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Life-Support Loonies, Go Home Haleigh Poutre is no Terri Schiavo
reasononline ^ | January 31, 2006 | Cathy Young

Posted on 02/01/2006 4:20:00 PM PST by tbird5

The case of Haleigh Poutre, the battered child at the center of a legal and medical dispute in Massachusetts, is so horrific as to evoke medieval tableaux of hell. This 11-year-old girl was failed by all the adults in her life, from her biological and adoptive families to social workers and medical professionals. Haleigh, who seems to be emerging from her four-month-long coma and has been moved from intensive care to a rehab center, would have been dead today if the stepfather charged in her near-fatal beating had not fought (most likely for self-interested reasons) to keep her alive.

This tragedy should have been a national outrage. Yet it has gotten only scant attention. Syndicated columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin blames this on a "post-Schiavo syndrome." After last year's pitched battle over whether Terri Schiavo should be kept alive in a vegetative state, most people shudder at the thought of a repeat. Malkin may well be right—but if so, the blame rests with the right-to-life advocates who made Schiavo their cause célèbre.

To put it simply: Haleigh Poutre is no Terri Schiavo. Schiavo had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, and had undergone a barrage of tests showing that she had no higher brain functioning and no consciousness—a fact on which all unbiased medical experts agreed. (Her case had also undergone repeated court review.) Haleigh had been in a vegetative state since Sept. 11. After the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that she could be taken off life support, the girl began to show improvement.

(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: cultureofdeath; deathcult; deathindustry; haleighpoutre; libertarians; prodeath; righttolife
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1 posted on 02/01/2006 4:20:03 PM PST by tbird5
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To: tbird5

Even though we are correct that dehydration of useless eaters is on the rise.....


2 posted on 02/01/2006 4:22:22 PM PST by MarMema (Steelers favorite local seafood - mud eel chowder)
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To: tbird5
(Her case had also undergone repeated court review.)

We've seen that 'court review' is often a misnomer, and more often than not a crossing of legal t's and dotting of bureaucratic i's than a consideration of meaningful fact.

3 posted on 02/01/2006 4:23:47 PM PST by atomicpossum (Replies must follow approved guidelines or you will be kill-filed without appeal.)
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To: atomicpossum

If the State had been better at review, she wouldn't have remained to BE beaten.

Letting her die permits her attacker to be tried for murder. I say try the State workers for murder. They failed her.


4 posted on 02/01/2006 4:29:26 PM PST by weegee (Happy Holidays! Tis the season of MLK, Chinese New Year, Tet, Valentine's, Presidents...)
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To: tbird5

I believe Michelle Malkin was asking where all the people that wanted to keep Tookie Williams alive were at.


5 posted on 02/01/2006 4:34:59 PM PST by buckeyesrule
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To: tbird5
With their cries of "medical terrorism" and their comparisons to Nazi Germany, these so-called champions of life created an atmosphere in which some of their supporters made death threats not only to Michael Schiavo but to judges and legislators who had been on the "wrong" side of the dispute.

Although not quite reaching the heights of death threats, here on FR the roar alone was enough to treat each Shiavo thread as untouchable. Even a mere wisp of disagreement initiated an avalanche of verbal retribution the likes of which I had never seen on FR before or after.

6 posted on 02/01/2006 4:35:25 PM PST by JoeSixPack1
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To: tbird5
From the article: After the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that she could be taken off life support, the girl began to show improvement.

Incorrect. To those who do not know (except perhaps from reading it in this article), Michelle Malkin has been covering this extensively. From one of her pieces here: Save Haleigh


As state officials prepared to remove Haleigh's life support, the supposedly impossible happened. She began breathing on her own, responding to stimuli, and showing signs of emerging from what the medical establishment had deemed her hopeless condition. Everyone had given up on Haleigh — except Haleigh. ''There has been a change in her condition," announced a DSS spokeswoman, Denise Monteiro. ''The vegetative state may not be a total vegetative state."


Unbelievably, the state had weaned Haleigh off her breathing tube before the state supreme court had made its ruling — but the government failed to inform the court of the development. Haleigh's medical records and the social service agency's brief remain sealed.

7 posted on 02/01/2006 4:40:03 PM PST by cgk (I don't see myself as a conservative. I see myself as a religious, right-wing, wacko extremist.)
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To: JoeSixPack1

As well it should have. Killing innocent people is wrong, whether pretty young girls or handicapped women. Or men.


8 posted on 02/01/2006 4:40:07 PM PST by rimtop56
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To: tbird5; 4lifeandliberty; AbsoluteGrace; afraidfortherepublic; Alamo-Girl; AlbionGirl; ...

Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping!

Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping list...

9 posted on 02/01/2006 4:41:11 PM PST by cgk (I don't see myself as a conservative. I see myself as a religious, right-wing, wacko extremist.)
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To: weegee
Letting her die permits her attacker to be tried for murder. I say try the State workers for murder. They failed her.

Try them in the federal system and give 'em 15 to 25.

10 posted on 02/01/2006 4:43:01 PM PST by darkangel82
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To: All

ACTION ALERT! SEND HALEIGH A CARD OR LETTER!

the Boston Globe article :

EXCERPT:

Haleigh Poutre was discharged Thursday from Baystate Medical Center in Springfield and admitted to the Franciscan Hospital for Children. She has been hospitalized since September, when authorities say she was beaten into a coma.

A statement issued by the Franciscan Hospital said: "It is our hope that her stay at Franciscan will afford her the opportunity to maximize her potential for gains in her recovery."

The hospital advertises itself as the largest pediatric rehabilitation facility in New England.

CONTACT INFO FOR FRANCISCAN HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN:

Franciscan Hospital for Children
Attention: Miss Haleigh Poutre
30 Warren Street
Boston, MA 02135
phone: 617-254-3800
fax: 617-779-1119

Message to a Patient

Message To Patient

Franciscan Hospital for Children provides a secure and confidential way for family and friends of our inpatients to send a message over the Internet using this document.  Between Monday and Friday, your message will be printed and confidentially delivered to the patient, usually within 24 hours.  Messages received on the weekend are delivered to the patient the following business day.

11 posted on 02/01/2006 4:43:54 PM PST by cgk (I don't see myself as a conservative. I see myself as a religious, right-wing, wacko extremist.)
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To: atomicpossum
a consideration of meaningful fact

Technically, there is only one finding of fact, at the trial court level. All of those wonderful appellate reviews are merely matters of law.
12 posted on 02/01/2006 4:44:25 PM PST by BubbaTheRocketScientist
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To: cgk

This just sickens me. Why must we go through this over and over? If the Culture of Death is so eager to end life, there are thousands of monsters on death row all over the country, they are guilty, end their lives, not the lives of the innocent.


13 posted on 02/01/2006 4:50:36 PM PST by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: tbird5
"the blame rests with the right-to-life advocates who made Schiavo"

What an asinine statement and a stupid article. Just b/c I point out your warts does not mean that I caused them.

Even if I grant the writer that Terri was in a vegetative state and not likely to recover to normal (however "normal" is defined)....the argument was that she should not have been killed just b/c she wasn't pretty enough or smart enough anymore. You don't kill people just b/c you think that their life stinks. and the tired old argument of her husband said she wanted to die if ever like "that"....then she should have put it in writing. (why is it that left never believes the husband of a vegetative pregnant women when he says she would have wanted to be kept alive so that the baby could live?)
The culture of death marches on.
14 posted on 02/01/2006 4:56:38 PM PST by socialismisinsidious (Liberals are all about choice UNTIL you choose differently than them.)
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To: rimtop56
Killing innocent people is wrong,...

My Senior Drill Instructor at Parris Island said the same thing as he taugh us to twist our bayonents between the 3 & 4 rib to break them. That's a harsh reality that doesn't equate to an argument or even a discussion. But it also has nothing to do with what technic you use to fight bad laws in the name of humanity.

15 posted on 02/01/2006 5:08:51 PM PST by JoeSixPack1
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To: tbird5
We need an Upton Sinclair to write a best-seller, like The Jungle," about end-of-life care.
16 posted on 02/01/2006 5:58:33 PM PST by syriacus (Dems THINK that they have fire in their bellies. But it's merely indigestion.)
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To: tbird5

The author is an idiot. She should reserve her ire for the MASS DSS who tried ti have life support removed from the little girl after just three weeks. Or the Judge that oredered it. Or perhaps the left wing lunatic Mass politicians who made it all possible.


17 posted on 02/01/2006 6:04:13 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: cgk

Message sent, thanks for the link!


18 posted on 02/01/2006 6:07:06 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: tbird5
Her case had also undergone repeated court review

In context, that is a lie. The facts -- determined by one man alone -- were never reviewed. Yet they were contested, and remain so. The US Congress even passed an Act asking that the facts be reviewed and/or reheard by others.

19 posted on 02/01/2006 6:07:49 PM PST by bvw
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To: tbird5
The courts and science have been put on a level by some people as gods.

Remember that God is a jealous God and will have no others before Him.

Some will be paying for this affront to our Lord!
20 posted on 02/01/2006 6:20:03 PM PST by franky (Pray for the souls of the faithful departed.)
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