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
Terri was not or is not in a comma. I am disturbed here on the court order. But highlandbreeze or mcg1969 made points I'm comfortable with. NOT happy...but good points.
I'm glad you were there when your mom passed. I think it makes a world of difference.
To sustain the vital organs. It keeps the heart beating, so blood can flow and supply the organs with much needed oxygen. Without it, the heart and/or lungs will not function on their own. Or, to help a patient who is struggling to breathe on their own, due to injury or illness, until they heal and get stronger.
Did I even come close to answering your question? I'm multitasking, at the moment, and anm suffering from hand and brain disease. (My hands will not cooperate with my brain.)
Frumious Bandersnatch is referring to a talking point and a precedent that this court situation can set.
You're reading too much into my paragraph. Remember, as I have admitted, I don't know exactly where to draw the line. Your child required a simple procedure; so did mine. Some children require more complicated procedures, and I'm OK with that too. Some don't recover 100%; that's fine too.
But I think it's important to point out that the medical community acknowledges that there is no treatment for this child's disorder that will save it's life. All cases are ultimately terminal. Furthermore, even when the full range of medical options are applied, only some children live into young childhood. I would assume that there is a range of severities in this disorder, so it is not inconceivable that the doctors in this case have concluded that they have done all they can.
Seriously now, if the doctors honestly believe they can do absolutely nothing to correct or even alleviate the disorder, so that all they can do now is continue artificial breathing support until even that fails, what is to be done? Now before you say "what, and let the child suffocate", please understand that that is eventually exactly what is going to happen to that child. It's lungs are unable to keep up with the child's growing body. So it will suffocate now, or suffocate later.
How do you define "significant artifical life support?" Would artificial feeding methods fall under that category?
In my opinion, no. For the record I was firmly in Terry Schiavo's corner in her case.
How do you know that the child is having significant physical suffering? Should we kill everyone who is having "significant physical suffering" who can't be permanently relieved of that suffering? Where do we draw the line?
Well, look, we all have to take the word of the articles we read on this. None of us are there. But you're doing yourself a disservice if you trust only this one news article. It is obviously slanted; so go check out others and see if you can get a fuller picture.
Again, I don't know where to draw the line. But what we have here is a child who is terminally ill, who requires artificial support just to breathe. The doctors are claiming that the child is suffering; someone else here said that they have sedated the child to spare him the pain. Other information I have read suggests that even this life support will ultimately fail. I honestly think that this is comfortably on the side of the line that says the merciful thing is not to continue artificial life support.
I should point out that this child is going to eventually suffocate no matter whether he remains on life support or not. The only choice is when, and how much suffering it must endure until it does (if we accept the claims of the doctors that the child is suffering).
It is a horrible situation for her and her baby.
" Texas Children's Hospital is an internationally recognized full-care pediatric hospital located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston. The largest pediatric hospital in the United States, Texas Children's Hospital is dedicated to providing the finest possible pediatric patient care, education and research.
Texas Children's is nationally ranked in the top four among children’s hospitals by both Child magazine and U.S. News & World Report. The hospital has garnered widespread recognition for its expertise and breakthrough developments in the treatment of cancer, diabetes, asthma, HIV, premature babies, and cardiogenic and attention-related disorders. Watch a video to learn more about how Texas Children's is changing the face of health care, one child at a time. Texas Children’s is affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine and is its primary pediatric training site. Baylor professors also are the service chiefs and staff physicians of Texas Children's more than 40 patient care centers. For two consecutive years, the pediatric-research collaboration between Baylor and Texas Children's has taken the No. 1 spot in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health.
The hospital's award-winning medical staff consists of more than 1,580 board-certified, primary-care physicians, pediatric subspecialists, pediatric surgical subspecialists and dentists. In addition, Texas Children's offers a dedicated, highly skilled nursing and support staff of more than 6,000."
They did not decide to cut this child off for no reason or without consulting the parent. They did not do it without extensive consultation with medical specialists and ethicists. Those are their standard procedures.
This story has been slanted to make it as much a sob story as possible.
So9
There are other articles published that are far more balanced - this one is quite slanted. I posted a link from a thread yesterday - someone else posted to me links to a few more articles about this case - I don't remember the poster, have to go look at my pings.
Yes they do, and we all pay for it.
It is still wrong, the programs should be cancelled, it is nothing but socialism.
SO9
Yes, I'm well aware. Thanks for posting this info.
This is being talked about all over the radio here in Dallas...and from what I've learned, the mom has some mental issues. She has a 17 yr. old son that lives with his father. She claims that the father of this baby is the sun. Thus his name. She told the judge that she asked the sun to give her a painless birth, and he did. She saw the baby when he was born and saw his large head and abnormally small limbs. The sun told her the baby will grow. She talks to Sun, the baby, telepathically(sp).
I think the baby needs a court appointed advocate. Mom doesn't seem to understand the medical issues. No fault on her. She's just not capable of understanding. God Bless the lawyer that is attempting to help her, but I think she needs mental help, also.
No prenatal care.....the solar system told her she didn't need it. She wants to take Sun home so the sun can cure him.
You are absolutely correct in that the hospital almost certainly has an ethics committee. The purpose of such a committee is to review any decisions made of the magnitude of this case. No physician would make a decision like this lightly.
I does have an ethics comittee.
Every hospital in the Houston Medical Center does.
So9
Well now. Poor baby, she couldn't even care for him properly, even if by some miracle, he could go home. Sheesh, what a situation all around, and so sad.
OK. All I knew of this before was this article. I've since learned of the medical conditions from some good posts here...and agree. Now...I see there are other issues rather than a distraught mother wanting to save her baby.
I thoroughly apologize for my behavior on this thread.
It is still tragic; but not the image I had drawn in my head.
What behavior? You werejust asking questions, how else do we all learn?
=0)
Is there a chapter of Texas Right to Die or the Partnership for End of Life Choices? They are trying to take over the whole country. I was wondering out loud here last week if they were going to go up the eastern seaboard or head west from Florida. It appears they have headed west.
Additionally, if the ACLU has a presence in TEXAS, BINGO. They are kind of the traffic cop aiding the death lobbyists.
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