The Tragedy of Charlie Gard is a Cautionary Tale for America About the Evils of Socialized Medicine

It has long been an aspiration for the Left to impose a single-payer health care system like the kind found in Canada and much of Europe. Proponents of such socialized medicine argue it is the only viable alternative, both economically and morally. However, as the tragic case of Charlie Gard shows, faceless autocrats from government run universal health care bureaucracies invariably abrogate parental rights and the efforts of well-meaning doctors to provide alternate care.

Townhall reports that Charlie’s parents have ended their legal battle as time has simply run out. "Connie Yates and Chris Gard, the parents of Charlie Gard, the terminally-ill baby who they sought to bring to the United States for a last-ditch experimental treatment, have dropped their legal battle to move their son. Per the couple's lawyer, it's simply too late for the treatment to have any... benefit."

"Charlie's parents have been fighting for months to bring their son to the United States, but faced significant legal hurdles throughout the entire process. They raised over $1 million to transport and treat their son, yet the European Court of Human Rights ruled that doing so was not in his best interest, and he had to remain at Great Ormond Street Hospital" [and] life support was to be withdrawn. In short, Charlie Gard was euthanized by bureaucratic stonewalling and delay.

Speaking of medically induced, government sanctioned euthanasia, George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in an article for National Review Online, reflected upon Colorado's Proposition 106, the "End-of-Life Options Act," that legalized physician-assisted suicide in the Centennial State. Weigel noted that the citizens of Colorado should bear in mind the unintended consequences and implicit dangers of such a law. He wrote:

"The more apt mot about all of this lethality masquerading as compassion, however, is from the quotable quotes of... [Fr.] Richard John Neuhaus, who famously said of the morally egregious and its relationship to law, 'What is permitted will eventually become obligatory.' Canada isn’t quite there yet, nor is Belgium; but they’re well on their way, not least because their single-payer health-care systems will increasingly find euthanasia cost-effective — and because the arts of pain relief combined with human support will atrophy in those countries as the 'easy way out' becomes, well, easier and easier."

If we don't defend human dignity and promote a “Culture of Life”, the preborn, the terminally ill and those at the end of life will be summarily terminated because they are “not viable”, too old, too sick, too time consuming or too expensive. This is the “Culture of Death” personified. As Mother Angelica once observed: “The culture of death is hard and unbending. It is without love, without compassion, without hope. It is the blackest pit. It is nothing but darkness.”