Posted on 03/19/2019 3:44:04 PM PDT by markomalley
A contentious battle is taking place at this courthouse in downtown Houston, Texas over a law that gives hospitals virtually unlimited power to decide the fate of patients.
Oral arguments took place centering on the question whether the law, called the Texas Advance Directives Act — or TADA for short — violates patients' constitutional rights by depriving them of due process.
Texas Right to Life has led the vanguard in opposing this law.
Incredibly enough, their main opposition is none other than the Texas Catholic bishops, who argue the law comports with Catholic teaching. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed last year, the bishops stated, "Human intervention that would deliberately cause, hasten, or unnecessarily prolong the patient's death violates the dignity of the human person" (emphasis added by bishops).
But critics say the law isn't about needlessly prolonging death; rather, it's about depriving a patient of life and hastening his death.
The Texas Advanced Directives Act came to national prominence in 2015 in the case of Chris Dunn, a former EMT and Homeland Security employee who checked in to Houston's Methodist Hospital in October 2015 suffering from a mass on his pancreas and renal failure.
His doctor determined his "quality of life" warranted no further medical care, and the hospital's ethics panel agreed — against the wishes of Dunn himself, who was conscious, alert, responsive and made clear he wanted to live. A 2015 video shows Dunn practically begging to be kept alive.
Dunn's mother, Evelyn Kelly, fought the hospital, and with the help of attorneys secured by Texas Right to Life, got an injunction against the order, allowing her son to live another month. He passed away peacefully and from natural causes two days before Christmas.
His mother sued the hospital arguing that the Texas Advanced Directives Act is unconstitutional.
The law gives hospital ethics panels enormous power with practically no oversight. Whatever decisions the panel makes with regard to a patient, that decision is final. There is no appeal, no review by any court.
Plus, there's a loophole. You don't have to be terminally ill for a hospital to decide you should no longer live.
And the reasoning behind their decisions remains vague and unclear. A doctor makes the determination that the patient's so-called quality of life does not meet the threshold for continued care, but "quality of life" is subjective, it's amorphous and it differs from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital
Another concern: The hospital is supposed to decide what's in the best interest of the patient, but too often these panels are made up of hospital staff, giving rise to a conflict of interest. Hospitals know it costs them many thousands of dollars a day to keep uninsured patients alive.
Performing a cost-benefit analysis, from a purely financial standpoint, it's always more beneficial to a hospital to hasten the death of uninsured patients rather than shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep them alive.
Critics rightly fear these ethics panels aren't truly interested in the patients' best interests but care more about the bottom line.
Texas Right to Life has led the vanguard in fighting this law, helping more than 400 families find legal recourse or alternate hospitals willing to take sick patients.
But most troubling is the fact that Texas Right to Life — a very large, very Catholic group — has not received the support of the Texas bishops. In fact, last year, the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops conducted an unprecedented attack against the pro-life group, one of their criticisms being that it opposes the Texas Advanced Directives Act.
Currently, no other state in the country has a law that gives such wide-ranging power to hospitals to determine the fate of patients, and critics say what's happening here is no more than creeping involuntary euthanasia. Texas Right to Life is vowing to continue the fight to protect the dignity and value of human life with or without the help of the bishops.
Reporting from Houston, this is Christine Niles for Church Militant.
And who signed this horrible bill into law? Yup, the individual who would become "pro-life President in history" (barf).
For those interested, here is the section of the law spoken about in this piece.
BTW, though this comes from a source normally associated with the "religion" forum, I thought it was of sufficient general interest that it would be more appropriately posted in the "news" forum.
Looks to me that Texas has found something else to claim to be #1 in! So you Texans (and KoTexans) can be certain, that if I leave California, it won’t be to move to Texas. But Nevada looks better every day.
I used to live in Texas, and am a native Texans, and find this law abhorrent. Most probably don’t know it passed.
For all the bombast, Texas law is very comfortable edging into the authoritarian. Almost all drone photography is illegal. Gun laws will never get to constitutional carry. The MVD goes through the DPS so it’s very slow. You have to get mandatory “safety inspections” on cars that are a relic of the 1930s. And then things like this hospital policy. And Texas is far too welcoming to the camel jockeys thanks to the Bush wing of the GOP.
Texas is a mix of individual freedom, you can hut hogs with a machine gun from a helicopter, but you cannot fly your drone and take a photo from the air. That’s because someone caught a slaughterhouse near Dallas dumping raw offal directly into a creek. So the Texas legislature quickly passed a law banning aerial photography.
Capitalism works best overall. You should be able to get any treatment you can afford.
Though not as bad as the rest of the world, it’s not surprising to see stories like this given our continued devolution towards socialism.
The belief system of hospital administrations is generally in favor of people dying sooner. Same with physicians.
It’s a belief system partially but insufficiently influenced by clinical science.
They don’t need a law, just send em off for a test or two. Most hospitals assembly line them to wait alone in a hallway without anyone watching or caring for them. If that doesn’t get em the test will.
Many Texans slam NY a lot here.
And you know what, that’s FINE WITH ME if you come through again in 2020.
Dems are going to gun hard for it and with illegals and northern exports i’m a little concerned.
This law needs to be repealed prontissimo.
Has been law for 20 years...not a recent development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Advance_Directives_Act
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/HS/pdf/HS.166.pdf
Later
this is about money.
if you have a ton of money,
you can go somewhere else
if you expect someone else to pick up the tab,
other people will be involved in pulling
the plug on you
So when you are bleeding out I will just step over you and you will be cool with that?
Thank you for the insight, especially about drones.
I will get around to getting one and the legal stuff someday.
Actually no.
In the case referenced the young man had the money and when he tried to go else where the hospital refused to release him or his records.
This is about being able to decide who lives and who dies. The ultimate power trip.
I’ve been a Texan all my life and had no idea this was ever passed! Time to start raising a ruckus!
so yes, people should be able to spend whatever money THEY have...they should not demand tax dollars for what reasonable doctors would deem excessive, unnecessary, contraindicated, or demeaning...
I can afford to have someone stop me from bleeding out.
Are you cool w/me forcing you to stop anyone from bleeding out whom I choose?
Yeah, had nothing to do with creeps photographing sunbathers in their backyards, or little girls through their windows.
” public tax money”
That’s that insidious socialism thing.
Charity is fine. Folks give who are willing to.
That’s how it worked before the Great Depression and FDR - local “benevolent societies” ruled took care of their own.
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