Taken off life support and left to die, Haleigh’s now thriving with her adoptive parents

A girl who nine years ago was expected never to regain consciousness and was abandoned by Massachusetts welfare authorities, hospital medical staff, and the courts now watches the Disney Channel, enjoys the music of Justin Bieber and her Westfield Evangelical Free Church congregation, and tells her adoptive parents she loves them.

Haleigh, now 20, is by all accounts a happy woman living surrounded by love with her siblings, her adoptive parents Keith and Becky Arnett, and other foster children the couple have taken in over the years.

But Haleigh is far from typical. Once the center of a public furore over official negligence and passive euthanasia, she now relies on a wheelchair for mobility and reads and understands the world at a Grade Seven level because of the terrible abuse by her aunt and uncle, Holli and Jason Strickland.

The Arnetts recently talked to the Boston Globe about life with Haleigh in order to draw attention to the need for more foster parents to deal with the 7,000-plus children removed from their families of origin yearly for their own protection. This is doubly apt: Haleigh’s abuse occurred only after state child welfare authorities moved her from her mother’s care to her aunt’s when the latter complained about her natural mother’s negligence. But it was her foster parents who physically abused her for years and transformed her from a cheerful music-loving, bicycle-riding young girl into someone medical staff and a judge agreed was in a permanent “vegetative state” appropriate to be removed from life support.

It turned out there had been a dozen complaints to child welfare authorities before her foster parents brought her to the emergency room covered in injuries and comatose, and medical staff called police in 2005. But officials had always preferred to believe Holli, a licenced child care operator, who told them the injuries were self-inflicted.

Charged with assault, Holli made a suicide pact with her own grandmother and died before trial.

The scandal mounted as her doctors applied to remove Haleigh from life support, and lawyers echoed the arguments heard earlier that year in the case of Terri Schiavo. In both cases judges ordered life support removed, but while the Florida woman died days later, early in 2005, Haleigh did the opposite, recovering consciousness almost immediately.

While her awareness steadily improved, she was seriously disabled and in need of long-term care, either in an institution, or a foster family. In 2008 the state began looking for suitable foster parents.

They could scarcely have done better than the Arnetts, who were ardent foster parents and churchgoers. After viewing videos and hearing official warnings about her impairments (she needed diapers and a wheelchair), they agreed to take her in. “As devout Christians,” the Boston Globe reported, “they believed God’s work required sacrifices.” Though they had three boys of their own they had already taken in several foster children and saw fostering as an act of Christian love. Haleigh’s notoriety did not deter them.

Two years later, the Arnetts adopted Haleigh at a ceremony in their living room officiated by the same judge who had ordered the removal of life support, under an American flag brought in for the ceremony, with a Bible. The judge, James Collins, and various medical and welfare officials had made their mistakes but then worked for Haleigh’s recovery, said the Arnetts: they bore no grudges.

Though foster care typically earns parents $25 a day, a stipend that stops if the child is adopted, the Arnetts can draw on a special $5-million fund made of legal settlements from organizations which had failed to act on reports about Haleigh’s abuse or telltale physical evidence.

The family has ratcheted down its hopes that their daughter will someday learn to walk. She has lost interest—for now. They have made her fully a part of their family -- a frequent outcome of fostering -- and work with a group of others at their church to encourage more families to take in foster children.

“I’m not a great parent,” Keith Arnett told the Globe. “I fail and I falter…but I’m willing.” And his wife, who home-schools their children, is the same, he says. “We are two peas in a pod. We lean on each other all the time.” They are “committed to kids having homes.”

I don't think most people realize the extent to which vulnerable people are systematically eliminated.

I have the following on my profile page, and I occasionally post it to relevant threads, like this one. As always, I challenge anyone to refute the information it contains. So far, no one has even shown an attempt to deny any of it. Yet I'm not sure very many people understand what this may mean for them and their loved ones.

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In 1999, 10.4% of the severely cognitively impaired residents of the United States were starved and dehydrated to death.

In 2000, 11.0% of the severely cognitively impaired residents of the United States were starved and dehydrated to death.

In 2001, 11.4% of the severely cognitively impaired residents of the United States were starved and dehydrated to death.

I haven't found data yet for other years, but I think it's a fair guess that the killings continue to climb.

This doesn't represent a percentage of patients who died (which would be bad enough). It doesn't mean that 11.4% of the patients who died were starved and dehydrated. It means 11.4% of all the people living in the U.S.A. with severe cognitive impairments were killed this way. And it doesn't include the ones who were killed using other methods, such as denial of antibiotics for simple infections, removal of breathing assistance, etc.

The standard used for determining severe cognitive impairment for the purpose of this study is a score of 5 or less on the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). Patients in a coma or PVS cannot possibly score 1, much less 5. You've probably seen people in the grocery store with a score of 5 or less. So these killings include a wide range of brain damaged people. I wonder how many thousands of people are living with a score of 5 or less. And for every 1,000 people living with a score of 5 or less in the year 2001, 114 of them were starved and dehydrated to death that year.

All I have before me are the percentages. I'd like to see the corresponding numbers. Or would I?

Following is the breakdown by state for 2001. Notice that Rhode Island tops the list, with just over a third of that population exterminated this way. That might have something to do with the fact that RI has appointed the pro-euthanasia group Choice in Dying the official State agency in charge of informing the public about “end-of-life choices.” They supply forms for “living wills” and “assist” the public in filling out those forms. This is what happens when you put the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Believe it or not, Florida and Texas are both below the national average. Every state is on the list. Georgia is at the bottom of the list, exterminating only 1.30% this way.

RI - 33.80%
OR - 32.50%
MI - 28.30%
MT - 28.00%
WI - 27.20%
CA - 23.40%
UT - 23.40%
AZ - 20.90%
PA - 17.40%
MN - 17.20%
AK - 17.10%
CT - 15.40%
WY - 14.90%
MD - 14.60%
NM - 14.20%
SD - 14.10%
WA - 13.20%
OH - 12.90%
ID - 12.30%
IA - 12.10%
MO - 11.90%
National Average - 11.4%
VT - 11.20%
HI - 11.10%
DE - 10.80%
ND - 10.80%
MA - 9.90%
IN - 9.70%
ME - 9.20%
NH - 8.70%
NY - 8.50%
NE - 7.70%
CO - 7.20%
AL - 7.10%
TX - 7.10%
IL - 6.70%
WV - 6.70%
KY - 6.60%
SC - 6.50%
TN - 6.30%
FL - 6.20%
NV - 6.20%
AR - 5.70%
NC - 5.20%
KS - 4.80%
NJ - 4.80%
OK - 4.10%
LA - 3.70%
VA - 3.60%
DC - 3.10%
MS - 3.00%
GA - 1.30%

Facts On Dying ~ This study was funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who adamantly opposes the rights of vulnerable people to continue living. So if any trolls show up, complaining that the data is skewed in favor of life, check the facts and get back to me.

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I just learned that in 2010, the MMSE test was updated. I haven't had a chance to look into that, and what effect, if any, that has on the pogrom. The link I provided here for a copy of the MMSE test isn't working, at least for me. I'll update this when I get a chance.

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