BBC Radio 4 20170726

Good morning. Every day thousands of prayer requests are written and candles lit in cathedrals and churches all over Britain. Here in Norwich Cathedral I’ve noticed how frequently prayers have been asked in recent days for Charlie Gard and his parents – almost always from those who cannot have known them personally at all. But many of us do know what it is to be parents or to have experienced parental love, and even if we haven’t, our imaginative sympathy is aroused.

The dignity of the statement made by Charlie’s parents on Monday will stay with me. It illustrated the depth of their love for their son and their recognition that there was now no treatment which could offer him a full and happy life. Their wish was to be allowed to share Charlie’s final days and hours as fully as possible. Wherever that is, I hope they find their peace.

I followed the unfolding of the Charlie Gard story feeling sympathetic by turn with everyone involved. Our greatest moral dilemmas can be caused by the conflict not between good and evil but between two good principles. In this case it was the balance between the preservation and enhancement of life and the need to avoid futile treatment and the suffering it may cause. There are no easy answers where two good moral intentions collide.

I’ve been conscious too that there are many families who have known the death of infants and may have been reliving their own past, if different, experience during these weeks. It’s now over thirty years since my wife and I were grieved by the death of our second daughter, Victoria, when she was six months old. Time does heal, but not entirely, for wounds can be scratched unexpectedly. Bereaved parents following the story of Charlie Gard may have retraced what happened in the case of their own child, and wondered again about the place of that child in their lives.

Even now, when I’m asked how many children I have, I feel disloyal if I don’t mention Victoria. But if I do the discomfort it can cause reminds me that people are uncertain how to respond.

One comment made to us surprisingly frequently years ago did make the grief worse. “You can have another child to replace her,” we were told. A child cannot be replaced like a battery or a motor car as if a human life was just one more commodity. Charlie Gard reminds us of the value of every individual life, and not just his own.