Posted on 03/14/2005 5:22:48 PM PST by Dog Gone
Sun Hudson, a baby born with a lethal deformity and on a ventilator since birth nearly six months ago, will be disconnected from life support at 2 p.m. Tuesday, according to a lawyer representing the baby's mother.
Today, Harris County Probate Court Judge William C. McCulloch reaffirmed an earlier, groundbreaking decision to lift restrictions preventing Texas Children's Hospital from ending life-sustaining treatment for the child.
According to bioethicists, no U.S. judge has ever let a hospital discontinue life support on a living baby.
"I feel bad. I don't have any plans to appeal, at this point," said Mario Caballero, the lawyer for Wanda Hudson, the baby's mother. "If I had another pair of arms and legs ... I've been asking for quite a while now, trying to get a non-profit (law firm) to take over. I'm real sad about it."
Hudson, 33, said Texas Children's is sending a cab Tuesday morning to bring her to the hospital. The former dental assistant has been living with her parents in south Houston.
Texas Children's could not be reached for comment.
Hudson, who said she spent three days in a psychiatric hospital after Sun's birth, disputed the doctor's diagnosis. Doctors say Sun has a condition called thanatophoric dysplasia, characterized by tiny lungs and a rib cage too small to support life. She believed her baby needed more time to grow, so he could be weaned from the ventilator.
"I'm just going to wait and see. I'll find out if I'm crazy. If it was to happen and he was not to make it, then all this was just nonsense," she said today. "Now I know there's no such thing as God. The Sun above, that's what's been helping me."
Without legal delays, Sun's life support would have ended Nov. 28.
Texas Children's, in accordance with state law, had its ethics committee review Sun 's case before recommending that life support be discontinued. The committee includes ethicists, clergy, parents, doctors and social workers.
The law requires that relatives be given 10 days to find another facility for the patient. In Sun's case, no such facility was found.
In court, Caballero said that finding another facility was moot, since moving Sun would violate federal rules that require hospitals to stabilize patients before transferring them. McCulloch dismissed that argument.
Caballero then filed a motion that McCulloch be removed from the case for remarking "I understand that the baby is in significant pain." Another judge last week ruled that the case would stay in McCulloch's court.
Caballero will be back in court today for another case involving a hospital that wants to remove a patient from life support against the wishes of family.
The Houston-based 1st Court of Appeals, which Saturday stopped St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital from turning off the ventilator and feeding tube of a 68-year-old man in a chronic vegetative state, will hear arguments in the case Tuesday afternoon.
HOW IS THIS EVEN IN THE JURIDICTION OF A JUDGE?!!!!!
Pictures?
Praying for Terri Schiavo.
WOW, this is so sad. I may think there is no hope for this child, but I believe it is the parents decision to pull life support or not, not a judges!!
Texas Children's, in accordance with state law, had its ethics committee review Sun 's case before recommending that life support be discontinued. The committee includes ethicists, clergy, parents, doctors and social workers.
The Hudson case is in court partly because the hospital lacks confidence in the mother's mental competence. She says her son was fathered not by a man but by "the sun that shines in the sky," who will decide whether he lives.
This is a bizarre case. Whatever the court decides, doctors say it's likely that Sun will die within a few months because no amount of artificial life support can sustain him for long.
Sad.....
That is all well and good, what the hospital has done and all, but my question is...
Shouldn't the mother undergo a competency evaluation? If she's found competent, then why would the court overrule her wishes? If she's ruled incompetent in accordance with the law, then I could understand the hospital involving their ethics committee et. al. and the courts to address this poor child.
Seems we're either missing information, or they're going about it backwards...
Previous articles pretty much indicate that she's not competent, but rather than pursue that route, the hospital has sought to pursue this legal route.
The hospital has even paid for her lawyer.
This case is not as close as it appears. The nutcase mom wants her child to suffer to the bitter end because she thinks he's immortal. Of course, it ain't her nickel.
Believe me, I see stuff like this all the time...and I knew befoer finishing the article that it wasn't her nickel.
But, if she is such a "nutcase", then get her declared mentally incompetent and this whole thing doesn't give me the heebee-jeebees. Maybe she has been and this article doesn't state that fact.
I had no idea that the hospital was funding her lawyer too...but then again, every children's hospital I have ever worked at has gone to extreme lengths to cover all bases when it comes to dealing with unfortunate children with significant illnesses. They often care more than the parents unfortunately...
I think this is probably it for baby Sun, but it's pretty hard to believe that this isn't the sad but proper thing to do. I think any responsible parent would have let him go months ago.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/16/life.support.fight.ap/
Sun's mother appeared agitated in the courtroom and spoke to judge for several minutes during the hearing.
"I was told what to do by Sun," she said. "I don't understand all this legal stuff. But please give Sun time to allow Sun to create Sun."
Hudson has not seen her son in more than a month but believes she communicates with him telepathically.
The mother was admitted to a psych unit recently. No word available on this evaluation.
What a sad situation. May God have mercy on baby Sun, and his poor, confused mother, and everyone who has done his best for this little baby.
I saw this mother interviewed on Greta a few weeks back. It was like watching a train wreck. Poor Greta (LOL) must have wondered how this lady managed to slip through the screening process. If FOX didn't have a screening procedure, safe bet they had one by the end of that day.
It was very very sad. It appeared that the woman's brain had been seriously fried on drugs. So much so, that I considered that the baby was damaged because her DNA had mutated.
She was rambling on about the sun, and how "Sun" (the baby) was sent by the sun, etc. If you could imagine the demeanor of a Farakhan devotee - dutifully waiting for the mothership - that was what she looked and sounded like.
The medical and ethical issues regarding the child's care are complicated enough, without the "help" of the sun. Ugh.
Without knowing more it's hard to say for sure, but it sounds as if this was a legitimate decision. If honest doctors declare that the baby will never improve, then taking her off a ventilator is quite a different matter from depriving her of food and water.
I don't trust hospital ethicists, because they are trained in bogus programs and paid by hospitals. But it sounds like the right decision in this case.
I wish the court order had gone further and required Sun's mother to get her tubes tied. This is seriously one woman who should not be producing babies in the future.
It's not only that, but the baby will contineu to grow with lungs that never grow. It only gets worse with time.
Realistically, the question is how long do we prolong the torture of this individual, and to what purpose?
I'm not trying to be a butthead here, believe me. Based on what I read here and what I know as a physician, this is in all likelihood what needs to be done.
But how can the court be afraid of causing the mother more grief in getting a bonafide declaration of mental incompetence in this case than withdrawing care from a neonate?
When the government gets involved in deciding life and death issues, I would really feel much better if independant, non-government, medically qualified professionals render professional opinions as to the caretaker's mental competence before deciding life and death outcomes.
Yes, this child will most certainly die in the near term and I am more than certain that the children's hospital will ensure it to be as painless as possible even if life support is not withdrawn...but court cases set legal precedent and I want to see the boxes checked, i's dotted and t's crossed before courts (and hospitals which have financial stakes in these matters)make decisions to withdraw life support just because a parent seems 'unreasonable' and possibly mentally incompetent. The mother's 'grief' level in this case becomes secondary to the concerns for the infant who cannot decide for himself.
Maybe I just have a phobia of gevernments making these kinds of decisions...
The woman is in such a bad state, that whoever the "father" is, he is guilty of abusing and assaulting the mentally handicapped. I wonder if he told her that he was the sun god and she was his "chosen vessel".
Ironic...this article was in the USA Today....just today.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-13-expandable-ribs_x.htm
Expandable rib gives children room to breathe.
It's about a new FDA approved prosthetic that is used to expand a child's ribcage so that the lungs can grow as they need to.
We both know that the hospital can't afford to keep someone on expensive life support forever when they have no hope to recover, despite what the non-paying family member wishes.
We're certain to have more of these "end of life" legal cases as the medical profession is able to extend life through devices, medicines, or therapies far beyond previous boundaries.
Quality of life, the right to enjoy it or perhaps endure it (not to mention PAY FOR IT), is a new legal and medical frontier.
Wonder where Sun's father is. Or even who.
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