Grim defeat for one child, his parents, and every family

Bureaucracy won a major battle this week. The battleground was Britain rather than America, but the issue is a universal one, for the battle was over the central government's right to deprive a patient, in this case a baby, of medical treatment. It was also a battle by the state to deprive loving, non-abusive parents of the right to determine what's best for their child.

It was a battle no government should ever wage.

The parents of 11-month-old Charlie Gard finally surrendered this week in their fight to assert their rightful control over the little boy's medical care. The confounding question — and the outraging answer — are about why the parents' control was ever questioned. No one ever accused them of being bad parents. They neither abused their dying baby son nor tried to deprive him of care. They had not given their government cause to intervene and imprison him in a hospital, from which they were forbidden to remove him.

As Charlie's parents, they had what should be a universally understood right to determine his care, in consultation with doctors and with the benefit of outside medical opinions if that proved necessary.

They were deprived of that right after the boy was diagnosed with a rare mitochondrial disorder and admitted to the Great Ormond Street Hospital. At first, both his parents and his medical team wanted to allow him to receive an experimental treatment. But after his condition worsened due to a series of seizures, the hospital staff not only withdrew its support but went to court to remove Charlie's life support in defiance of his parents' wishes. As the legal battle ground on — remember that saying about the wheels of justice turning slowly? — Charlie's parents were prevented from taking him elsewhere for treatment or even just to die in peace. And as time went by, his condition got worse.