Hysterical American Thinker Writers Caused Charlie Gard to Suffer

American Thinker ^ | 08/01/2017 | Daren Jonescu

[SeekAndFind]

A beneficial side effect of the horrible Charlie Gard case is that it is the kind of story that forces anyone who wishes to talk about it to define himself, whether openly or implicitly, on certain fundamental issues: self-ownership vs. socialism, the private family vs. state, and the principled defense of individual liberty vs. progressive pragmatism.

One of the more predictable and amusing aspects of this moment of self-revelation is the hatred and invective which the defenders of socialism, state, and pragmatism -- which in this case means state ownership and disposal of the individual human being -- spew at those of us on the other side of the argument, who believe responsible parents, and not impersonal government agents, ought to have decision-making authority over a gravely ill child's treatment.

Case in point: a kind reader draws my attention to a piece in the London Sunday Times by Melanie Phillips, defending the Great Ormond Street Hospital as demigods of love and compassion, ridiculing Charlie Gard's parents as pitiable but essentially misinformed and uneducated dupes, and, most interestingly, blaming "hysterical American conservatives" -- singling out American Thinker for special condemnation -- for causing both the parents' false hopes and the general public outcry over Charlie's predicament.

Since I am one of the American Thinker writers being accused of giving false hope and causing public outcry, allow me to respond to a few representative quotes from Ms. Phillips' screed in defense of forcibly preventing parents from trying to save their own child's life:

The agonising case of Charlie Gard, the 11-month-old baby dying from a rare form of mitochondrial disease, has finally reached its sad and inevitable conclusion with the announcement of his death.

[SeekAndFind]

Why was this conclusion "inevitable"? Because the British government forcibly prevented any other outcome from even being sought, by refusing to allow the parents to take their child to foreign hospitals where he might receive experimental treatment for his condition treatment which even Phillips admits may, though a long shot, have made a difference, although no one can ever know for sure (thanks to the government's coercive prevention of such treatment). When the State says, "We are going to allow your child to die, and there is nothing you can do to stop us," then, yes, death becomes fairly "inevitable," doesn't it?

[miss marmelstein]

Melanie Phillips was NOT happy when I wrote that it was stupid to blame American Thinker (which has approximately 4 readers) for the Charlie Gard disaster. She sometimes answers her critics on FB.

Just a reminder: British conservatives are nothing like American conservatives. She loves her NHS.

[SkyDancer]

It was the UK legal system and the NIH hospital that killed that baby.

[bert]

You have made a medical judgement about whi8ch you know little or nothing.

You are the reason one can not practice medicine with out an MD

[Rinnwald]

It’s only false hope if we let it stop here. The state is not happy just having a portion of it’s population murder their children. They want to permanently break the most basic of human bonds by having the state step between parent and child.

Even during the dark days of Soviet communism, there was hope. That dark experiment lasted seven decades. Chinese communism cleverly extends itself by parasitizing off capitalism.

If whats left of the free world falls, then there is no hope for a very long time.

[SkyDancer]

Oh? So now UK judges have medical degrees? You know absolutely nothing, zip, on how the UK medical system works nor do you know absolutely nothing, zip, on how the UK judicial system works.

You are the reason why people like you get snippy responses to dumb attacks.

[Uncle Sam 911]

Britain’s exit doors were as tightly closed for this family as any exit door was ever closed in Stalinist Russia or East Germany. The British government deliberately ran out the clock to kill this child and that judge and those so called doctors will pay a high price for their murder of little Charlie Gard.

[bert]

The Physicians made the underlying decisions that are just ignored.

Ideology trumps professionalism

[\/\/ayne]

Isn’t the American doctor who was going to treat the baby (Dr. Michio Hirano) a doctor?

[Tammy8]

Yes. If they are so sure they are right about their diagnosis then they should have no issue with seeking other medical opinions and treatment. Before our death culture started taking over it was common for people to seek other medical advice especially if they were told nothing could be done.

My sister was born during World War II premature, and her digestive system could not tolerate milk, not breast milk or available formula recipes of the time. The doctor told my parents she could not survive but they should take her home and love her until she passed away. My parents knew they had to keep her warm so my dad fashioned an incubator of sorts near the wood stove, then the next issue was what to feed her. She could not keep milk down. My dad owned a sheep ranch and had Basque herders working for him. One of them told my dad to get milk goats and give her goat’s milk right out of the goat, not to mix it with anything or try to keep it. My parents tried that and it was a success! In the beginning my dad had to milk a goat every 2 hours round the clock for her feedings.

My sister grew up healthy! She did have health issues when she was little like pneumonia because her lungs were not fully developed, but my mother managed to keep her going through several bouts of that and then antibiotics became available to get her past that.

The Basque herder knew about goat’s milk being such a great milk for babies and easy to tolerate for sick babies because that is what they did for babies in the Basque region where he grew up. In this country then the thinking was there was no way to save preemies that had feeding and other issues and at least the doctors where my family lived were not trying to save them.

No one tried to keep my parents from trying other ways to save my sister after medical people had given up. In fact the doctors followed her progress closely and even started recommending goat’s milk for other babies with milk tolerance issues.

To think that some people now do not have the right to seek other opinions or treatments is insanity and to me proof they know they are not always right but don’t want any light to shine on that. I can think of no other reason why they would fight to keep people from seeking other opinions or treatment.

That is what bothers me the most about this story, in the beginning there should not have been a battle to allow other doctors to examine the baby. It should be criminal the way it all happened. Possibly the baby could not have been saved anyway but what would it have harmed to try? I think the harm that concerned the authorities that fought it was harm to their agenda. If the baby had been able to be treated then others would want to make their own medical decisions and they can’t have that.

[Gene Eric]

The sociopathic UK bureaucrats can go to Hell along with those in the media that facilitate their malice.

[Darksheare]

Wonder how much the british NHS made by selling his organs.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The ^{government-employed} Physicians made the underlying ^moral decisions that are just ^{should, on moral grounds, be} ignored.

Ideology trumps professionalism

No one doubts that philosophy underlies both sides of the issue.

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

If you think that a doctor, because he is employed by the government, is above having anyone getting a second opinion, fine. That is your business. Unless it dooms someone else, to whom you have no emotional attachment. In that case, you can expect to get blowback on a site devoted to American "conservatism” (“Conservatism” belongs in scare quotes because what Americans conserve is the freedom to do things differently. Which is a funny kind of “conservatism").

The planted axiom of the opposition to allowing Charlie Gard’s parents to take Charlie to America is that no respectable medical opinion supported the hope that Charlie’s life might - might - have been saved by experimental treatment. But do you actually think that people would have contributed $1.5 million to promote the suffering of a baby they will never even see? It is sheer cynicism to think so.

[Sam Gamgee]

Melanie, who I once thought of as conservative, has drunk the DHS Kool-Aid.

[Sam Gamgee]

Is that you Melanie?

[Sam Gamgee]

Well this is the country that arrests people for speaking out against Islam.