Posted on 08/29/2004 11:51:46 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Texas high court rules 8-1 the parents of a stillborn baby can't sue hospital< P>AUSTIN - The parents of a stillborn child cannot sue medical practitioners for negligence because a fetus is not a "person" or "individual" under state laws, the Texas Supreme Court has ruled.
The court in an 8-1 ruling overturned a decision of the 2nd Court of Appeals in Fort Worth that Tara Reese could sue a Fort Worth hospital for the mental anguish she suffered after her baby died in utero in 1998.
Lawyers for Reese had urged the court to follow 37 other states that allow wrongful-death claims for stillborn children. Texas is one of 10 states that do not recognize such claims.
The Texas Legislature in 2003 passed the Prenatal Protection Act, which defines "individual" to include an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization to birth. But lawmakers then said that physicians or other licensed health care providers could not be sued if the death is the result of a lawful medical procedure.
Chief Justice Tom Phillips, writing for the majority, said the parties "do not contend that this case involved anything other than a lawful medical procedure, so this case would not be covered even if the new statute were applicable."
According to the opinion, Reese went to the Fort Worth Osteopathic Medical Center emergency room in her seventh month of pregnancy, complaining of a racing pulse and dizziness.
She alleged that the doctors were negligent in caring for her and the fetus.
Phillips said the court was following its 1987 decision in Witty v. American General Capital that held the Legislature did not intend to include a fetus when it enacted the wrongful-death and survival laws in 1860 and 1895. The court said Reese could pursue a claim against the hospital for the injuries she sustained.
Justice Steven W. Smith dissented. He said the case was too important to be resolved solely on the basis of prior case law.
Jerry Bullard, a lawyer for Reese and her husband, Donnie Reese, said he was disappointed in the ruling.
"The court missed an opportunity to re-examine and overrule Witty as it applies to viable unborn children, restore sanity to an area of jurisprudence that is morally and legally repugnant, and bring Texas into step with those states that recognize the personhood of the unborn child," Bullard said.
Earl Harcrow of Fort Worth, who represents the hospital, said he thinks the court did the right thing.
"That's what the law has always been," Harcrow said. "The court of appeals tried to change it, but the Supreme Court did not go along with that."
=== And how do you know that you know more than what other people know?
Anyone who's taken the time to actually READ one of these so-called "parental consent" bills probably Knows more of the sad truth of the matter than 95% of the self-styled Pro-Lifers out there.
=== allowing them "hope" via "wins" which are heavy on symbol but light on substance may not be the ticket.
To be perfectly clear ... I think it's just this sort of thing which causes folks to relax and believe that all is well in hand.
Much like folks were delighted by the "fall of communism" and have readily embraced the former Soviets since.
=== It's what the Nazi's tried to create - the MASTER RACE!
Texas -- particularly the Houston-area hospitals -- also leads the nation (with the exception of Oregon perhaps) -- in Nazi-style futile care protocols ... the tracks on which this nation's headlong rush to euthanasia will run.
I believe that he sometimes helps us to stem the tides of evil and destruction we wreak upon ourselves, not that he wreaks it upon us, as in the old testmant.
The same kind of disagreement regarding the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, about which I recall you were in great disagreement with people on this forum.
Res ipsa loquitur, Tough Stough.
The only disagreement comes in whether there are those who like to "give folks hope" and lie through their teeth in the press (like the Texas NRLC Legislative Director who confirmed as much to me at our 3-hour lunch in DC one day) or those -- like me -- who scream bloody murder at the way so many Useful Idiots are encouraged to throw their hats in the air and scream "Don't mess with Texas" as the courts proceed to use the legislation to set a precedent of court-ordered minor abortions without NOTIFICATION, much less consent.
A fetus is a person.
But my guess is some stillbirths are not necessarily caused by negligent medical care?
That's why the Terri Schiavo case is so important to
THEM and Dr. Death!
I have had plenty of negative experiences with Democrats, Republicans, so-called consevatives, the pro-life movement, the courts and judges, to last a lifetime.
Most of us have a good understanding of the odds.
I have also met enough people who seem to wrongly think because their opinion is the most negative, it is also the most correct. That isn't always the case.
No. /sarcasm/
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