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Indi Gregory, a critically ill eight-month-old baby girl from Britain who was taken off life support over the weekend following a legal battle, has died overnight, her family said on Monday. Gregory's parents lost a legal fight last month to keep her on life-support machines and have her transferred to a Vatican children's hospital in Rome. The baby died at 0145 GMT, Dean Gregory, her father, said in a statement issued by charity Christian Concern. Gregory suffered from a rare, incurable and degenerative mitochondrial disease which meant that her cells did not produce enough energy. Her doctors in Britain's National...

Question: Is it ever permissible for Christians to withdraw life-sustaining support to terminally ill individuals?(By CP Cartoonist Rod Anderson)This is a question I am asked with ever increasing frequency as the medical technology continues to push back the threshold of physical death.First, it is imperative to state that Christians must never countenance any medication or treatment that actively shortens life (i.e., euthanasia or “mercy-killing”).The vexing question for people of faith, however, is “is it ever morally permissible to withdraw extraordinary life-extending treatments for terminally ill unconscious or comatose patients?” I need to note at this point that I agree with...

Why, now that doctors can do so much with advancements in modern medicine, are they turning their backs on the patients who need them most, and saying it’s for their own good? A terminally ill child’s death should not be determined by a panel of doctors and a judge. Parents should have a say in the decision to maintain life-extending care. But in Texas, Fourth District Court of Appeals Chief Justice Sandee Bryan Marion went along with the determination of doctors at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth to pull life support from 11-month-old Tinslee Lewis, despite her family’s...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Yesterday after the United States Supreme Court opened and justices began filing in, a half-robot, half-human with the face of Ruth Bader Ginsburg entered wielding an arm cannon, body armor, enhanced retinal targeting, and an integrated jetpack. “I AM RUTH BADER GINS-BORG. PLEASE PROCEED,” the cybernetic justice said to her colleagues, then reclined in her provided Windsor chair which was instantly crushed under the weight of her new cybernetic body. Overall, Gins-Borg performed well, never falling asleep or showing any signs of fatigue. “She didn’t even blink,” said Judge Sonya Sotomayor who claims the cyborg justice stared at her...

On May 31, 2002, 18-year-old Brenden Flynn was involved in an auto accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was med-flighted to a hospital in Syracuse, New York. Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to Park Ridge Hospital near Rochester, where doctors notified his mother, MaryJo Flynn, that Brenden had a zero chance of recovery or having any meaningful “quality of life.” They suggested ending his life. If Brenden were to survive, his doctors said, he would be in a nursing home for the rest of his life. Brenden’s mother, not wanting to make the decision to end her son’s...

Christel Reyna...identified the man as her husband, 47-year-old Rafael Reyna. He's been placed on life support...The incident happened in [parking] Lot 3 just after midnight, Christel said she heard a cracking noise before her husband began moaning, the Associated Press reported. The two men were just leaving the stadium when the fight broke out, Los Angeles Dodgers spokesman Joe Jareck said.

Imagine lying in a hospital bed and being asked: “Do you want to live?” Now imagine this: your answer doesn’t matter. Chris Dunn doesn’t have to imagine this, because he’s living it from a bed at Houston Methodist Hospital. Chris, a 46 year old former EMT, has been in the Houston hospital for more than eight weeks because he collapsed, likely due to a mass on his pancreas. While Chris breathes with assistance from a ventilator, he is conscious and alert. His mother, Evelyn Kelly, is Chris’s Medical Power of Attorney. She has had to fight for Chris’s continued care...

A Houston, Texas hospital is attempting to seize guardianship of a disabled patient shown in a shocking video begging to stay alive. Chris Dunn has received national attention over a video showing him begging and praying to stay alive and to now have Methodist Hospital remove his life-sustaining medical treatment that it wants to remove. Now, the hospital is attempting to take away guardianship from Dunn’s family. Yesterday, the attorneys representing Evelyn Kelly contested Methodist Hospital’s application for custodial guardianship of Evelyn’s adult son, Chris Dunn. Kelly is his Medical Power of Attorney and trying to ensure that Chris continues...

In what's being called a Christmas 'miracle' by Teri Robert's family, just hours before they planned to end her life on Dec. 22, the beloved wife, mother and grandmother opened her eyes. Roberts still faces an uphill battle after she lost four of her limbs from her illness. Teri Roberts' grieving family had already come to terms with her likely death, planning to turn off her ventilator, when they say a "miracle" happened. The 56-year-old wife, mother and grandmother, had been in a spiraling coma for 12 days when just four hours before her family planned to pull the plug,...

Radio personality Casey Kasem has been taken off life support after a judge ruled Wednesday that daughter Kerri Kasem could start withholding medication, food and fluids. Mr. Kasem, 82, is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, sepsis and dementia, the Detroit Free Press reported. “Transitioning our father’s treatment to comfort-oriented care was one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever had to make,” Kerri wrote on her Facebook page Wednesday. “For people who do not understand the natural dying process: Giving food and water to a dying body creates pain and further suffering,” she wrote in a later post. “The body does not...

LifeNews has repeatedly chronicled cases of people who were prematurely declared dead or said to be in supposedly persistent vegetative states who ultimately recovered. Now comes the story of Lexi Hansen, a BYU student who suffered critical head injuries last week after being hit by a car. Hansen, 18, was alert and breathing on her own Tuesday, though she was still listed in critical but stable condition. She even tried to get out of her hospital bed. While she has a long road to recovery ahead, her family believes they have witnessed a miracle. lexihansen“When they brought her in, the...

Breaking News: Judge orders Texas hospital to remove life support from brain-dead pregnant woman.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A California hospital is unwilling to allow an outside doctor to fit a 13-year-old declared brain dead after tonsil surgery with the breathing and feeding tubes that would allow her to be safely transferred to another facility, its lawyer said Tuesday. Children's Hospital Oakland will not permit the procedures to be performed on its premises because Jahi McMath is legally dead in the view of doctors who have examined her, lawyer Douglas Straus wrote in a letter to the girl's family. "Performing medical procedures on the body of a deceased human being is simply not something...

New Year's Day should be a time of fresh beginnings and forward motion. But for the family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, the holiday season has been suspended in a cloud of unfathomable pain and suffering: A routine tonsillectomy gone wrong. A beautiful child declared "brain dead." Lawyers, TV cameras, tears. The McMaths are fighting for life. On Monday, they won a court order that prevents Children's Hospital of Oakland from pulling the plug on Jahi until Jan. 7. Her relatives have been attacked as "publicity hounds" for doing everything possible to raise awareness about the young girl's tragic case. They've...

Children’s Hospital Oakland has a very good reputation where I live in the Bay Area. But its public communication around the tragedy of Jahi McMath’s ”brain death” has been astoundingly insensitive, bordering on arrogant. The hospital’s statements quoted in today’s San Francisco Chronicle continues the maladroit insensitivity. The hospital states it will remove the ventilator the moment that can be done legally. From the story: Children’s Hospital Oakland officials confirmed Sunday they will turn off the machines sustaining Jahi McMath’s body as soon as a legal injunction expires at 5 p.m. Monday unless otherwise ordered by a court. “Barring any...

<p>A 13-year-old Northern California girl will be taken off life support Tuesday after she was declared brain dead following complications from surgery to remove her tonsils.</p> <p>KTVU-TV reported Monday that the head of the pediatrics department at Children's Hospital Oakland had told the family of Jahi McMath that the girl would be pulled from life support because she had been declared dead under California law.</p>

This is the moment a nurse accidentally turned off a man’s life support machine leaving him severely brain damaged. NHS agency nurse Violetta Aylward, of Silverthorne Drive in Caversham, is filmed switching off a ventilator keeping alive 37-year-old tetraplegic Jamie Merrett who was left paralysed from the waist down after a road accident in 2002. An alarm sounds and she calls for help from a carer who asks, “What’ve you done?” and the nurse replies, “Switched this off,” and panics, unsure of what to do next, leaving her patient perilously close to death. Mr Merrett, who set up a camera...

NEW YORK – The head of activist group ACORN says the group has been left with a "scarlet letter" from controversies that caused it to shed most of its funding and employees. Bertha Lewis, chief executive officer for the group, spoke to The Associated Press outside a federal appeals court hearing Tuesday in New York. A government lawyer had asked the court to block a judge's ruling that found that Congress unconstitutionally blocked ACORN's funding. The court did not immediately rule.

Trace of Thought Is Found in ‘Vegetative’ Patient BENEDICT CAREY February 3, 2010 He emerged from the car accident alive but alone, there and not there: a young man whose eyes opened yet whose brain seemed shut down. For five years he lay mute and immobile beneath a diagnosis — “vegetative state” — that all but ruled out the possibility of thought, much less recovery. But in recent months at a clinic in Liège, Belgium, the patient, now 29, showed traces of brain activity in response to commands from doctors. Now, according to a new report, he has begun to...

Patients In 'Vegetative' State Can Think And Communicate Patients left in a “vegetative” state after suffering devastating brain damage are able to understand and communicate, groundbreaking research suggests. By Richard Alleyne and Martin Beckford 03 Feb 2010 'Vegetative state' brain scan images:: the fMRI images which were used as part of the study by Dr Adrian Owen [Pics in URL] Experts using brain scans have discovered for the first time that the victims, who show no outward signs of awareness, can not only comprehend what people are saying to them but also answer simple questions. They were able to give...