London - The parents of Charlie Gard
tearfully gave up their legal battle to keep their terminally
ill baby alive on Monday, saying his condition had deteriorated
too far for any possible recovery, in a case they said had
touched the world.
The parents said their 11-month-old son might have been able
to live normally if he had received experimental U.S. treatment
earlier but too much time had been "wasted".
"We have decided to let our son go," his mother Connie Yates
told London's High Court, where a judge had been due to hear
final arguments as to why a hospital should not turn off life
support.
"Charlie did have a real chance of getting better. Now we
will never know what would have happened if he got treatment."
Charlie has a rare genetic condition causing progressive
muscle weakness and brain damage and his parents had sought to
send him to the United States to undergo therapy, in a campaign
backed by U.S. President Donald Trump and Pope Francis.
Britain's courts, backed by the European Court of Human
Rights, refused permission, saying it would prolong his
suffering without any realistic prospect of helping the child.
The parents had begun a final attempt to reverse that
decision, saying there was new evidence which showed the therapy
offered by Michio Hirano, a professor of neurology at New York's
Columbia University Medical Center, could work for Charlie.
Hirano had said he believed there was at least a 10 percent
chance his nucleoside therapy could improve the condition of the
boy, who cannot breathe without a ventilator, and that there was
a small but significant chance it could aid brain functions.
But the court heard on Monday that scans last week showed
Charlie's muscular condition had deteriorated so much that
treatment would no longer work.
"JUSTICE FOR CHARLIE"
"There is one simple reason for Charlie's muscles
deteriorating to the extent they are in now - time. A whole lot
of wasted time," his father Chris Gard said outside the court,
where supporters chanted "Justice for Charlie" and waved blue
balloons.
"Had Charlie been given the treatment sooner he would have
had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy."
The case has attracted heated debate about medical ethics
and whether doctors or parents should decide a child's fate.
Staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), where Charlie is
on life support, have received death threats and abuse,
something condemned by the parents and the judge.
GOSH said in a statement it believed there had been no real
change in Charlie's responsiveness since January and medical
experts had concluded before Christmas that Charlie had suffered
irreversible brain damage so any chance that the experimental
U.S. therapy might help had already faded.
"If Charlie has had a relationship with the world around him
since his best interests were determined, it has been one of
suffering," the hospital said.
The judge hearing the case, Nicholas Francis, said no
parents could have done more for their child.
GOSH and the family will now discuss the immediate future
and the parents plan to set up a fund in his honour.
"We are now going to spend our last precious moments with
our son Charlie, who unfortunately won't make his first birthday
in just under two weeks' time," Gard said.
"To Charlie, we say mummy and daddy, we love you so much. We
always have and we always will and we are so sorry that we
couldn't save you."