Haleigh Moved to Rehab Facility (Haleigh Poutre, ruled "vegetative" responding to stimuli)

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. A new development today in the case of Haleigh Poutre (HAY'-lee POOT'-Rah), the eleven-year-old Westfield girl who was close to being removed from life support after she was allegedly beaten into a coma.Officials from the state Department of Social Services say Haleigh has been moved from Baystate Medical Center in Springfield to a rehabilitation facility at an undisclosed location in Massachusetts.

The move comes after D-S-S received a second opinion on the girl's medical condition from outside doctors. She was hospitalized in September with a seriously injured brain stem, and her doctors at the time said she would never recover from her vegetative state.

But just after D-S-S won a court order to remove Haleigh from life support, she started showing signs of improvement and had been weaned off her ventilator. Officials say she is now able to move her eyes in the direction where a sound is being made.

"Couldn't administering life-saving antibiotics, when medics see fit, be also considered a thwarting of God's will? And isn't that close to what Christian Scientists believe?"

Well, yes, I suppose it could. It's obviously all a matter of perspective, which was kind of my point. I believe you are correct, Christian Scientists don't believe in many of the approaches modern medicine takes to keeping people alive, I believe they're even against giving or receiving blood (I recall a case a while back where a court order had to be obtained because parent's were refusing to get a blood transfusion necessary for their daughter's survival). However, I tend to consider Christian Science more of a cult, than a traditional form of Christianity. So I'm still curious if there are any mainstream Protestants, or Catholics here who are of the opinion that modern medicine can go to far in the pursuit of keeping the human body alive?

"Was God's will thwarted when the ventilator was removed and she didn't die on her own?"

I don't know, I would never claim to know such a thing in such a specific instance.

"...many of us agree with the founder's Statement who wrote we are "Pro-God and Pro-Life" as 2 of the first on a list of many identifiers."

Yes, I'm aware of this, hence my question as to whether there were any Christians who believed that we go too far; if anybody thought maybe we sometimes interfere with the natural course of things out of human pride. I was under the impression however, that the term "Pro-Life" is typically a reference to being opposed to abortion. If one were to truly be Pro-Life in the sense you seem to be implying, that of never killing a human (if one were to construe the discontinuation of life support to be a form of killing, which of course as I have mentioned seems to come down to a matter of belief) then of necessity, one would have to be opposed to wars, the death penalty etc... Or do you mean you're Pro-Life if the individual is under the age of 17?

"Many of us pray for this girl's life."

Moreover, shouldn't we pray for improvement and recovery as well?

"If it is God's will that she dies, who would argue, so long as it is God's will and not the state's determination."

But you said yourself she was removed from a ventilator and started breathing on her own... if it is not a surety that someone will die when a ventilator is removed, it is not a "determination" that the individual SHOULD die but rather that their life, if it is to continue, should be left up to nature/God/whatever. How does one determine if one is in line with God's will, or if one struggles against it?

"She is 11, a child, and deserves protecting."

I do not disagree. In the beginning, I was merely indulging in some philosophical speculation and posing an ontological question. I realize now that such an action must have been out of place.

"Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?" --God, Job 38:4-6,17

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