that ended up in court. Hospitals discussed existing methods that have proved effective for avoiding disputes over children's care. Medical ethics Some medical ethicists saw the use of social media in this case as a challenge for their profession. Charlie's parents used social media to gain public support, but the medical team was limited in what it could say due to confidentiality obligations, and public opinion had no place in its decisions or procedures. During the court proceedings the ethical approaches to experimental treatment in the US and UK were compared in the media. Case law in the US has tended to favour families' perception of what is in their relative's best interests. Doctors in the US are less inclined to go to court when there are disagreements, but may find themselves providing care or treatment they believe is unethical. Some state law strongly favours families, but Texas, for example, allows doctors to bring cases to an ethics committee if they believe a treatment is futile, and they can be released from the obligation to provide such treatment. Public and ethicist's commentary continued as the case progressed through the courts. The public commentary changed little. Apart from the political comments about socialised medicine, single-payer health systems etc., the majority of public comment concentrated on the rights of the parents to make the medical choices for their child; on what was seen as the usurping nature of the court case. There were many claims that the court decisions were ordering or sanctioning euthanasia. The case has been classified by a legal academic as a 'stigmata case', cases that "are part of the meditation of a culture upon itself." Autonomy Some ethicists said or implied either that the parents and the doctors should have agreed or that it was regrettable that they had not agreed or that they surely would have agreed had neither side had access to lawyers. Professor Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, and Professor Dominic Wilkinson, Director of Medical Ethics at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and Consultant neonatologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford opined that it is necessary for a court to decide the issues in circumstances of disagreement between the parents and the doctors if the disagreement is unreasonable but if the disagreement is reasonable the parents' decisions should prevail. Richard Doerflinger, former Associate Director of