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.
No one killed the baby. If the baby was born 10 years ago, it would have died naturally months ago. I've walked in these shoes and those of you throwing around the term "killed" and "murder" are unkind at best.
One of our twins lived 5 months after birth, but suffered a congenital pulmonary condition that was uncorrectable. We spent months looking for possible treatments. She was suffering greatly, heavily sedated, on a vent, and losing pulmonary function daily. She was also on powerful meds that forced her lungs to dilate and were causing long-term damage. Even 5 years earlier she would not have lived more than a few days. Advances in health care have made it possible, but leave parents and other guardians with very difficult choices.
We, and the doctors, did everything humanly possible, but there was no possibility of improvement or treatment. We withdrew the medications that were destroying her lungs, maintained her sedatives, and let her die a natural death as her pulmonary function decline while sedated. She died within 18 hours in her mother's arms. She was surrounded by the loving and caring doctors and nurses who had been with us for those 5 months. Not once did they urge us to DO anything to shorten her life.
At the time we let her go to God, we were sure that humans had done all that could be done for her. It was time for God to heal her and take her into his kingdom. If you haven't faced this situation, I'd tread lightly.
SSI.
If by some freakishly miraclulous feat of medical engineering this baby was able to become a serial murderer, would you support the death penalty?
They don't even seem to have a problem with parents dumping the innocent into toilets, dumpsters, or even beating them to death with ball bats.
Evil.
"So now we play god and ration life away? "
We do it every day. It's never pleasant, but it's unavoidable. For instance, foreign policy: we have killed a lot of Iraqis, but hopefully by doing so have saved many more. I'm not commenting on this case specifically, because I don't know the details, but there does come a point when extreme "life-saving" measures just don't make sense, not financially and more importantly, not ethically.
That's pretty sick. His was a life of suffering and pain, one not meant by God to be long, but it was still a life.
And you sound ill-informed; how in heck did you manage to hang around here for three years and NOT know what a good Freeper DCPatriot is?
Sometimes it's better just to be quiet.
I think they said "host in the sun".
Exactly the same argument that Hitler made concerning the mentally ill.
That's it; jump right on this case as a benchmark! Don't bother to get the facts; just assume because a news source printed it, it's word for word fact.
If you use this case as a rallying cry, you're going to look ridiculous.
Oh, but didn't you know: other people, strangers, know what's best for you and your family. At least that seems to be the prevelant thinking on FR lately.
God bless you and your wife.
You may call it sick; I call it compassionate. And I also call it facing the facts.
I've said earlier that I think the baby is better off with God than he would be on earth. However, because he was not born perfect doesn't make him less than human.
Could care less about how good a Freeper DCPatriot is....that's not my point. I have worked in a hospital setting for over 20 years and I know how they work.
"Sometimes it's better just to be quiet."
Hmmmmmm......no room to challenge viewpoints on FR?? Militant
I am financially conservative and socially moderate...albeit right-of-center.
I am for smaller government and low taxes.
I am Pro-death penalty in most cases and Pro-life (personally) but Pro-Choice politically.
I dislike religious zealots but understand why we should fight to the death to sustain their right to believe and practice their chosen faith...of which I have none.
Is that sufficient proof?
Can we leave Hitler out of this conversation?
Who here doesn't practice resource management and rationing throughout the course of their day and life? The humane, "rational", and "good" distribution is what we are talking about here isn't it? Was there humanity in this decision? I'd say yes.
She must have been a Classy Green Eyed Blond.
Or played a lot of golf, mann. No?
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