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A BRITISH COURT began re-examining the case of a terminally ill baby today whose life support is due to be withdrawn at a London hospital, after Pope Francis and US President Donald Trump intervened in the case.
London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital said last week that it had received “claims of new evidence” that 11-month-old Charlie Gard could be treated for his disease and has asked a court to rule on how to proceed.
The boy’s parents, who submitted a petition of over 350,000 signatures demanding that they be allowed to take him to the United States for treatment, attended the hearing at the High Court in London.
His father Chris Gard shouted at a barrister representing the hospital saying: “When are you going to start telling the truth?”
Judge Nicholas Francis asked the parents to set out any “new evidence” they had and later adjourned the hearing until Thursday.
Pope Francis last week expressed his support for the baby’s parents and said he hoped doctors would allow them to “care for their child until the end”.
Bambino Gesu, a Vatican-run hospital in Rome, has since offered to treat Gard and sent medical advice suggesting that treatment could be possible.
Trump also waded into the debate last week, tweeting that the United States “would be delighted” to help.
A US doctor has also proposed treatment for Gard.
The British hospital said on Friday that it stood by its opinion that Gard’s rare form of mitochondrial disease, which causes progressive muscle weakness in the heart and other key organs, was not treatable.
Doctors there believe Gard’s brain damage is “severe and irreversible” and have said the baby may be suffering, in contradiction to the parents’ views.
But doctors said it was “right to explore” any new evidence and said they were seeking the court’s view.
Gard’s parents have lost a series of appeals in British courts and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and had no further legal recourse.
“He’s our son, he’s our flesh and blood. We feel that it should be our right as parents to decide to give him a chance,” his mother Connie Yates said yesterday.
“The whole world knows about us and about Charlie and our fight… Until you’re in this situation, you don’t understand the power of hope,” she said.
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Methinks the DUP will continue to find excuses not to restart the Stormont Assembly until the next election cycle because they didn’t like the result of the last ones.
@Des Leavy: Yea agree and the DUP MPs in Westminster are riding roughshod over their own MLAs in Stormont.
You can take a horse to water but you can’t make him drink as the old saying goes but if he doesn’t drink he will die and I think that is what,s happening to the DUP at this stage the horse has shot himself in three of his legs so there is just one left
Can’t imagine two failed, incompetent politicians like Truss and Johnson are going to bring much to the party?
@Paul Shepherd: Truss is over to have a ganders at those “ few farmers with turnips in their trucks”!!!
@M Bowe: and Johnson probably thinks a work event so he’ll have a suitcase full of booze from Tesco….
@Paul Shepherd: I was wondering exactly the same. Two hard line Brexiteers who are along with the DUP responsible for the current mess.
Biden describes himself as Irish-American where he identifies strongly with an external Irish culture but is American nonetheless. Likewise,Varadkar and Sunak are both Indian-Irish and Indian-British on the same basis and depending on how much identify with the external Indian culture.
Neither Sunak nor Varadkar is biracial as the invalid biological notion of ‘races’ is a throwback to another era where a section of influential English society saw themselves as an Anglo-Saxon ‘race’ with an imperative to be aggressive and exterminate native cultures.
The Brexiteers are among the last of that section of their society with their total disregard for the island of Ireland along with the hapless Unionists who identify as Irish-British as they a born on the island of Ireland and identify with an external British culture.
To tackle an artificial races/racism conviction inherited from dangerous people in the 19th century is an enormous endeavour yet, almost immediately, readers can see how absurd the whole thing is. It is on this basis that people on this island both North and South move forward and influence the wider world when it comes to the invalid notion of ‘races’.
But, none can influence Donaldson and his DUP share power or engage in the process he walked out on 25 years ago.
What the DUP want is self justification and they have been consistent?
It’s a perfect example of the importance of identity.
is it a microcosm for Brexit?
The most important people here are the DUPs financial backers. The business people of NI will have the final say.
Stop paying their salaries, and that might focus their minds on getting back to work.
Varadkar sunaking up to bill for forgiveness over his paddy’s day joke gaff
@P. V. Aglue: poor syntax
The DUP don’t care about what is happening right now. They keep saying the same thing over and over again in a different words: either 100% what they want or no agreement and no power sharing.
So all those flights of important ppl back and forth are and were pointless.
@Shesh: Don’t agree because now the whole world knows what a bunch of dinosaurs the DUP really are.
As the camera pans around there’s Leo Varadkar picking his nose…
Any disccusion about bringing peace at your home punjab!
Could we just stop talking about the Political Situation in Northern Ireland for the next 100 Years, and hopefully by then the DUP might have moved an inch or so.
Our great national broadcaster can’t be bothered showing coverage of this today. Not even on its news channel. Sky news showing all the speeches live earlier. Then again, not surprised by them
Ireland england scotland all indian people this must be a first well done folks thats impressive
You know if you take the most rabid unionist and republican lock them in a container, and don’t let them out until they sort out there difference or one kills the other . Either way you would have movement.
for нот chat url1.io/s/4xY5X
@EmmaH: Are we going to talk about Leo or Rishi?
have your say