One other thing about the baby Gard case...

All of those Right wingers complaining that it's outrageous that a court should be supplanting the parents decision about what's right for their child - where's your outrage when courts intervene to override Jehovah's Witness parents' refusal to allow blood transfusions?   In cases such as this.

As I argued in my previous post, sometimes parents can't be relied on to make reasonable decisions, and it's appropriate the courts intervene.  

And don't think that Catholic thought on this is uniform.  The rather conservative columnist priest Fr Lucie-Smith in the Catholic Herald wrote back in April:

On initial reading of the case, it seems that the court has condemned Charlie to death. But the decision in fact may be the right one to make. It is absolutely true, of course, that we should do our best to preserve life, but not at any cost. There comes a time in all cases where doctors can, and indeed must, tell patients that there is nothing further that medical science can do for them. For there may well come a time when further medical intervention is either useless or counter-productive, and nature must be allowed to take its course.

However, while it may well be the case that families are ready to accept the sad decision that palliative care only is to be offered from now on in the case of a beloved grandparent in her 90s, it is quite understandable that the parents of a very young child may not be willing to accept a similar medical judgment. That presumably explains why this case has ended up in court. Charlie’s doctors and Charlie’s parents found themselves in profound disagreement, of the sort that could only be resolved in the High Court.