With great sadness, the health, welfare, and best interests of baby Charlie Gard were not allowed to be protected by his parents. Rather, the state determined, right to the end, what was best for Charlie.
The lethal combination of an international standard giving state actors precedence over parents (see Suffer the Little Children: How the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Has Not Supported Children ) combined with government health care effectively removed Charlie’s parents from his care and protection.
This sad tragedy is discussed further in depth at The Legal Significance of the Natural Affection of Charlie Gard's Parents drafted by Prof. Louis Hensler, who surveys the importance of the concept of the natural affection of parents for their children in American law. He also explores the significance of the possible ongoing shift in the perceived basis of this natural affection from an understanding that natural affection is given by God to consideration of the possibility that there is no such thing as natural affection at all, with particular attention to the case of Charlie Gard. Having presented this concept of natural affections at Pepperdine Law School’s Nootbaar Institute this past spring, Prof. Hensler has been watching and applying his ideas to the Charlie Gard conflict. You will find his ideas most interesting.
Tracing the Foundations of the Best Interest of the Child Standard in American Jurisprudence reveals the great differences between the rights and duties of parents toward children in American law versus those around the world. While the Gard family’s opportunity for restoration with their now deceased son here on earth is ended, they still need our prayers, for now, and toward complete restoration in eternity.
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