Posted on 02/18/2005 3:36:08 PM PST by FreeMarket1
CRIPPLED CHILD SENTENCED TO DEATH WITHOUT TRIAL
Feb 18, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.com
by Craig McCarthy
In Texas, a baby has been in effect sentenced to die. He is hospitalized with a disease called thanatophoric dysplasia. A website devoted to genetic disorders says that “Infants with this condition are usually stillborn or die shortly after birth from respiratory failure; however, some children have survived into childhood with a lot of medical help.” The child in question, Sun Hudson, is four months old and has obviously survived the danger of stillbirth and has not died shortly after birth. Sun’s mother wants him to live. Doctors at the hospital where Sun was born no longer want to supply him with the “lot of medical help” he needs, and plan to shut off his oxygen supply.
Powerless against the wishes of her son’s doctor, Sun’s mother Wanda found an attorney and went to court to save her son’s life. Without a single evidentiary hearing, Judge William C. McColloch has decided that the hospital has the right to take measures to end the baby’s life, if the hospital happens to want to do so. Free Market News has interviewed the attorney for the child’s mother, Mario Caballero, and reports the facts that have been excluded from every other news account of this story.
This is not about money. Sun Hudson is covered by Texas Medicaid (his mother is penniless) and the hospital is no danger of suffering financially by continuing to treat him. Under Texas law this would not be an issue in any event, as hospitals are prohibited from failing to treat a patient for lack of ability to pay or if there is an emergency condition.
This is not about a condition so rare or horrible that treatment would be inconceivable. Ironically, the website for Texas Children’s Hospital, where Sun is a patient, includes this statement about dysplasia: “This genetics clinic provides diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care for patients from birth to adulthood with abnormalities of skeletal growth and strength. A staff of geneticists with consulting orthopedists, endocrinologists, neurologists and ophthalmologists evaluate patients during their visits for routine, chronic or acute care.”
This is not about right-wing pro-life politics, either. Ms. Hudson’s attorney is a self-described twenty-year legal aid attorney who only opened his solo practice with one staff member in the last year. Attorney Caballero went so far as to state that “I’m not part of the right to life movement; in fact, personally, I’m not quite in that political camp. But in this case it is about someone who is already alive.”
This is about one judge who has by any objective standard allowed no due process to the child who may soon be killed or to the child’s mother. Attorney Caballero subpoenaed hospital records of Medicaid payments for the child’s treatment. The judge quashed the subpoena (meaning that he voided it) and refused to allow the mother to view those hospital records. Caballero subpoenaed the person in charge of records who could testify about the medical bills and payment. Judge McColloch quashed that subpoena. Instead, the judge ruled that the mother, in seeking to save her child’s life from a deliberate cessation of medical treatment, had “no cause of action”.
The judge made that ruling based only on the petitions filed, not allowing the mother’s attorney to conduct any discovery under the normal rules of court procedure.
Before the court was involved, the hospital first gave the mother notice that they intended to evict the child from the hospital. Under Texas law, a hospital must give ten days notice of intent to make Sun leave the hospital despite his medical needs. In this case, they gave Ms. Hudson notice just before the weekend prior to Thanksgiving week.
By the time she found an attorney the next day, he was left with only three working days in which to get into court. During weeks of legal under a supposed agreement by the hospital that it would not remove the child from child support before a court hearing, the hospital changed its mind and informed Caballero that they intended to go ahead and remove child support. Only a temporary injunction temporarily delayed the hospital’s action.
Finally before the probate court, the mother was not given the opportunity to call any witnesses or present any evidence in an evidentiary hearing. Instead, the judge ruled that the hospital may discontinue treatment of the child, based on facts not even alleged by the hospital, specifically that the judge believed the child was suffering “significant pain.”
According to Caballero, when he asked how the judge had reached that finding of fact without ever having heard any testimony or conducting a hearing on the merits of the case, the judge replied, on the record, that he “probably got it from the newspaper.”
Having visited the baby in the hospital, Caballero flatly denies that the child is in pain. After reflection, Caballero asked Judge McColloch to recuse himself from the case. McColloch refused.
This left the mother with only one issue to present to the court, whether or not any other hospital would be willing to admit the child as a patient.
It is not clear what the scope of that question is legally. Should the court consider whether another hospital within city limits has a bed for the child before removing child support, or whether there is another hospital reasonably available in the State of Texas or the rest of the country? ......................Full Article www.FreeMarketNews.com
No need to apologize.....it's so difficult to find out the truth of these things. Too many people, all with different agendas, writing articles with their own slant.
I just happened to be in the car with radio on when all the particulars involving the mom were discussed. I think that's why the hosp. is paying for her attorney. She doesn't have the capacity to make a decision.
Someone said that she is so totally convinced that the sun will cure her baby, that she wants him to stay hooked up to the respirator....but at home, with her.
I hope this attorney won't exploit her and the hospital. She needs help.
Thank you. But I was predispositioned emotionally and did act inappropriately. AND hurt another freeper. Yes I asked questions...but I acted more emotionally than I would have w/o the info I have now at the end.
Not just west. That was part of my emotional base in the beginning of the thread.
From the Terri threads...I tracked some chairmen's to NJ's UMDNJ. AND I've found some workshops on the right to die.
That was the first thing I thought of when I started this thread and pinged you.
Well, it is a very emotionally difficult situation. Hey I learned some things that I didn't know. I didn't realize how disturbed the poor mother is, was just going on what knowledge I had, medically.
I agree. That is the case in NJ too. (my state)
Meekie, do you know if ACLU has a chapter in TX?
This was the premise of my ping. But I've since learned more.
Outside of the current condition of this case, I do think it can be abused for a precedent. I support the medical knowledge; but I agree with another poster here on the courts handling.
>>>I just happened to be in the car with radio on when all the particulars involving the mom were discussed. I think that's why the hosp. is paying for her attorney. She doesn't have the capacity to make a decision.
Your points are well heard and hense for my initial emotional response.
But...if my response was limited to the content, that would have been understood. But my response extended to a freeper, brooklin. That is not exceptable. The phrase that got to me may have been area based. I'm from an extremely sarcastic region (see Seinfeld).
But if I had the total area info before...I may not have interpreted the comment as sarcastic originally. AND I was very emotional with a different idea of what was happening.
I don't know if we have an ACLU chapter, but here in the Dallas area, we had one of their reps come to our small town to fight against the schoolboard over uniforms.
ACLU lost.
THAT is good!
Meekie, do you know if ACLU has a chapter in TX?I imagine so. I just did this Google Search for
Texas Chapter ACLU and THIS link comes up.
So it appears that we do, unfortunately.
IMO,if God had sentenced this baby to death ,it would have died right after birth.God wanted this baby to live,that is why it didn't die right or shortly after birth.
BTW,what is wrong with that idiot judge?
I always thought that judges had to hear both sides before ruling,isn't that a law.
You are assuming this was a balanced and fair story that didn't sdlant the truth, or flat make it up.
So9
I believe the euthanasia movement making use of the aclu's existent structures. The euthanasia movement is death obsessed. If people become to think that death of any kind of any one is normal, the U.S. is toast.
This is the slippery slope, moving closer to the bottom. Can conservatives and others stop the courts that are bowing to these partnerships who want more wrongful killings?
I didn't flat make it up. I spent an hour on the phone with the lawyer for Sun's mother, talking lawyer-to-lawyer. He tells me that what I reported is all on the record, and easily verifiable. He also made it clear that he is not at all in the pro-life camp; he's just a lawyer who believes his client has been railroaded.
I'm suprised that more people here do not have a problem with a judge simply accepting things he's heard or read out of court, and not allowing someone to present evidence. None of that has been reported by the MSM, which seems to want to highlight the fact that the mother does not appear to be mentally stable. That's interesting, but irrelevant. We aren't supposed to make medical or legal decisions of life and death based upon the mental health of a parent, are we?
The bottom line is that Texas Children's Hospital does, routinely, treat children with the same condition. This child happens to be black, poor, and have a crazy mother. Whether or not any of that has been a factor in the decision not to treat the child is unknown, and we will never know, because the judge will not allow a hearing.
Craig McCarthy
Then either this lawyer conned you, or he is as confused as his client.
Have you seen this article from the Chronicle?
Your version makes a much bigger story for them than their own, but it contradicts everything anyone with experience with Texas Children's Hospital knows.
I'm suprised that more people here do not have a problem with a judge simply accepting things he's heard or read out of court, and not allowing someone to present evidence
The judge had the Texas law on the subject which made the case preposterous on it's face.
The bottom line is that Texas Children's Hospital does, routinely, treat children with the same condition.
The bottom line is that they do not. They treat conditions with similar names.
So9
Yes, I've read that article. It doesn't say a single word about what happened (or didn't) in court before the judge in this particluar case.
If there is a Texas statute that allows a hospital to make a decision to end life-support, even after a parent objects, then I would hope that you would agree that such a decision can and ought to be reviewable. If there was a statute that gave a stranger decision-making authority over your very life according to his own rules, and gave you no mechanism to oppose the decision, you'd have a constitutionally flawed statute on your hands.
Given that one has the right to seek review by the courts, one might expect that the court would let one speak.
It's that's simple. I've read your posts and the article you linked to, and can't find anything that contradicts my reporting on what happened in court. In what way have I been conned?
What a BS title.
The law grants you 10 days to find another place to take a patient after a hospital ethics committee has decided to terminate care.
Surely you don't believe the Hospital and it's employees should be legally compelled to perform medical actions they believe to be unethical?
If you can compel them to provide care they feel is unethical to this child you can compel any doctor under penalty of law to provide a woman with an abortion, regardless of his principals.
So9
To answer your question, no, I do not think a physician should be compelled to practice medicin in a manner he or she believes is unethical.
Texas rules of administrative procedure on the topic state (in part): "No physician should be forced to withhold or withdraw life support when doing so would be contrary to the physician's conscience or professional judgment. Similarly, no physician has a duty to provide useless or futile
treatment, but often what constitutes useless or futile treatment is controversial among physicians as well. It is with these principles in mind that the following
guidelines are offered. These guidelines are intended to ensure that only reasonably effective medical treatments are given, yet allow patient/family choice when physicians are divided in their opinion regarding therapeutic efficacy."
So I have no dispute on that matter. I also acknowledge that the doctors are professionals and imply no wrondoing or malice on their part. I would not go so far as to say that all professionals are infallible, however.
My only point was to report something I'd learned, and as a legal correspondent, I was struck by several things. One, that questioning medical professionals isn't even on the table. That's fair enough, because reporters would be in way over their heads on that. Two, that everyone comments on the mental state of the mother, as if that should be dispositive of the rights of the child. And three, that the judge didn't even make the attempt to appear impartial. That third point was what I was reporting about.
To be called, in this thread, a propogandist, or agenda-driven, is rather upsetting.
If no one cares whether they get a fair day in court or not, so be it. Even the woman's attorney told me that if there had been a full and fair hearing, and it was decided to remove child support, he would accept that; the thing would have run its course. The problem is that it was a foregone conclusion, and I'm running out of ways to try to say that.
The entire purpose of the law, as the story explains is to put the decision in the hands of those competent to make it. It is an admission that judges are not competent to decide these issues.
Doctors, even entire ethics comittees can make mistakes, but the course of appeal is to all other physicians and hospitals in the nation to find one willing to undertake the case.
If another hospital can be found, then there is no problem.
If no other hospital is willing to assume the responsibility and the present hospital feels it would be unethical to continue, then coercion of a doctor and facility is the only way treatment could be continued in any case, making any ruling by a judge moot.
I think the judge was smart enough to know this.
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