Still Waiting

Dakota Voice ^ | 1/29/2007 | Carrie K. Hutchens

[8mmMauser]

I don't know about anyone else, but I am still waiting for Michael Schiavo to make a correction on his blog about what "actually" took place in Colorado when he went there (to the debate) to supposedly ask Congresswoman Musgrave one question and she and her staff supposedly tried to have him removed. He called it, "My unreal night in Colorado - with radio link" (Thu Oct 26, 2006 at 08:05:14 PM PST). I'll say (from what I read) that it was his "unreal night".

As I said before in "Standing up and Admitting a Mistake: Not Schiavo's Style?",  if four uniformed officers were around my seat, I would have some idea of what was going on. I certainly wouldn't be sitting in "duh mode" to only be told later of what took place right there around me, as Michael suggests he was. If Michael's account is realistic -- his response and reaction is not. Nor is his response appropriate now that he has "learned" what he was "allegedly told" is not what took place. One would think if he can't get the words out that he was mistaken, he could at least have removed the inaccurate entry from his blog.

He has done neither.

I'm also still waiting to read about, "Also, maybe tomorrow I'll post about my election-eve rally with Bill Clinton in Florida." (A real election impact by Michael Schiavo, Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 10:40:34 AM PST).  Indeed, I would love to read that story by Michael, since I read it was not possible. Not if he was implying it was the Bill Clinton that is the former President of the United States. Will be interesting to see what he says about that if he ever does.

If Michael couldn't get it straight what happened at the Musgrave debate or even if he spent election-eve with former President Bill Clinton -- do you suppose he might have gotten Terri Schiavo's wishes mixed-up as well? (He does claim to have a bad memory from what I read.) Makes one wonder. At least makes me wonder. Whatever...

I'm still waiting for the corrections if not the explanations!

 

Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.

[BykrBayb]

I have no problem with them choosing a guardian from a list of family members, for people who haven't put their choice of guardian in writing. And I think their order of priority makes sense. They have provisions for replacing an unqualified guardian, though these provisions could have been better written.

Where the real problem comes in is the god-like power granted to guardians, to end the lives of their wards, in the absence of any known wishes of the wards, and sometimes against the expressed wishes of the wards.

You could put it in writing that you would want a feeding tube if you were severely brain damaged, and the guardian appointed by your doctor could say "He didn't specify what he would want if 30% of his brain was atrophed. Remove the feeding tube." And that's the way it would be.

The individual doesn't have to be comatose, PVS, or brain dead. Incompetent will suffice. You can be fully aware, but unable to express yourself, and the family member, friend, or neighbor chosen by the doctor to represent you can order your death.

[BykrBayb]

He has clearly admitted that he arranged Nancy's murder with perjured testimony. Who do we contact to get the ball rolling on this?

[BykrBayb]

It Can Happen Here

by John R. Woodward
This article is taken from "The Disability Rag and ReSource"
vol 15 no. 1 (Jan/Feb) 1994. Avocado Press: louisville, KY.

American doctors once conducted an experiment that proved you can kill the disabled babies of poor families and get away with it. Their research was funded by the Federal Government. Twenty-four babies with spina bifida lost their lives. The experiment was declared a success. Yes, it can happen here.

Between 1977 and 1982, four doctors and a social worker at the Children's Hospital of Oklahoma, in Oklahoma City, monitored the births of babies with myelomeningocele (the medical term for spina bifida). Parents who were poor were told that it would not be appropriate to treat their baby and given an extremely pessimistic picture of their child's future life. Parents from better-off families were told more about the treatments for spina bifida and given more optimistic - and more accurate - information about their child's potential.

None of the parents knew they were part of an experiment. Parents who were assigned to the "pessimistic outcome" group chose, by a factor of nearly five to one, not to have their babies treated. The experiment was not conducted to prove that babies with spina bifida will die if they are not treated. Doctors already knew that. The goal of the experiment was to prove that the families would accept a "do-not-treat" recommendation from their doctors.

It was no coincidence that the babies who died were the children of poor parents. To select the families for the "pessimistic outcome group," the doctors conducting the study developed a "formula" which they published as part of their write-up in "Pediatrics", the most famous and influential medical journal devoted to the care of children. This is their "formula": Quality of Life = Natural Endowment by the contribution of the Home plus the contribution of Society. In a more mathematical style it reads: QL = NE * (H + S). The doctors measured the "H" - the contribution of the home - primarily in financial terms: family income, family debt, employment and employability of the parents, etc. The parents' "intellectual resources," defined in terms of their educational level, were also included in the calculation of "H," which had the effect of crowding the pessimistic outcome group with parents less likely to challenge the doctors' "facts". Since "Natural Endowment" is multiplied by the other factors, rather than added to them, babies with a greater level of impairment (and hence less "natural endowment") were more likely to be placed in the "pessimistic outcome" group.

The "formula" used non-medical factors to decide which babies ought to receive treatment, which should be a medical decision. The use of a mathematical procedure to create the appearance of an empirical foundation for the decision not to treat is not science. It's "scientism," the dressing up of a moral prejudice in the language and trappings of science, so as to lend a false credibility to a value judgment that would otherwise be more readily exposed as a mere prejudice. In this case, the doctors arbitrarily assumed that poor families offered a quality of life so much lower than that of middle-class and wealthy families that babies born into them were better off dead.

Frieda Smith, who gave birth to Stonewall Jackson Smith in 1979, remembers being confronted by a doctor just days after a difficult birth, before she had time to come to terms with her baby's birth impairment.

"He (the doctor) told me that I would always have to take care of him, that he would be blind, that he would never know me, that he was more like some kind of animal than a human being," she says. "He never really sat down with me and explained what the operation would do for Stoney." Ms. Smith was never told that the failure rate for spina bifida treatments is very low, nor did she understand that the operation would reduce the degree of sensory, mobility and intellectual impairment that her son experienced. "He made it sound like Stoney would live longer, but he wouldn't ever get any better."

Ms. Smith signed a consent form agreeing that Stonewall would be fed and given minimal "supportive care," but no antibiotics or surgery. Later, when she had questions about her baby's treatment, the doctor refused to make himself available to answer them. Ms. Smith also says that she did not know that she could have taken her son to another hospital, where he would have been treated at once.

During the five years of the study, 69 babies with spina bifida were born in the Children's Hospital of Oklahoma (now known as Oklahoma Children's Hospital), a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Oklahoma. Thirty-three babies were recommended for "supportive care" without treatment; eight of them were eventually treated anyway, either because their parents insisted or because their parents or guardians eventually obtained more accurate information. All of the 24 babies whose parents consented to the "supportive care" regimen died. ( a twenty-fifth baby in the "supportive care" regimen was moved out of state by his parents and lost to the study. Two of the eight babies that were eventually treated also died, possibly because the treatments came too late.) Most of the babies who were deprived of treatment were born to women in the welfare system, who were paying for their care with Medicaid benefits. None of the 36 babies that were given antibiotics and surgery died from the effects of spina bifida. (One did in an accident.)

In addition to being poor, many of the families of the children that were chosen to die were poorly educated. Frieda Smith felt that she was manipulated by a doctor who took advantage of her medical ignorance. Her experiences, and the experiences of other mothers whose babies died, raised serious questions about whether they truly gave "informed consent" when they signed the forms agreeing to the "supportive care" regimen. Indeed, some parents came away from their meeting with the doctor under the false impression that the hospital was not required to treat babies who did not meet the "criteria for treatment" (i.e., the formula).

Ms. Smith and her husband John, who are European-Americans, joined two other parents in a lawsuit against the hospital, the Oklahoma Department of Social Services, administrators in both institutions and the doctors and social workers who conducted the study. Cheparney Camp, a Native American, sued over the death of his daughter Melissa, and Sharon Jackson, who is African-American, sued on behalf of her son Carlton. Carlton, in the words of attorney Jane Brockman, "beat the odds." He survived for months in a children's center, where the nurses and attendants cared for him. Eventually, Ms. Johnson insisted that he be treated. However, the months-long delay caused him to develop more severe impairments than he would have sustained if he had been treated within 48 hours of his birth - which is standard procedure.

Sadly, the lawsuit was unsuccessful. The National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled, in conjunction with Oklahoma attorneys, represented the plaintiffs through nearly 10 years of hearings and appeals, before the Supreme Court decided, last January, not to hear the case. The plaintiffs began in the Federal Courts with an 11-count complaint, charging wrongful deaths, malpractice, violations of fundamental Constitutional rights, a failure to inform the families that they were participating in an experiment, discrimination under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and other violations of Federal law. Between 1983 and 1990 the courts threw out all the counts. When the Supreme Court refused to reinstate the Section 504 complaint in January, they ended the long legal battle.

"What the Supreme Court could have done by recognizing we had a viable complaint under Section 504 was to send a message to hospitals all across the country, and physicians across the country that you *will* have claims against you if you discriminate against the disabled child in a situation where the treatment is related to that disabling condition," says Jane Brockmann, one of the National Legal Center attorneys who handled the final stages of the case. "We could have scared physicians across the country away from what these physicians did."

Readers of "The Rag" will recall that the European Holocaust of World War II began with the government-ordered murder of persons with physical and mental disabilities, most of whom were killed by their own doctors. This program began two years before World War II and claimed the lives of over 100,000 Germans with disabilities. Ever since the full scope of the Nazi racial crimes was revealed, Americans have insisted to the world that the mass murder of "undesirables" under the authority of State and Science is a crime of which we are not capable.

Indeed, if there is a difference that stands out between the attitudes of the German doctors who murdered their own patients and the "researchers" at the Oklahoma Children's Hospital, it is this: the German doctors acted in secret, knowing that their crimes must not be exposed. They hid their killings behind an elaborate arrangement of phony death certificates and other official paperwork. The Oklahoma doctors, on the other hand, proclaimed what they had one openly, in the most prestigious medical journal of their specialty. They understood the attitude of the American public towards persons with disabilities. Evidently, they understood it better than we disability rights activists do today! They knew that any furor over their crimes would dissipate without harming their careers, and they knew that in the end their colleagues would admire and emulate them.

"We are beginning to see hospitals going to court, trying to establish `rights' for themselves," says Ms. Brockmann. "Hospitals are seeking the right not to treat some patients." Of course, these patients are persons with disabilities who require expensive, intricate and sometimes long-lasting treatment. In extreme cases, hospitals have sued to have a legally competent parent or spouse removed as the guardian of a person with a disability, so that a new guardian can be appointed to discontinue treatment. Ms. Brockman sees a trend in the courts: "It seems that when a patient with severe disabilities sues to request that treatment be withheld, the courts are inclined to grant that request; but when someone sues on behalf of such a patient in order to continue treatment, they will have an uphill battle. Treatment should be the default decision in ambiguous cases. The Constitution expressly protects the right to live. As Congress begins to debate the role of rationing in health care reform, the court will no doubt rule on more "right-not-to-treat" cases.

Today Carlton Johnson, the boy who "beat the odds," is 10. He attends a segregated educational program for children with disabilities, where he is making progress. He does not communicate by speaking, but he is an alert, active and competent child who wheels himself about and plays for hours on an electric organ his family gave him. He recognizes friends and loved ones. He has the capacity for enjoyment and happiness. His life may not be "useful" according to the pseudo-mathematical standards of the of the doctors who once condemned him to death, but he has one great advantage over the men and women who once plotted to deprive him of his life. He will never, ever commit an act of injustice towards another human being as great as the crime they committed against him.

[T'wit]

This is unspeakable. Dr. Mengele and Margaret Sanger are laughing at us from Hell. They will be howling in glee when we get HillaryHealth.

[T'wit]

>> ...Her experiences, and the experiences of other mothers whose babies died, raised serious questions about whether they truly gave "informed consent" when they signed the forms agreeing to...

It was "disinformed" consent, engineered by baby killers (!) in the ranks of medical professionals. That's something to keep in mind if you think your "living will" will protect you from medical neglect or mistreatment. Your only protection is in the hands of honest, moral caregivers who can be counted on to do the right thing. These assuredly do not include baby killers or euthanasia advocates, or anyone in medicine who TOLERATES the killers.

[BykrBayb]

Girl once on life support can write, eat, kin says

The grandmother of Haleigh Poutre testified yesterday in the State House that the 12-year-old girl, who had once been on life support, can write part of her name, eat scrambled eggs, and flex a muscle when told she is strong.

~ snip ~

I wonder if Haleigh has had one or more visits from her family, or if someone at the hospital told them about her progress. Or maybe she had made this much progress before DSS deprived her of contact with her family. In any event, it's good that her grandmother put this information out to the public. It makes it harder for DSS to carry out the plan they announced in January of 2006. Some of you may recall that they announced a plan to wait a year before trying again to starve and dehydrate her to death. The one year deadline was up in January of this year, but with Haleigh still in the spotlight, and news of her progress being public, they haven't had an opportunity to follow through. I continue to pray that they never succeed, and that Haleigh is returned to her loving family soon.

[BykrBayb]

Here's a more complete story (2 pages) about Haleigh's grandmother's testimony.
Haleigh's grandmother testifies ~ The Republican

[8mmMauser]

Sometimes we hear good news on these threads, sometimes we hear amazing stories. This is an amazing one, something which happened to one of the FReeper family, a prayer thread by dripp. Thank you, cyn, for the ping. For those who may have missed the thread, here it is with the update post.

I am lifting the update post by dripp and encourage all to read the thread. May any with shaken or unsteady faith be galvanized by this wonderful event.

Donna started bleeding from her lungs last Sunday and spent till Wed in the hospital,it was a result from the chemo taking her blood counts to low. On Wed she went into full respitory arrest and agreed to be put on a vent with antibiotics to try and help, but with the option of being taken off if it didn’t work. She was doing great when suddenly Friday night the vent plugged up with a clot and she they lost her completely for 20 minutes.She had signed not to have cpr, but to have only comfort care,yet they worked with her trying to clear the vent and finally got a new tube in but she had been completely with out oxygen for 10 minutes flatlined completely and not pulse. They gave up and went out and were doing the paper work for the time of death when the monitor started going wild and she had a pulse and her heart started again and she started breathing again. She was completely unrespsonsive with her eyes and her hands were posturing so they told me she probably had massive brain damage or more probable brain dead. Then the new tube plugged up on the vent and I had to decide the most horrible thing. They unhooked everything and just administered morphine for comfort. You can just not comprehend the agony and yet I felt worse for my children. They gaurnteed me I did the right thing as the brain damage would be great. She suffered greatly taking every breath for about 3 hours. Then around midnight she became responsive to touch and new who we were, but couldn’t communicate by talking. Around 4 in the morning she became alert and I told her what happened and she wrote a note asking if she was dead. It took a kiss on the cheek to convince her she wasn’t. At 6 in the morning she got her voice back and wanted to talk to the kids. By 6:30 am she was drinking a diet pepsi. She has no brain damage and is breathing on her own with only oxygen. The whole medical staff is flabbergasted, the have her written down as a documented miracle. Even the most hard core were crying with joy. We are giving all credit to Jesus and even the hospital is admitting the cannot deny this. I don’t know what the future holds but we have our precious Donna for now. The dr wants to start radiation as soon as she build up strength. I know this is still touch and go but I cannot express my joy and kids joy for more time. Donna is on cloud 9 praising God to everyone she sees. I know this isn’t well written but I am stressed and going to take a shower and try to relax if possible Please keep all prayers coming…..Shawn

Posts 245 and #259

8mm

[8mmMauser]

Thanks, BB, for the update on Haleigh. BB, you were really quick with this. The article from The Republican had just broken!

BOSTON - The grandmother of Haleigh Poutre began sobbing yesterday as she testified about the child's struggle to recover from a brain injury, and said she believes that a state ban on family visits could be causing more harm.

Sandra L. Sudyka, 53, of Agawam said that Haleigh probably believes her mother and grandmother no longer care about her. Without any public explanation last July, the state Department of Social Services stopped allowing Sudyka and the girl's biological mother from regularly visiting with Haleigh.

Snip...

Sudyka appeared to win the sympathy of the chairman of the House of Representatives' panel when she testified about her final visit with Haleigh on July 18. The girl lifted her left hand to flex muscles, wrote her first name in capital letters, and said "no" and "hello," the grandmother testified.

Snip...

On the other side, Judy Davis, 50, of Boston, who said her 15-year-old daughter is in the custody of the state, testified that it is a "terrifying experience" to meet and talk with social workers.

"Anything they said was the final and ultimate word," she told legislators. "I didn't know what to do - except be afraid of them."

Haleigh's grandmother testifies

8mm

[BykrBayb]

The article from The Republican wasn't up yet when I posted the link to the other one. The Republican seems to have the best coverage.

[Jezebelle]

He beat and strangled her into unconsciousness which caused brain damage that could have been partially overcome with the right treatment. He then launched himself on a mission to end her life through legal maneuvers paid for at her expense. She did not have a heart attack.

It took him awhile, but he eventually succeeded in murdering her legally.

Does that answer your question?

[T'wit]

Haleigh's 13th birthday: February 24.

There is still no explanation why these horrible social workers will not allow the child visits from her own mother and grandmother. Love is the best therapy. They won't let a needy child have that love, just as they wouldn't take her away from extremely abusive stepparents despite 20 (!) abuse complaints. These people are as cruel as Michael Schiavo was to Terri.

[8mmMauser]

Sargeant Pustule meets the challenge of the UCONN...

A hallmark of liberal youth is their conviction on mush so deep they actually think they can outvote God. After all He has only (three votes per us Christians) His vote against all these intellectual giants. So naturally they are at liberty in their brilliance to judge the Pope.

Pope Benedict XVI denounced euthanasia over the weekend, once again proclaiming life a gift from God and asserting that it could not be terminated under "the guise of human compassion." The pontiff's announcement came after an Italian doctor was cleared of wrongdoing in an euthanasia case, and more or less echoed the statements made by Pope John Paul II during the 2004 Terri Schiavo case. While it is indeed the pope's prerogative to take a stance on such divisive issues, the purportedly infallible Benedict is undoubtedly mistaken on the issue of euthanasia. Without question, euthanazing a pain-wrought patient who is not going to recover is an act of genuine human compassion that should not be prohibited.

Pope Mistaken On Euthanasia

8mm

[T'wit]

Why, thank you! Timing is important. Don't leave out the part that he fraudulently sued two doctors for malpractice for not diagnosing the bulimia that Terri never had. In that trial he promised to use the money to take care of her tenderly for the rest of her life. She was his whole life!, he lied. He would honor his marriage vows!, he lied. Then as soon as he won a million+ dollar settlement, he put a "do not resuscitate" order on her and set about to kill her.

If he had succeeded, he would have inherited $one million+.

[8mmMauser]

And I thought I was the early bird....

[T'wit]

If I am reading it correctly, there have not been any further visits. The report on Haleigh's ability to print her name and eat solid food was from grandma's earlier visits. I remember Haleigh loving her mom and grandma from those, and delighting in their visits.

Glad you caught these stories! Thanks.

[T'wit]

>> They gaurnteed me I did the right thing as the brain damage would be great.

Grrr!

[8mmMauser]

Helen Valois takes a look at Sean Hannity's thought process.

Orwellian euphemism is nothing new in the realm of contemporary American political discourse. Choice, translated by the left, refers to the chopping up of unborn children. Peaceful patriotism permits the trashing of our troops. Just now in a shocking scandal for adjectives everywhere, verbal authorities have booked articulate for bearing concealed racial overtones. We shouldn't, but we do get acclimated to this kind of rank pseudo-intellectualism after a while. What is jarring is to hear linguistic engineering of mind-bending magnitude coming not from the left, but from conservative commentators themselves.

Snip...

Bill Clinton in the waning days of his administration evidently did a bang-up job of transcending perjury (to pick a problem of his more or less at random). Who knew? I see now with the clarity of vision Sean has imparted that the trend in the European nations is towards transcending Islamofascism, not catering to it. It must also be the case that Terri Schindler Schiavo's right to life — sadly, according to just about the only high profile American journalist who truly extended himself in an effort to defend it — wasn't really violated in the end, but only transcended. And so forth.

Introducing Hannityspeak

8mm

[T'wit]

This editorial is so childish it makes me laugh. Our little hero in short pants, swishing a cardboard sword, marches to war all the way across the romper room!

[T'wit]

>> Helen Valois takes a look at Sean Hannity's thought process.

C'mon, I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet.