Posted on 03/16/2005 6:12:01 AM PST by Crackingham
The baby wore a cute blue outfit with a teddy bear covering his bottom. The 17-pound, nearly 6-month-old boy wiggled with eyes open, his mother said, and smacked his lips. Then at 2 p.m. Tuesday, a medical staffer at Texas Children's Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his birth Sept. 25. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died.
"I talked to him, I told him that I loved him. Inside of me, my son is still alive," Wanda Hudson told reporters afterward. "This hospital was considered a miracle hospital. When it came to my son, they gave up in six months. ... They made a terrible mistake."
Sun's death marks the first time a U.S. judge has allowed a hospital to discontinue an infant's life-sustaining care against a parent's wishes, according to bioethical experts. A similar case involving a 68-year-old man in a vegetative state at another Houston hospital is before a court now.
"It's sad this thing dragged on for so long. We all feel it's unfair, that a child doesn't have a chance to develop and thrive," said William Winslade, a bioethicist and lawyer who is a professor at the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Paraphrasing the late Catholic theologian and ethicist Richard McCormick, Winslade added, "This isn't murder. It's mercy, and it's appropriate to be merciful in that way. It's not killing, it's stopping pointless treatment."
The hospital's description of Sun — that he was motionless and sedated for comfort — has differed sharply from the mother's. Since February, the hospital has blocked the media from Hudson's invitation to see the baby, citing privacy concerns.
"I wanted y'all to see my son for yourself," Hudson told reporters. "So you could see he was actually moving around. He was conscious."
On Feb. 16, Harris County Probate Court Judge William C. McCulloch made the landmark decision to lift restrictions preventing Texas Children's from discontinuing care. However, an appeal by Hudson's attorney, Mario Caballero, and a procedural error on McCulloch's part prevented the hospital from acting for four weeks.
Texas law allows hospitals to discontinue life-sustaining care, even if a patient's family members disagree. A doctor's recommendation must be approved by a hospital's ethics committee, and the family must be given 10 days from written notice of the decision to try and locate another facility for the patient.
In which case the rationing would be set by government eddict. Much worse.
I disagree. He was alive, he just had no possiblility of surviving. It happens all the time. Some babies are born with profound defects. It doesn't make them any less human, or their lives any less valid, but it also doesn't mean that artificial means need to be taken to keep them alive. Their little lives can end naturally with their parents being allowed to see them, hold them, and grieve for them as they leave this earth.
I saw this baby's mother on Fox once. She is a total raving lunatic. She was going on and on about the baby being some kind of god. You can't believe a word she says.
Sure as long as we don't promote his policies. I have seen the films where mental patients were portrayed as subhuman, thereby justifying there death to pay for housing for the Super Race.
Even I don't think we need to kill mental patients, but I won't be kicking in any of my dough in to buy them each a BMW either.
The only reason this child was alive was because the hospital put him on a ventilator the day he was born so they could find out what was wrong with him.
Every single day he became worse; of course, he was human, but he was never going to get any better. Babies born with thanatophoric dysplasia usually die in utero or within the first month.
To me, that is not life as I would define it.
It sounds like the mother was not competent enough to make the decisions.
I can also see the benefits of keeping this baby alive for research and training purposes.
In this specific case, I see this as the crueler alternative.
Precisely. Makes a good story, though, doesn't it?
Bias here?
I have never heard a reporter say:
"The hitman gently pulled the trigger..."
"The attacker gently forwarded the knife..."
"The rapist gently pushed in his d#*k..."
Isn't battle field and emergency room triage decision-making much like this?
Whatever the excuse, this is an extension of abortion. A post-birth abortion. The human was not worthy of life, was not wanted, therefore it can be terminated. It used to be that children who were born, thought they had survived the holocaust, but no more.
This child's life, and others like it, are a test for the rest of us. And in this case, our society has failed.
You don't think they'd put that in there, do you?
She and her lawyer were on Greta's show; she is absolutely, positively certifiable; and it has nothing to do with her child.
Sarcasm?
Please allow me to give you a "medical" perspective as I'm trained in critical care medicine. Early in my career I took care of a severely ill AIDS patient, Lonnie. Lonnie's CD4 count was nonexistent, his viral load off the chart. He had all of sorts concommitant infections, from tuberculosis to PCP pneumonia. On top of that he was an intravenous drug user who also had endocarditis. His mitral and tricuspid valves were clumped with bacterial vegetations sending septic emboli everywhere, including brain abscesses and pulmonary abscesses. Not only that, Lonnie was an alcoholic with advanced cirrhosis of the liver, esophageal varices and a rotund, distended belly because of ascites. He also had COPD from years of smoking. Lonnie had lead a hard life. He had developed all of these serious medical problems, and he was only 39 years old. I had taken care of Lonnie numerous previous times over the years until his last hospitalization. On that fateful night he came in vomitting blood, had a high fever and was in respiratory failure. He was in both septic and hypovolemic shock. He was bleeding from ruptured esophageal varices and had brain abscesses and pulmonary abscesses. We had attempted to convince Lonnie to go on hospice for years, but he refused. Lonnie and his family always wanted everything done.
Lonnie's case was that of MEDICAL FUTILITY. There was no way that Lonnie's life could have been saved that day. No heroic procedure or operation could have saved Lonnie's life that day. No amount of blood transfusion could have saved Lonnie's life that day. No amount of IV antibiotics could have saved Lonnie's life that fateful day. Lonnie was just too sick and the Lord was calling him home. His family expected a miracle, but he was Lonnie and not Lazarus. And I was certainly not...YOU KNOW WHO. Lonnie's sister was a nurse, and she demanded that many things be done. I did put Lonnie of life support in hope that his family would see the pain and suffering he was going through, but they were persistent and demanded numerous specialty consultations from Gastroenterology, Surgery, Cardiology, Infectious Disease, Pulmonary Critical Care, etc...To which I did consult all of these specialists who agreed with me and shook their heads, all giving up. Despite a multi-disciplinary approach by a total of 7 physicians from different fields telling Lonnie's family that his prognosis was grim and death was certain, Lonnie's family threatened that "if everything was not done," they would "sue you all to the ground!" Everyday that Lonnie stayed in the ICU it cost the hospital $$$$$$ and of course, Lonnie had no health insurance. He had never even paid any of his previous hospital bills. Not that $$$$ should ever be the deciding factor in patient care, but when one is in a decision-making position that involves public health, one should not waste public resources on cases of futility. Lonnie's case was indeed that of medical futility. Subsequently, I assembled the hospital ethics committee, and together with the recommendations of 7 physicians, we declared Lonnie's case medical futility. By state law, the hospital allowed us to discontinue life support. We approached Lonnie's family with our decision and gave them the opportunity to find an accepting physician at another hospital that would take on his care. Naturally they couldn't find any. His family was present when I turned off the ventilator all the IV's. Lonnie died ~15 minutes later. As physicians we all took the Hippocratic Oath and of course "above all do no harm," but patients and families often do have unrealisitic expectations. Sure it's difficult to understand and accept a poor prognosis but I often find that, in such cases, denial always pervades.
Some medications are very powerful and can produce birth defects. Either she's grieving in a very bizarre way or she's 'touched'. I hope it's just severe grief.
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