I must say I appreciated these threads hugely and followed them keenly as the discussion was incredibly balanced with fact, analysis, personal stories, input from HCPs and sensitive moderation to ensure compassion and understanding was always at the forefront.
I also believe that these threads were directly responsible for a lot of support going GOSH's way - I know that I wrote to GOSH and donated out as a result of a request from a Mumsnetter and requested people in my network do the same. Some were not even aware of the GOSH being under such an onslaught as mainstream media reporting was so poor!
Talking of which.... the media reporting on this case was and remains APPALLING (it needed capitals).
From emotive headlines through DM/Sun reporting it as if GOSH had to be convinced rather than the court, to omitting key milestones in the timeline making it look like GOSH never considered the treatment (they did) to never holding Charlie's Army Facebook page to account properly when there was plenty of evidence on threats to GOSH made there, prioritising the emotion over fact. In most articles the balance of reporting of what parents said versus readily available facts from court rulings and GOSH statements was skewed to reporting for the parents including what they looked like and how they sounded for added ghoulish drama. In essence, instead of reporting what was a complex case of law applied to protect the rights of the baby as an individual human being became a story of plucky parents fighting "the system". If you read some of the comments on CA a lot of them were linking to newspaper articles which were then used as a fool proof evidence of their version of "truth" because a paper reported it so it must be true even though the facts verified by scrutiny of a complex court case were readily available. At best it's lazy journalism, at best it's exploitation of a tragic situation.
Interestingly, the Aysha King case was being quoted constantly by people in various discussions and what transpired every single time is how utterly misunderstood that case was by those quoting it, usually as a case to prove how doctors get it wrong or how NHS is somehow intransigent. What most people took away from it was that the boy was about to die and NHS refused treatment leaving him to die, where in fact NHS was desperate to treat the boy and parents disagreed with the type of treatment which actually has the same success rate as the treatment administered in Prague. The reason for contacting police was that the hospital feared that delay may be fatal. And the fact that parents brought the boy from Spain where they initially pursued alternative treatments (quacks) which made the situation worse and NHS was sorting it out with urgency.
I fear in the years to come Charlie's case will be remembered in the same way. Just the headlines, none of the nuance. There will be special kind of hagiography reserved for the parents, especially Connie who is now painted as a saintly figure as she fits into the Madonna narrative - saw some memes doing rounds to that effect.
P.S. I'm on holiday in Poland at the moment and Charlie was headline news here too. Poland is quite religious by Western standards and I saw Catholic magazines/newspapers using Charlie's story to further pro life agenda even urging readers to sign the petition! Yet just today I watched a discussion programme on the more liberal channel and those discussing it were acknowledging that decisions like this were best taken out of the hands of parents who may be blinded by grief. There was a progressive theologian on the panel too and I expected him to be quite conservative. He actually clarified the Christian position on this as not employing "extraordinary measures to prolong life" and that nature (God) were to be respected too even if modern medicine allows to keep people alive beyond what nature would allow.
I do hope the parents get some peace through channeling their efforts into Charlie's charitable foundation. Lot of the campaign was based on such negativity and blame that if something constructive comes of it, it may actually help the healing.