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
Mu uncle was on life support for a couple of months, during the holdiays. He was in a coma. (this was a few years ago.) After the first of the year she told the doctors to go ahead and pull the plug. She said if it was God's will that he live then he would, but she didn't want to tie up support machines that others could be benefiting from and she knew he wouldn't wsant to be a vegetable. Her children were quite young at the time. He had a brain anurism. Sometimes we have to leave things in God's hands.
That's an example of an article trying to mislead you. That statement is NOT about the specific condition the baby is suffering, but about the capabilities the hospital has over a broad range of conditions.
Furthermore, it demonstrates that this clinic has the expertise necessary to make an informed conclusion about the terminal nature of this child's disorder.
Try it sometime... I would never wish something like that on anyone.
Maybe some like to play God, but not me. There are some things that never leave your mind.
I take great offense to your "speculation" that I would enjoy killing a parent. I don't think that you understand.
God gave us the knowledge and skills to treat others. We would be going against God by not using those skills.
You read the comment?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1346341/posts?page=65#65
Thanks
I can't believe you said something so mean and cruel like that to brooklin. Shaking my head in disbelief.
Yes, I did. You are cold and cruel.
I didn't find brooklin's comment appropriate.
Exactly. And these doctors are using those skills to rationally conclude that no more can be done and that this child's life can only be extended artificially and only at the cost of terrible suffering.
Thanks.
How can you say that? He was relating what was certainly a very difficult event in his life. You are just sick.
" It's time to smell the roses."
That didn't seem too empathetic to the thread or situation.
Some have been able to come off the vent make it to early childhood. I don't believe that this is the case for the baby, in particular. If it were the possibility that this baby would be able to come off the vent, that the hospital would do more? Or do you just believe that most medical instiutions want to murder young children?
Every patient reacts to illness differently, what works for one patient, will not work for another. The paragraph you posted is "in general", it simply does not refer to all patients. I'm sorry that I'm not giving you the answer that you are looking for, or perhaps you think that I don't care about this baby, inparticular, and life, in general.
It was hard enough for me to have that "final talk" with my grandmother, and there was no life support involved. So I can only imagine.
Wrong. It was sage advice from someone who has been there. If you don't understand that, then like I said before, get the hell out of this thread.
I'm sorry, but reacting on emotion rather than logic is the hallmark of liberalism.
Liberals are the ones who say "Wouldn't it be worth all the gazillions or the loss of some freedoms, if just one little life could be saved?"
It's for the childrun.
Conservatives recognize that in the real world there is only so much 'other peoples money' to be spent on the seriously ill. Spending the money and manpower to keep this child semi-alive for a dozen years means no money left for thousands of other children that could be helped.
Texas Children's Hospital is one of the premier children's hospitals in the world. It is university and church afilliated. It did not make this decision casually.
So9
I agree, but I think I'm about to be "eaten" by someone who believes me to be, wither an idiot or a baby-hating, abortionist ogre.
Yes, eventually, you have to decide when enough is enough.
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