(1) Although the press will try to spin this as Schiavo redux, the two cases are quite different. Terri Schiavo did not need life support machines to survive, all she needed was a very obscure, high-level medical treatment called "food."
Haleigh Avrett cannot live without life support machines. If she is disconnected she will die a natural death.
(2) The only true resemblance between the two cases is that each features an evil individual who seeks to profit from the status of each helpless person.
Michael Schiavo wanted to starve Terri Schiavo to death in order to collect his money and wed his adulterous lover.
Jason Strickland wants to use machines to keep Haleigh Avrett clinically alive in order to avoid being charged in her murder.
Both individuals claim that they are the rightful guardian/caregiver over a helpless person whose interests run directly counter to his.
(3) Everyone from the birth mother to the stepmother to the babysitter failed this little girl. The story from start to finish is a study in the banality of evil.
agreed!!!! I could not have said it better
He cites the differing opinions of two doctors who disagree on whether the girl's feeding tube should be removed. Both doctors say her ventilator should be shut off. If she remains attached to the feeding tube only, she could live for several months, one of the doctors said. Without the tube, death would come much quicker."There's a 50-50 split in the medical opinion, and we ought to -- at a minimum -- be moving more cautiously on this," Egan said
So I don't think it's 100% clear yet whether she is capable of living on a feeding tube or if she requires a ventilator.
Your remark that this is another example of somebody profiting from the helpless person's status is very well taken, though!