During an interview on The Rush Limbaugh Show Monday, pro-life U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said he prayed that ill British baby Charlie Gard gets every chance at life.
Charlie Gard, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, is being treated at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. Charlie’s parents have raised £1.3 million ($1.7 million) to take their son to the U.S. for potentially life-saving treatment, but hospital administrators have fought Chris Gard and Connie Yates for months through several courts to have Charlie’s life support removed.
“We hope and pray that little Charlie Gard gets every chance,” said Mr. Pence on the radio programme, adding he prayed for the family to be allowed “to choose the greatest extent of life-saving treatment that’s available to their child”.
Otherwise, the vice president feared, the infant will be “submitted to a government programme that says, ‘no, we’re going to remove life support from your precious 11-month-old child’.”
Mr. Pence’s comments come following support received by U.S. President Donald Trump, who tweeted last week: “If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.”
Pope Francis also came out in support of Charlie being able to receive further treatment, with Rome’s Bambino Gesu hospital, a Vatican-run children’s hospital, offering to receive and treat Charlie – an offer which was rejected by the British government “for legal reasons”.
On Monday afternoon, High Court Judge Mr. Justice Francis, who made the initial High Court ruling in April, said the case would be listed for a full day Thursday. The judge explained a final decision may not come until Friday, meaning more delays to Charlie receiving treatment.
Chief Executive of Americans United for Life, Catherine Glenn-Foster, who is close to the Gard family, said on Sunday: “[Chris and Connie] are stressed as anyone would be in this situation, where their own parental rights are being stripped away by an institution that was hired to care for their son and instituted to care for the most vulnerable among us.
“That very institution hired to care for Charlie is trying to strip him of his rights and his parents of their rights to even just take him to get a second opinion.”