“Charlotte’s physicians have determined that her life is so unnecessary and wasted that she should be allowed to die without treatment”.

This is just utter rubbish. If it were just you, I probably would’t bother taking you to task, but unfortunately there seem to be large numbers of people like you who clearly don’t know the facts, or worse distort them in favour of the pro life cause, a la Raven and her good ole’ buddies.

If you had taken the trouble to read the court rulings in this unhappy case, you would know that this business has almost nothing in common with the Schiavo case. This is NOT a DNR case, repeat, NOT a DNR case, despite the nonsense that you may read on the family website and elsewhere.

Also, this case is not and never has been about money, the cost of Charlotte’s treatment has always been met by the NHS and it always will be. End of.

Charlotte’s doctors have in fact done everything in their power to keep Charlotte alive and the fact that she IS still alive (though not well) is 100% a testament to their skill and dedication. Her parents can claim no credit at all for that, in fact there is a suspicion that Mr Wyatt may in fact have caused or contributed to her condition in the first place and they have certainly interfered in her treatment.

The facts are all set out in the various legal judgments in this case, whihc are in the public domain and should be essential reading for anyone who claims to have an opinion about all of this.

What happened was that, as Charlotte became more and more ill, relations between the family and the hospital broke down. Mr Wyatt apparently blamed the doctors for Charlotte’s condition. He made threats to hospital staff and at one point the parents had to be banned from seeing Charlotte unless accompanied by a security guard.

It has to be emphasised that Mr Wyatt was never prepared to repeat any of his allegations in Court, in fact his barrister made it clear that the family accepted that the doctors had done everything that they could and that her treatment had been exemplary.

In that sort of atmosphere it’s obviously impossible to make a joint decision about what’s best, so there is a well-established legal mechanism which hospitals use to deal in advance with any expected disagreements about patient care. It was the hospital who took the matter to Court, not the Wyatts. The Wyatts got legal aid and have not had to pay anything out of their own pockets.

The doctors said that they felt that a time might soon come when Charlotte would become even more ill and need rescuscitation to keep her alive. The Wyatts had already made it clear that they wanted Charlotte to be kept alive at any cost, even if that meant using treatment which (the doctors feared) might be cruel, inhumane and against conscience.

The pro-lifers such as Raven, and I presume you, love to bandy the “DNR” label about as if some death sentence had been passed. The court order did no such thing. What it did was to protect the hospital and allow the doctors to carry on doing their best for Charlotte without having the parents interfering, particularly at critical moments.

Several of the doctors said that they might well have a go at rescuscitation in some circumstances, but they all agreed that there would come a point where it would be cruel to do more. Even the parents accepted that this point might be reached at some stage; their behaviour throughout unfortunately demonstrates that they are the wrong people to ask at the time when a hard-headed decision has to be made about what to do.

Unfortunately it’s clear from your post that you believe (apparently in common with so many people who clearly have never been put in such a hard place themselves) that any price is fair so long as life is continued. You clearly have no real experience of such things, otherwise you wouldn’t spout this nonsense. You clearly don’t understand that there are some things which are worse than death. You need to read the Court judgments which in places are reminiscent of the tale of Frankenstein’s monster, then perhaps you would understand.

All of that said, my own view (which you conveniently distort in your post) is that it is right to count the cost, because what the pro-lifers conveniently forget is that we live in a world where resources are limited – that means that if they are used in one way, they cannot be used in another way. They have to be prioritised. Nobody likes to hear this made explicit, particularly where money is concerned, but it is an absolute fact of life and it does not just apply to money, it applies to everything.

I don’t object that Charlotte has the cost of her medical needs met out of public funds, that’s provided for under the NHS rules and I have no problem with her getting whatever care her doctors say she needs and which can be afforded by the local trust.

What I do object to are:

a) the waste of public money on unnecessary legal costs (about which see my earlier post)

b) the fact that the parents appear to have put maximal participation in Charlotte’s court case, and the need to “win” at all costs, above the needs of their other children, who now are going to be brought up in a broken home, apparently with a convicted sex offender for a step-dad (see recent Daily Mail articles).

Perhaps the family would have broken up anyway, but this business cannot have helped and it clearly split the family down the middle. Which is why most of my venom is directed at Mr Wyatt and anyone else who thinks that he’s done anything worthwhile in the past three years, not especially at Raven or at you, good sir/madam.

As for the “horrors of a foster family”, I disagree with Amazed on this point. Actually I think it’s the best thing that could have happened to Charlotte. At least now she has a chance of living out her life in peace and anonymity instead of being held up in front of the media like some grotesque mascot.

All of you miss the point, either because you are foolish, or because you are twisted beyond belief.

The girl has now been born. She lives. Speculation as to the cause of her condition is pointless, as is speculation as to the motives and actions of her admittedly negligent parents. Charlotte’s physicians have determined that her life is so unnecessary and wasted that she should be allowed to die without treatment. I suppose that we should be glad that these mini-Mengeles don’t advocate a more active approach (yet), but the fact that physicians in Great Britain are so uncommitted to saving a child’s life is chilling. (Can this be the same Great Britain that planted the seeds of individual liberty that eventually flowered in America? If so, RUE Britannia).

I also find chilling the astounding reaction by some that Charlotte’s life will result in unspeakable pain and devastating abuse by foster parents, and that therefore, she should be extinguished sooner rather than later. To do so would ease somebody’s tax burden, I surmise from reading the posts of our Brit friends on this site….

Well, Charlotte may suffer in the future. Or, she may, within the bounds of her condition, thrive. I can’t say, because I am neither a sideshow fortune teller nor a time traveler from the future. I can say that she will be alive, though. It may sound trite or cliched, but there are no guarantees in life. Even if Charlotte were to live for thirty years and curse every day of her existence, it is not an excuse for her to be thrown to the side of the road now by well-meaning (but naive) people or by sick and cruel “survival-of-the-fittest” types who balance a living human against costs to themselves like an accountant balances a ledger.

If we can’t be 100% certain of this little girl’s future (and we can’t), isn’t it better to err on the side of life?

Please consider this before you reflexively spit your venom at Raven.

The parents aren’t christian.

The parents aren’t moral.

Unwilling to allow Gods will to be done they demanded that doctors interfere.

The doctors realised this child wouldn’t have loving and caring parents and that the child had multiple and severe problems- possibly beginning when “dad” punched or kicked “mom”- and the doctors didn’t want to play God.

Charlotte needed the love of a MOTHER and a FATHER, the will of God and the talent of many medical professionals before she would have the chance to have a life without suffering, sadness, and being alone and lonely.

God had a plan. But Charlotte wasn’t allowed to follow Gods heavenly plan because PEOPLE interfered between Charlotte and God. People interfered with tubes, machines, potions, elixirs, pills, salves, ointments, cremes and oxygen from a can. People interfered in the courts. People interfered with money.

How much money did you people send to mom and dad?

I bet they enjoyed the pro life money train ride as much as the Schindlers are still enjoying theirs.

The Schindler family is paying themselves exhorbitant salaries and perks out of the monies sent to help their daughter. Heard the Schindler foundation made more than 300,000 us dollars last year from contributions. Toss in the money from the book sales and the Schindlers are paying themselves more money than they had ever earned.

Bobby junior used to be a teacher. I bet he never wore suits and had a limo on his teachers salary. What a great opportunist and profiteer- I bet he taught business classes.

Raven you are a sicko that feeds off misery and suffering. Apparently when you can’t get enough misery and suffering in your own life you go looking to share in the suffering and misery of strangers- people you have never met and that you actually KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.

You don’t want to know if what they say is true. You don’t care about the truth. You just want to share in the drama. You just want to share in the suffering and the pain.

You knew nothing of the character, the morals or the HONESTY of the “parents” of Charlotte Wyatt but you sure were ready to be a little cheer leader standing on the sidelines of what should have been a PRIVATE and PERSONAL family matter- except the “parents” were looking for a little cash and a lot of attention (for themselves, not their daughter).

You, Raven, didn’t care about this childs future.

Now the child is going to be a ward of the state. The child will become anonymous and you, Raven, will never know what horrors the child will face as she is passed from one foster family to another- foster families that probably have other disturbed children, possibly violent or possibly abused.

Charlotte will end up a victim at the hands of other victims.

Doesn’t matter though because YOU will never know what kind of “life” Charlotte will have.

You still think Mr Wyatt’s a nice guy?

I think you’ll find that “scum” (like bread) is uncountable and thus can’t take the singular. I suggest you learn to speak English properly before attempting to insult me.