sentenced an innocent little baby to death, a death
which might have been avoided had he been able to
receive experimental medical treatment, and admitted
"Hail Mary" but was a better option than either continuing
conventional treatment or letting the helpless little patient
fade away in a hospice. But the NHS would not sacrifice any
of its power and control over Baby Charlie and his parents,
who with the rest of Great Britain's approximately sixty
million people are mere subjects to the monolith that
is that country's ultra-statist government.

And this is the kind of health care system that our own statist
politicians want to ensnare us in. Yet another reason that
government should not have a say in what kind of health
care and coverage we get, and that we should never give our
government that power. This is state power run amuck,
gone mad, and destroying freedom along with the priceless
value of human life!

Rest in peace, dear little Charlie. You deserved better.

MEM