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According to a blog post by the Mises Institute:

...the court system in the United Kingdom, at the behest of National Health Service bureaucrats, abducted and murdered an 8-month-old baby...

...the courts in the UK ruled that Charlie Gard, against the wishes of his parents, must be immediately removed from life support and left to die. Unlike cases in the US where it is usually the family that is arguing for or against extending hope that their loved ones can be rescued, the only people arguing against continued efforts were government officials and some third party public onlookers. What makes the Charlie Gard case so disturbing is that this is a case where no family member made any argument to remove the child from life support. The government simply overruled them and took their child.

Is this an accurate account of what occurred?

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Jayson Virissimo
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Not according to the BBC

Doctors had argued that continuing life-support treatment would not benefit Charlie but "prolong the process of dying".

A lawyer representing Great Ormond Street Hospital said: "This is not pioneering or life-sustaining treatment, but a purely experimental process with no real prospect of improving Charlie's condition or quality of life.".

and from the Guardian

In his full ruling, Francis said that no one with Charlie’s mutation had ever been treated with the nucleoside therapy proposed, adding that a US expert had said there was no direct evidence it could improve the child’s condition, just a theoretical scientific basis it could help. The US doctor later acknowledged, after seeing documents about the severity of the condition, that it was “very unlikely” that Charlie would improve with that therapy.

so while the court did rule that the child should be taken off life-support, the claim that "the only people arguing against continued efforts were government officials and some third party public onlookers." clearly isn't true as the child's doctors and the hospital were arguing against continuing treatment. It is nothing to do with the government AFAICS, but the medics and the judiciary, although it appears to have raised concerns about the availability of legal aid in such cases.

Very sad case, and a difficult ethical position for all concerned, but the blog article is not an accurate representation, based on these reports.

From the blog article "Except a major feature of the free market, private charity, kicked in wonderfully." seems a rather "nuanced" view to me. Private charities are not a particular feature of free markets. "As government court systems are wont to do, they sided with themselves" the U.K. judicial system is independent of what would be considered there as "government", and quite frequently go against it (see here for a recent notable example). As noted by @GordonM the language of the blog post is rather hyperbolic. These things, considered together, do not give [me] confidence that the blog is unbiased and without agenda.

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    I suspect the blog meant "government" in the general sense of "the entire governmental system," which necessarily includes (non-private) courts, not in the Westminster sense of "the current Parliamentary leadership." – jwodder May 04 '17 at 13:46
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    @jwodder could be, however this clearly isn't being driven by the judiciary either, they are just arbitrating a dispute between the parents and the doctors/hospital management, so it doesn't fit with the apparent libertarian message of the blog post AFAICS (which seemed in pretty poor taste to me, but that is beside the point). In the U.K. one would not normally view judges as "government officials". –  May 04 '17 at 14:42
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    "nuanced" is an unnecessarily polite way of referring to the claim "[e]xcept a major feature of the free market, private charity, kicked in wonderfully". – Jack Aidley May 04 '17 at 14:49
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    @JackAidley I apologise for being English and addicted to meiosis; I'll add quotes to make my meaning clearer. ;o) –  May 04 '17 at 14:50
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    You might want to add that Charlie Gard is still alive, as of 04/05/2017, over a week after his alleged "abduction and murder". – Agent_L May 04 '17 at 15:09
  • "Private charities are not a particular feature of free markets" - I haven't seen the sentence in context but at least as depicted in the post it wasn't claimed that it was unique feature of free market. Also depending on what you exactly mean by "free market" it may be considered part of free market side in mixed economy but this is more semantic discussion. [That doesn't changes main claims made my answer] – Maciej Piechotka May 04 '17 at 15:26
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    @MaciejPiechotka it is a quote from the blog post that is the source of the claim in the question. I didn't say it was a unique feature, but that it wasn't a particular feature of the free market (you can have a free market without charities and you can have charities without free markets) - there is no real link between the two AFAICS. Thus is it just a bit of cheap rhetoric in favour of free-market without any real factual basis. –  May 04 '17 at 15:30
  • I feel like leading off with a blanket denial as you do implies more of the story is false than actually is. The article is obviously written in an inflammatory way, yes, but the core claim that the courts ordered the baby removed from life support against the parents' wishes is true and I feel like this answer downplays that. – Kevin May 04 '17 at 15:57
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    In American English, "government" just means the state, and _does_ include the judiciary, so I'd like this answer better if it didn't include that confusing aside. – Jayson Virissimo May 04 '17 at 16:20
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    @JaysonVirissimo the usage of the term seems somewhat different in the U.K. (where this case was tried) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_the_United_Kingdom It needs mentioning because it is one of the ways in which the blog article is incorrect, I've modified the wording, hopes that helps. –  May 04 '17 at 16:33
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    @JaysonVirissimo Being English, I can tell you I would never assume someone saying "Government" without explicitly saying so was including the courts or judicial system. For one the Judicial Appointments Commission has control over judge selection and is independent of the Government, and in fact in many ways is there to balance and oppose the Government and ensure it cannot dominate legally. The UK also does not use district attorneys or any equivalent and very few judicial positions are political or elected. Losing that "aside" would be misleading, as it is a key part of the issue here. – Vality May 04 '17 at 17:35
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    @Vality: I understand the linguistic differences, but saying it is an error in the blog post isn't correct, since the blog post is in American English and uses the term 'government' correctly for that dialect. – Jayson Virissimo May 04 '17 at 17:42
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    @JaysonVirissimo I guess what I am trying to say is the difference is not just linguistics, it is also substantially different in actual implementation. In the USA the judicial system is much more closely linked to the government and has political affiliation. Some judges are elected, political and government organisations have power over their appointment and can influence them. In the UK the judicial system is completely separate with no political or government affiliation, so the "government" in reality has absolutely no say over what they do and could not have influenced this ruling at all – Vality May 04 '17 at 17:49
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    @JaysonVirissimo I disagree, the blog appears to draw incorrect inferences by treating the judicial system in the U.K. as if it was like that which exists in the USA, which it isn't. ""As government court systems are wont to do, they sided with themselves" it isn't a "government court system" in the U.K. in the way it is in the US. It may be an American blog post, but it discusses the U.K. judicial system, so it needs to use terminology that will not mislead the reader, for instance implying that the judiciary was siding with "another branch of government", rather than acting independently. –  May 04 '17 at 18:01
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    @Vality "the decision was more about if the NHS was going to spend tax money to pay for this seemingly dubious treatment" No, this was not what the court decision was about. The Guardian article makes it very clear that this was not about money. The court case was very clearly about determining what was best for the child, regardless of cost. The parents had raised £1.2 million to pay for experimental treatment in the US. The court ruled that this would not be in the interest of the child. – jkej May 04 '17 at 18:31
  • @jkej fair enough, looks like I didn't fully get that. Comment removed. – Vality May 04 '17 at 18:48
  • @DikranMarsupial while I don't deny that post engaged in very hyperbolic, charitably speaking, pro-free-market rhetoric but you need to take into account specific language/philosophy underlying post. Anarchocapitalists (popular political option in Mises Institute IIRC) would like the charities to take over all of the safety net. In a sense it is as if comunist said "voting is a key element of communist system" - while true that you may imagine communism without voting as well as voting without communism, it is key element of The System they have in mind - feasibility of one none withstanding. – Maciej Piechotka May 04 '17 at 19:55
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    @DikranMarsupial I don't think target audience is the UK readers but US first and international second. I might get the nomenclature wrong as I'm not native speaker but I seen 'government' to either mean a state as a whole (all 3 branches) or just a cabinet in parliamentary systems. See for example Oxford dictionary "the system by which a state or community is governed" "the group of people with the authority to govern a country or state". Given that almost all democratic nations have Montesquieu's separation of powers I don't think it caused confusion in anyone. – Maciej Piechotka May 04 '17 at 20:13
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    @MaciejPiechotka if the target audience was the US, it is even more important that the difference between the US and UK systems is made clear, rather than obfuscated. "I don't think it caused confusion in anyone." evidently it did as the argument made in the blog article was incorrect exactly because the UK has an independent judiciary. –  May 05 '17 at 06:53
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    Outside of libertarian texts I have never seen "government" used to include the judiciary - it always means the executive and sometimes includes the legislature. Re Montesquieu's separation of powers, the UK system blurs the executive and legislative parts of the tripartite. – Lag May 05 '17 at 12:29
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    You assert that the claim is false, yet the only concrete issue you raise with it is a definitional quibble over the writer considering NHS doctors to be members of the "government" (entirely typical language for the libertarian right). I'm not sure what exactly you're claiming the blog post got wrong. – Mark Amery May 05 '17 at 17:55
  • @jwodder That would be "the state", not "the government". – David Richerby May 05 '17 at 17:57
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    @DikranMarsupial So does US - and it seems not only in principle (see Trumps executive order). For all the misleading information in the article I think this is difference in language and suggestions that state powers are not independent (claim which may be contended in both systems), not (intentional or not) misunderstanding of differences between UK and US systems. That said it's minor point compared to rest of answer so I don't think it is worth it to discuss it further. – Maciej Piechotka May 05 '17 at 18:08
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    @DavidRicherby State might be confusing for american reader as state is used for well states in united states (California, Colorado...). MarkAmery I think that author of the post claimed that the (in UK English) state powers are not de-facto independent not that the state powers are officially dependent on one another. (PS. How to move discussion to chat?) – Maciej Piechotka May 05 '17 at 18:15
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    @Agent_L that seems worth of its own answer. The "murder victim" being alive pretty much puts the nail in the coffin of the claim. (Sorry, pun intended) – stannius May 05 '17 at 18:25
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    @MarkAmery "You assert that the claim is false", no, the account is not an accurate representation of what has happened (which was what the question asks "Is this an accurate account of what occurred?") but that doesn't mean it is 100% incorrect. For an example of something the blog post got wrong, you can start with the doctors being against further treatment. –  May 05 '17 at 19:07
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    Hilarious that soi-disant 'skeptics' think that selecting judges by a committee with 'independent' in its bumph, means that somehow the judiciary is magically no longer a state instrument ('safe hands' who can be relied on to do exactly what .gov.uk expects them to when it *really* matters). The 'justice' system is a government institution; the big hint is that it's funded by taxation (that it relies on mediaeval costumes and 'gravitas' to fig-leaf its purported authority is another hint). Hands up who knows anything about the career trajectories of Judicial Appointments Committee members? – GT. May 05 '17 at 22:33
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    The judiciary in the UK's legal jurisdictions are 'independent' in the usual sense: independent of the government (meaning the 'executive') and its subordinate entities, holding such organisations to account if there is a dispute and forcing them to follow the rules if there is an adverse judgment. – Lag May 06 '17 at 07:19
  • @DikranMarsupial *'no, the account is not an accurate representation of what has happened (which was what the question asks "Is this an accurate account of what occurred?")'* - ah, I took you to be responding to the question in the title (at the time) rather than the one in the body. So, okay, what was "inaccurate" about the blog post's representation of what occurred? Your answer still lists no inaccuracies whatsoever. *"you can start with the doctors being against further treatment"* - hmm? The blog didn't mention any of the doctors involved in the case, so cannot have misrepresented them. – Mark Amery May 06 '17 at 17:21
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    Sounds like a veiled "luckily, everything can be had for a price in a free market, allowing private charity (individual agents with money) to outlever government" :) – rackandboneman May 06 '17 at 17:46
  • I don't think it's legitimate to quote the BBC, which is the government's propaganda and PR outlet. You are also forgetting that medicine is socialized in Britain so the doctors and hospitals _are_ government officials as they work for the government. – Chloe May 07 '17 at 00:11
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    @Chloe what in the BBC article or the answer's quote from it is "propaganda", specifically? So far as I can tell, there is nothing in it that is biased, misleading or promoting a particular point of view. It seems fairly objective and accurate. Which UK media outlets are in your view "legitimate to quote"? Is it "legitimate to quote" from the judgment, or is that out of bounds as it is the output of something paid for by the state? – Lag May 07 '17 at 11:04
  • @ElGuapo Yes if it's paid for by the state, then it's out of bounds. People don't bite the hand that feeds them. It is similar to Moody's being paid by banks for a AAA investment rating, when it's a junk bond. It's a [perverse incentive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive). – Chloe May 07 '17 at 17:55
  • @Chloe "People don't bite the hand that feeds them" - that doesn't seem true in the context as UK courts have handed down judgments against the state. In any case, it would be difficult to comment on a court case if the court is out of bounds. – Lag May 07 '17 at 19:25
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    @Chloe Since your comment would invalidate this answer, you should probably provide your own answer so people aren't misled by this one. – Rawling May 08 '17 at 05:28
  • @DikranMarsupial Though this is an old thread, but I wanted to comment because this issue keeps creating confusion. In US English the word "government" refers to all who act in the name of the state. If the courts were not part of the "government", then attendance would be optional and their decisions simply advisory. In another answer someone objected that the Metropolitan Police are not part of the government because they are independent. To my American ears this makes it sound like they work for the rebels. The UK sense of "her majesty's government" is not generally understood here. – David42 Sep 19 '18 at 12:52
  • @David42 see answers to previous questions of this nature. Discussions of things that happen in the USA often seem odd to my British ears, but my reaction is to understand the differences and accommodate the apparent oddness. Note the question has been edited more recently than my answer. –  Sep 20 '18 at 09:51
  • You misunderstand the statement that “As government court systems are wont to do, they sided with themselves.” If here “government” meant “10 Downing St”, then it would be an error in need of correction. But to an American the government is the IRS, the EPA, the FDA, the Department of Justice, not politicians. Especially to libertarians “government” means any public body which can interfere in the private affairs of a citizen. Here the courts are “government courts” because they sided, as “they are wont to do”, with the “government”, specifically with “National Health Service bureaucrats”. – David42 Sep 21 '18 at 14:27
  • Not all the world is the USA. The governmental systems in other parts of the world operate differently than they do in the USA. IMHO, it is better for the USA to understand how government actually operates in the country in question, rather than shoehorn the story to fit USA expectations (and by doing so misrepresent it). –  Sep 25 '18 at 14:49
  • Nor is the UK the only English-speaking country. By insisting on reading the article as if it were written in UK English you insert new factual errors into the article. The "government officials" of the article are the NHS doctors themselves. (They hold posts in a 'government hospital'.) The UK courts "sided with themselves" in that they sided with others in the state power structure, namely these same doctors. Since the doctors are not politicians, the political independence of the courts is totally irrelevent. The author sees these events as proof that "government health care" is evil. – David42 Oct 16 '18 at 19:33
  • The story is one that happened in the UK, so if you want to properly understand the story, you need to view it in the context of the UKs political system. It is introducing factual error to shoehorn it into any other context, however much you want to spin the story. –  Oct 17 '18 at 06:32
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The short answer is No.

I don't understand the use of the words "abduct" and "murder" in the context except as hyperbole and the post seems to have at best a slim grasp of the facts.

The court's decision, summary reasons and judgment are available from Bailii here http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2017/972.html.

Why did the court have any say at all? Power is vested by law in the court "exercising its independent and objective judgment in the child's best interests" (para 36). All parties agreed the child lacked capacity to make decisions for his medical treatment. He was represented by a guardian who appointed legal counsel. All parties including the parents agreed the child's "present quality of life is one that is not worth sustaining" (paras 14, 48, 117, 126).

There is a strong presumption in favour of life but it is not absolute (paras 13, 38, 39 vii, 126). The parents' wishes are not paramount (paras 11, 36, 39 x). The "court must do the best it can to balance all the conflicting considerations in a particular case and see where the final balance of the [child's] best interests lies" (paras 11, 13, 38, 39 vi). The court heard from medical experts (paras 15, 18, 21, 33, 35, 63, 91) including an expert witness instructed by the parents who "was able to offer nothing at all to support their case" (paras 91, 92).

The doctor who offered the "pioneering treatment" (that had not been even been tested on mice, para 49) sought by the parents said after discussing with Great Ormand Street's consultant that he "can understand the opinions that he is so severely affected by encephalopathy that any attempt at therapy would be futile. I agree that it is very unlikely that he will improve with that therapy. It is unlikely." (para 18)

The "principal issue" with which the court had to "grapple" was that the treatment was likely futile according to all the experts and it may cause further suffering to the child (para 49).

The court decided that artificial ventilation should be withdrawn and the treating clinicians should provide palliative care only (para 23, 129).

Lag
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    "I don't understand the use of the words 'abduct' and 'murder' in the context except as hyperbole..." So you understand their use perfectly! – David Richerby May 05 '17 at 15:30
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    good job editing – Sklivvz May 05 '17 at 17:00
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    @DavidRicherby The author of the blogpost wrote, "This might sound like a severe bout of hyperbole, but that is exactly what happened." – Lag May 05 '17 at 19:46
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    @ElGuapo Yes, a severe bout of hyperbole _is_ exactly what happened. :-) – David Richerby May 05 '17 at 22:56
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    *I don't understand the use of the words "abduct" and "murder" in the context except as hyperbole* —"abduct" is clearly not strictly accurate since there wasn't an active movement of the baby, but if you had a loved one about to die in a hospital that refused to let you transfer them to another hospital, I'm sure you'd struggle to find a better word to describe that situation. And "murder" is a matter of semantics; The court ordered an action to be taken that would almost surely end a life. Is that murder? I can definitely see the argument for that, can you really not? – Kevin May 07 '17 at 03:29
  • @Kevin If the parents did not have this glimmer of hope they would not seek to have his life sustained (para 110). In which case, would withdrawal of life support be "murdering" the child? Really? I don't think it would be murder. Of course it would be understandable if someone in the circumstances believed it to be murder. But they should not. Nor should people trying to make a point about healthcare use words like "abduct" and "murder" so loosely as in the blog post. – Lag May 07 '17 at 07:09
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    @Kevin For a killing to be murder, it must be unlawful. One could argue that a court-sanctioned withdrawal of a person's life-support is as bad as murder, but it isn't murder. – David Richerby May 07 '17 at 18:48
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    @DavidRicherby I broadly agree, but in fairness to the blog post's author, the word "murder" is used by plenty of writers figuratively or hyperbolically (e.g. "meat is murder!"), or by people who consider some other source of law to be supreme over the laws of men (e.g. Christians' commandment "thou shalt not murder", or the half million hits on Google for the phrase "abortion is murder"). Unless the blog post's author is actually disputing the facts (and I don't think he is, in this regard), I think getting too hung up on whether his political rhetoric is *literally* true misses the point. – Mark Amery May 08 '17 at 20:29
  • As you say, though, they didn’t merely decide that an experimental treatment should be disallowed. They affirmatively decided to remove life support, under the presumption that, as you said, “present quality of life is one that is not worth sustaining,” a statement which all parties (including the parents?) agreed with. – Obie 2.0 Apr 06 '18 at 19:38
  • @Obie2.0 para 126 "Very sadly in Charlie's case there is a consensus across the board, including from his parents, that Charlie's current quality of life is not one that should be sustained without hope of improvement." The decision was to remove life support because there was no prospect of improvement and continued artificial life support might prolong his suffering. – Lag Apr 24 '18 at 07:05
  • @Lag - It sounds like you’re telling me something that I already know. Are you trying to correct something in my comment? – Obie 2.0 Apr 24 '18 at 07:42
  • @Obie2.0 you wrote "including the parents?" which looks like a question. Your claim about the reason for removal of life support is incomplete: it's not sufficient reason that his “present quality of life is one that is not worth sustaining". If there were a prospect of improvement from a treatment, his life would be sustained for the treatment. – Lag Apr 24 '18 at 08:18
  • @Lag - That clarification is interesting, but it doesn't seem to change the substance of the quote, does it? That the "present quality" is not something that people should be "sustaining" kind of implies that if a different quality of life can be reached, it *would* be worth keeping them alive. They're not "sustaining" present quality of life if they are *improving* it. But yes, it's helpful to know that the parents agreed, for the sale of completeness. – Obie 2.0 Apr 24 '18 at 08:23