Posted on 02/01/2006 7:29:10 AM PST by Ohioan from Florida
In the court (and courts) of life and death, a little 11-year-old Massachusetts girl named Haleigh Poutre could be the next Terri Schiavo. For those who have not heard the tragic story, Haleigh was beaten nearly to death last September, allegedly by her adoptive mother and stepfather. The beating left her unconscious and barely clinging to life.
Within a week or so of the beating, her doctors had written her off. They apparently told Haleigh's court-appointed guardian, Harry Spence, that she was "virtually brain dead." Even though he had never visited her, Spence quickly went to court seeking permission to remove her respirator and feeding tube. The court agreed, a decision affirmed recently by the supreme court of Massachusetts.
And so, no doubt with the best of intentions, a little girl who had already suffered so much was stripped by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of even the chance to fight to stay alive. If she didn't stop breathing when the respirator was removed, which doctors expected, she would slowly dehydrate to death.
Close Call
Then came the unexpected:
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
A few short years ago, I was in the hospital, in dire circumstances. I was waken up in the wee hours of the morning, my bed surrounded by doctors and "other medical professionals", and told that I would be dead within two hours unless I accepted a public anonymous blood trandfusion.
Aside:
I had steadfastly refused this demand -- to the point of leaving one hospital "AMA" and self-admitting to another a hundred miles away. I had even offered to accept known blood from friends or relatives. No-dice. I was told I was prohibited from accepting any transfusion other than public "anonymous" blood. So much for "my body, my choice", and "choice in medicine", eh?
Now, the punchline: I was presented with "the papers", and pressured to sign them. These people expected me to die, and they were intent on either coercing me to accept "public" blood, or, signing "the papers". I would do neither, and they were not pleased.
My attitude at this point boiled down to "Piss on 'em!" I hit that point when, upon being assured "for the nth time" that public anonymous blood was perfectly safe to inject into my veins, I interrupted and said can I ask you a question? I asked, what would you, Mr. Doctor, do, if, while in the process of injecting a pint of that 'perfectly safe' blood into MY arm, discover that the hose had a small leak, and a single DROP of it had fallen onto YOUR arm?
I caught him off guard. He replied as I expected. He said that he would immediately stop whatever it was that he was doing, and go scrub up, with strong disinfectant.
I said uh-huh, I see. It's "safe" enough to put INTO my arm, but it's too dangerous to even allow a drop to TOUCH your arm. I think I'll take a pass on that offer, doc.
But I digress.
When the "professionals" thought I was going to die, they were intensely coercive in their efforts to get me to "sign the papers", and it really pissed me off.
I imagine they are accustomed to getting their way. Most people are not stubborn Cossack sons of bitches like me. <g> MOST people will cave when cornered and pressured. Unfortunately. (Unfortunately NOT only for them -- it's unfortunate for all of us, because the more compliant "the masses" are, the more we all are placed in the utterly unreasonable situation of having to fight for our rights in a scenario where we should be able to trust "professionals" to look after our best interests. (Without "best interests" defined as "killing us".)
Postscript: I never "signed the papers". I never "took the public blood". I never died.
As many as they believe they can carve up for high-profit body parts without anyone the wiser.
Whenever I see someone engaged in what I perceive as a pathological defense of a pathological practice (i.e., a dug-in defense of the "medical" propriety of killing off the defenseless), I have to wonder if there's a bit of a "personal issue" at werk, similar to the way that the most strident defenders of the "right to abort" will often turn out to be women who have aborted their own children, and now have something of a vested interest in proving -- not so much to "the world", as to themselves, that they really did NOT "do something wrong, something evil."
I would not be surprised if a statistical study of those who stridently advocate for euthanasia (regardless of the nomenclature they use) to be persons who have actively participated in "the decision" for a family member -- and now are deeply vested on a very personal level in the "need" to validate the practice.
If, as I suspect, this is the case for many of these people, then I expect that no amount of reasoning with them will accomplish anything at all. For them, it is a matter of absolute necessity that they maintain their position at all costs. To abandon their position would be to face an unthinkable alternative, quite likely entailing a complete emotional breakdown.
Economics 101. Either a) the patient croaks, the hospital carves him up and MAKES a bunch of money; or b) the patient survives and the hospital LOSES a bunch of money taking care of him. In that conflict, the doctors will be sore tempted to gloss over moral distinctions, to cut corners and to go for the bucks. They will rationalize that the patient isn't going to make it anyway. They will excuse themselves with the thought that somebody else needs the body parts. They will lie to themselves.
Some doctors will stand firm. Too many will be corrupted by the money.
If they inject you or any patient with that nice, safe public blood, and if the blood is contaminated, the patient's organs cannot be later be harvested without passing his disease(s) to the organ recipient.
You would be right. People have always tried to excuse or rationalize their guilt. Cain tried to jive-talk the Lord after he slew Abel. Michael Schiavo reportedly pulled the tubes on both his parents before he did it to his wife.
Money is also a permanent motive for evil. Planned Parenthood is the country's biggest abortion mill. That's worth megabucks. Is it any wonder they have the Democratic Party out shilling for them?
American mating rituals are very peculiar :-)
There's a party? I'm there!
How much does Woodside owe to Medicare? Shouldn't they have to reimburse them under the Hospice requirements?
LMAO! I hear them up here at night, along with coyotes. Not exactly sure what species, though. So it's almost 2pm here, and we're bbqing beef, and having stuffed baked potatoes, with raw veggies and dip. That's so we don't feel too bad about clogging our arteries. What are you all having?
I usually make a huge pot of chili for Super Bowl, but for two people it's too much.
Usually we read about the children in the paper after they've been beaten or scalded to death. They were at risk, and for the most part SS didn't act in the best interests of the child.
Up thread, I expressed concerns about the allegations that the bio mother's bf molested Haleigh. If anyone can find court records where the case went to trial, the man pled guilty, was sentenced to time in prison, I'd like to know about it. I'd also love to know who leveled the charges against him. The bio mother could have been forced to relinquish Haleigh. That doesn't mean she doesn't love her.
I'm not only interested in Haleigh's safety and continued wellbeing, I am also extremely interested in what's been going on from the beginning.
That's flippin' scary. Glad to hear you made it out of there alive.
Nothing wrong with being a stubborn Cossack, or a stubborn Irish for that matter, when it comes to decisions that affect your health.
I'd also like to know. One thing's for sure, her biological mother cares enough to fight for her life.
At an earlier (rural) place, we had hooties and more hooties. If I walked around on a summer night, about twilight, that was encroaching their hunting ground. Inevitably, one would try to scare me away. It would fly up from behind me on silent wings, and as it passed a few inches over my head, it would make a loud clicking noise and utter a horrendous shriek -- a lot of noice for a little critter! :-) The first time or two, I jumped a foot. After that, for years, I'd just laugh and tell them that I knew their grandparents.
One year they nested in a tiny tree right out the door and had three chicks. We named them Goodness, Gracious and Great Balls of Fur.
Really, why would the government gag the biological mother with the threat of witheld visitation?
These folks still aren't used to the fact that people have discussions on the internet, and ask questions about a variety of topics, especially this one!
Hahahaha! That's funny : ) Of course not the part about them sneaking up behind you. Those claws can do some damage.
That "hope scores" consistently rise in our patients after being admitted to hospice. We work hard at changing, realigning, and transforming hopes of our patients from "hope for a cure" to the many and diverse hopes of the dying.
excerpted from NCG
FV says: "many and diverse hopes of the dying." How about BRAINWASHING, THIEVERY AND MURDER? That's the real story.
That has to be where the term "what a hoot!" came from :-)
One of Mikey's attorneys in post 407, the one on the right. Atty Witchknell. Atty Deathknell.
I musta missed something last night on c-span. Now have the super bowl on and as usual, boring. Waiting for the Rolling Stones to entertain.
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