Baby Terry, Baby Joseph Maraachli, and now Baby Charlie Gard — examples of big government stripping parents of their rights and ordering the death of children.

By now hopefully you’ve heard of the case of Charlie Gard, an eight month old British baby suffering from a rare disorder. He has been in a London hospital where doctors, so-called ethicists, and government officials have declared that there is no use treating him and he ought to be allowed to die.

But there’s something different about this case: Not only is the hospital refusing to treat Charlie, they are refusing to allow him to be treated.

His courageous parents have raised over a million dollars online to bring him to the United States to a doctor who is willing to help with experimental treatment. The two most influential leaders in the world — the President of the United States and the Pope — have publicly offered to care for Charlie.

But the hospital and British courts will not even allow him to be discharged from the hospital so he can be free to receive experimental treatment. That makes this even more egregious than the Terri Schiavo or Baby Joseph cases. In the Schiavo case, a selfish husband with questionable motives persuaded courts to remove Terri from life support over the wishes of her parents. And in the Baby Joseph case, while the Canadian hospital was not willing to continue his treatment, they allowed him to go to the hospital to receive a simple tracheotomy that would extend his life for a few months.

Charlie is not being effectively sentenced to death for inability to pay — as if that would be a legitimate reason — nor because of the unwillingness of his parents, who have plenty of money and all the heart in the world.

The hospital and the courts have decided, in their superior intellect and supreme knowledge, that Baby Charlie’s life is not worth living. In their minds, Baby Charlie belongs not to his parents but to the State, and when the State decides one of its citizens is worthless, they can decide to kill him. The loving mother and father fighting for the life of their son are, in the State’s eyes, delusional and irresponsible. The elites know what’s best for Charlie: death.

Please pray for Charlie. Pray for his parents. And pray for the souls of the hospital and government officials who are keeping him imprisoned in a quest to kill him.