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Article snippet: LONDON — The long journey for Connie Yates and Chris Gard, whose infant son, Charlie, cannot breathe or move on his own, appeared to have come to an end last week. The courts had ruled that the baby’s rare genetic condition was incurable and that the only humane option was to take him off life support. The couple announced that they were getting ready “to say the final goodbye.” Then Pope Francis and President Trump weighed in, offering statements of support and thrusting a global spotlight onto a heart-rending case that has become a cause célèbre in Britain. Their last-minute interventions drew attention to a profoundly difficult bioethical matter, but, experts said, they may have made a tragic situation even worse. Not only has the family exhausted its legal options, but numerous doctors have affirmed that no treatment is likely to reverse the child’s severe brain damage. Those doctors include a neurologist in the United States who had raised the couple’s hopes that an experimental therapy might save their son. Nor is money the main issue, contrary to many of the confusing messages and news reports on the matter. “The tragedy about this case is that the child is dying and there is nothing to stop that, and for a parent that is the worst thing in life,” said Robert D. Truog, a pediatric intensive care doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital and director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School. “What the family needs is to come to terms with this and n... Link to the full article to read more