Glenn: Landmark case with conjoined twins set the stage for Charlie Gard

The Charlie Gard case has become international news: A 10-month-old baby with a rare, terminal genetic condition has been condemned to die by European courts and is being withheld from his parents, who aren’t even allowed to take him home.

On Thursday’s “The Glenn Beck Radio Program,” Glenn Beck looked at the long-term implications of government-controlled health care and tied Charlie’s case back to a landmark ruling in 2000 about conjoined twins.

A British court ruled that Mary and Jodie, conjoined twin daughters of Maltese couple Michaelangelo and Rina Attard, would be separated in order to save Jodie’s life. Doctors said when the girls were born linked at the pelvis that both babies could not live because the smaller twin’s lungs and heart were not properly formed. Mary’s brain was able to sustain her life but hadn’t properly developed, and Jodie was acting like a life-support machine, taxing her own heart as it kept the two babies alive.

Because their parents were devout Catholics, they didn’t want to end Mary’s life. Lord Justice Ward ruled that the twins would be separated so Jodie could live; surgeons successfully separated the girls in a 20-hour procedure in November 2000. Gracie (Jodie’s real name) has since grown into a healthy teenager.

The landmark case established a precedent for the courts, not the parents, to make decisions regarding a child’s life, Glenn asserted.

"England insists that the state knows best," he said.

To see more from Glenn, visit his channel on TheBlaze and listen live to “The Glenn Beck Radio Program” with Glenn Beck, Pat Gray, Stu Burguiere and Jeffy Fisher weekdays 9 a.m.–noon ET on TheBlaze Radio Network.