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.
Oh my God.
Can't really think of anything else to say.
More background would be helpful
These liberal judges can't stand to have a murdering thug executed for his/her crimes, but they have absolutely no problem pulling the plug on an innocent life. How perverse and sickening can they be?
A very hard matter to decide. I have seen both sides. The very worst - babies with no chance of living that are kept alive (at the hospital expense) so that the parent can continue to collect the baby's social security check (yes, they get one).
Prayers sent.
Oh, God. My heart breaks for the family. What have we come to in this country when medical doctors don't work to sustain life? Does not the hypocratic (sp) oath say that doctors are to "do no harm"?
I'm ready to march on William McCulloch's court.
What's so ironic is we had to battle doctors who wanted to place my 92 year old FIL on a vent, even though his Living Will specifically stated that he did not want to have artificial means of respiration.
The man had MRSA and was incoherent from a number of strokes, and yet they kept insisting we put him on a vent.
We resisted, but I can't even explain the kind of pressure they were exerting: it was daily and for weeks.
His mother didn't help her cause by claiming that the child didn't have an earthly father, that he was conceived by the Sun, thus his name. She had been evaluated by the psych unit of the hospital, but they didn't try to commit her. I guess the hospital didn't want to do that because they didn't want to seem heartless in not allowing her to be with her son.
There is nothing that requires hospitals to continue treatment if that treatment isn't going to make someone better. If there is no way that someone is going to survive, it is not required to keep them alive through artificial means.
You need to march on the legislature.
The resources required to keep this baby alive could have kept hundreds alive somewhere else. Choices are always tough when it comes to these issues. We live in a world of limited resources and rationing is a fact of life.
My good G-D:{{{{{{{{{Ping thank you
"The resources required to keep this baby alive could have kept hundreds alive somewhere else. Choices are always tough when it comes to these issues. We live in a world of limited resources and rationing is a fact of life."
Explain how killing that baby saved hundreds....
My very thought.
I don't think they killed it, they just didn't do anything to keep it alive.
The maximum monthly check the child would be eligible for would be $30.00, if the child is in a Medicaid facility. If not, the child would get nothing. And it would not be a Social Security check, it would be from SSI.
"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."
It?
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