Posted on 08/08/2007 4:09:44 PM PDT by wagglebee
However, the efforts of hundreds of activists, including families whose ailing loved ones were victims of the law and the attorneys and doctors who offered benevolent services to the patients, were not in vain. The statewide and national awareness provoked by this battle will not be forgotten by Texas legislators and the citizens they represent. The end of life euthanasia war has only just begun.
Currently, Texas law allows for a physician to withdraw life-sustaining treatment (including food and water) from a patient despite the patient's advance directive or expressed wishes.
Once the physician's decision is approved by the ethics committee at the hospital, the patient and/or family have only ten days to transfer to another facility or another physician. The physician or facility is not obligated to treat the patient beyond the tenth day, which can and has led to the death of the patient. Rarely are transfers effectuated either by the family or the facility within the ten-day allotment.
Senate Bill 439 and House Bill 1094 would have changed the law so that a patient and the family are given sufficient time to locate a transfer during which time the patient would continue receiving life-sustaining medical treatment until a transfer is completed, thereby safeguarding against involuntary euthanasia. Eleven other states require that a patient be treated until he is transferred elsewhere, and Texas should have been the twelfth state to enact such patient protections.
On April 12, the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services heard testimony on Senate Bill 439—Texas Right to Life’s proposed changes to the current Texas Futile Care law. Senator Robert Deuell, M.D., (R-Greenville), the bill's sponsor, explained that most physicians practice good medicine and communicate effectively with patients and their families.
He emphasized that this law only comes into play when there is a disagreement, and in those situations, the current law does not serve families well. The Senate committee then heard from concerned citizens and organizations, including nurses, doctors, disability rights groups, and Right to Life groups.
Many of the families affected by this ten-day law courageously recounted their experiences in battling against the ten-day clock. They discussed how they were shocked and dismayed that the people entrusted to care for their ailing loved ones would soon be the ones to pull the plug against the will of patients and families if a transfer was not found.
Catarina Gonzalez, mother of 18-month old Emilio who at the time was languishing in an Austin hospital, took time away from Emilio’s bedside to address the committee. She dramatically and tearfully shared that she knew her precious son was dying, but she thought he should die when God called him home, not when an ethics committee rendered Emilio’s life as value-less. (Emilio died on May 20.)
More families echoed her sentiments. Lanore Dixon, sister of Andrea Clark, told how her family should have been spending more time with Andrea during the last days of her life instead of fighting lawyers and ethics committees.
Due to the unjust balance of power conferred upon hospital ethics committees to make these life and death treatment decisions, even the Texas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union spoke in favor of SB 439. Will Harrell, Esq., director of ACLU Texas, stressed that patients are stripped of their due process rights and civil liberties when ethics committees make quality of life judgments and decide the fate of patients in the board rooms of hospitals.
Houston attorney, Robert Painter, played a shocking voicemail message left by a hospital administrator for the family of a patient. While Mr. Painter courteously omitted the name of the administrator and the name of the facility, the recording illustrated the quality of life mindset that has infiltrated some of these facilities.
The administrator pressured the family to agree with the hospital and let “your Daddy pass.” More shocking was this: “If we don’t hear from you by Monday, we're gonna make him hospice so he can go ‘head onto Glory,” threatening the family about the facility proceeding without their consent.
Needless to say, Mr. Painter’s testimony as an attorney who has helped several families through this process was quite compelling. (The patient who was the subject of the voicemail message was slated to be withdrawn from treatment and “made hospice” in January of this year, but was transferred to a skilled nursing facility where he is stable and receiving dialysis.)
On the House side, the Public Health Committee heard all the bills on advance directives on April 25th. The antagonistic tone of this hearing was dramatically different than the cordial tone set by Senator Deuell in the Senate committee.
The chair of House Public Health, Dianne Delisi (R-Temple) presented her own bill on advance directives and end of life care. While her bill, House Bill 3474, would have lengthened the ten days to twenty-one days, other provisions in her bill actually undermined what little protections for patients currently exist in the law.
The testimony on HB 3474 and the other bills on advance directives lasted until 5:11am. Attorney Jerri Ward, Texas Right to Life’s 2006 Pro-Life Attorney of the Year Award recipient, and other attorneys who have helped many families navigate the ten-day transfer process buttressed the ACLU’s concerns about patients being robbed of their due process, not to mention the errors in medical judgment that can occur.
Chairman Delisi would not allow the attorney to play the “Send him onto Glory” voicemail message in her committee. (The recorded voicemail message is posted at http://www.texasrighttolife.com).
Some opponents to the Hughes bill argued by describing treatments that can be painful to patients and told of families insisting that doctors continue painful treatments that will not benefit their loved ones.
However, Burke Balch, JD, Director of the Robert Powell Center for Ethics (and our colleague from National Right to Life), reminded the committee that appropriate palliative care could resolve nearly all pain and suffering issues and also clarified that this bill does not include a requirement for futile treatment—treatment that is providing no medical benefit to the patient, but rather, HB 1094 would require treatment that is sustaining the life of the patient. He further explained medical groups in the states in which “treatment pending transfer” laws are in place have not complained that they cannot work within the law.
Kristina Harrison, mother of six-year old Klemente, told how doctors tried to pressure her three years ago into withdrawing treatment from Klemente, now disabled and in a wheelchair. Klemente was the star of the hearing and would not have stolen the show if his mother yielded to the pressure of the hospital.
LaCretia Webster stated that the only reason she still flies her Texas flag, despite Texas letting her down with our futile care law, is because her father and brother are military servicemen. Her mother, Ruthie, was transferred to a facility in Chicago after a Dallas area doctor personally intervened to thwart two confirmed transfers within the state. She now must travel from Texarkana to Chicago twice a month to visit her best friend, her mother.
Even though Senate Bill 439 had the support of the majority of the Senate committee members as it was written, the committee decided to vote out a substitute for SB 439—a substitute identical to the unacceptable Delisi bill in the House. Unfortunately, this substitute included six elements that rendered the bill even worse than current law while giving the family only an additional 11 days to find a transfer.
Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst intervened and oversaw negotiations. He offered his own office for negotiations with the stakeholders, including Texas Right to Life, disability rights advocates, and the medical and hospital associations.
To his credit, Dewhurst would not allow the bill to come to the Senate Floor until the problems were remedied. Because of his assistance, SB 439 emerged from his office and then from the Senate Floor in a clean, acceptable form, albeit not close to the original strength of SB 439. Regrettably, when the bill reached the Public Health Committee in the House, the negotiated agreement masterfully orchestrated by Dewhurst was disregarded, and harmful amendments were added. Nonetheless, SB 439 emerged and was placed on the House Calendar, where it died on the last day of eligibility due to its low placement on the schedule.
HB 1094/SB 439 did not die due to a lack of support. In the House 77 out of 150 members co-authored the bill signifying their commitment to vote for the issue, and about a dozen more members firmly committed to support the measure while choosing not to co-author. Twenty of these House co-authors were Democrats who took active leadership, demonstrating the most bi-partisan effort in the history of Pro-Life bills in Texas. Likewise, 11 of 30 Senators co-authored SB 439 (2 Democrats and 9 Republicans).
Texas Right to Life hopes that such established support coupled with a new awareness of the issue will lay the foundation for a victory in the near future. As we continue to help families in the interim who are victims of this law, we will be reminded of the importance of our perseverance in this battle. And we pray that no one else will be the victim of this state-sanctioned, draconian involuntary euthanasia process.
‘Got it. You’re in the “food and water is treatment” crowd and you think that a hospital should be allowed to cut someone off the same way that a bar does.’
No, you really don’t get it. I wonder if you want to get it, or are avoiding the point because the implications are too painful. Unlike you, however, I make no claims to being able to read other people’s minds.
“The ONLY person here talking about this is YOU. There is no healthcare crisis in this country except the one created by the leftist liberals and libertarians. The overwhelming majority of people have private health insurance. And regardless of what anyone feels about Medicaid and Medicare, it is properly legislated law and to suggest circumventing these programs is a form of anarchy.”
Right. See my other posts on this matter. It is obtuse remarks like this which suggest to me that you really don’t want to get it. Opting out of failed and failing state programs may be “circumventing” them, but it is no more anarchy then home educators who choose to retract their delegation of their children’s education to state schools and prefer not to delegate that function to a private instituional. Or, do you think that home educators are into “anarchy” too?
If you know of any Scripture which instructs us to delegate our responsibility for caring for the ill, infirm, and weak to the state, I would be interested in learning about them. I think you will be hard pressed to find them, but I could be wrong.
I would strongly suggest you find a book that describes basic logic and read it, you may improve your debating skills. Your statement about the state caring for people being scripturally deficient ONLY APPLIES if the original premise is true. In this case it isn't. Therefore, nothing else you say carries any weight.
However, since you seem to like to quote scripture so much to advance your liberaltarianism, maybe you should ponder this passage for a while:
15 And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you:
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.
-- 2Peter 3:15-16
How PRECISELY does one "opt out" of needed medical care? Your attempt to compare medical care to homeschooling is laughable, do you really consider open heart surgery to be on the same level as teaching a twelve year old geography? We ARE NOT talking just about state run hospitals here, we are talking about private facilities as well. Or does your liberaltarian view of the Constitution disallow states from regulating hospitals?
‘How PRECISELY does one “opt out” of needed medical care? Your attempt to compare medical care to homeschooling is laughable, do you really consider open heart surgery to be on the same level as teaching a twelve year old geography? We ARE NOT talking just about state run hospitals here, we are talking about private facilities as well. Or does your liberaltarian view of the Constitution disallow states from regulating hospitals?’
Your equation of “needed medical care” with “state programs”
is a measure of your determination to miss the point. Your distinction between “state run” and private facilities also misses the point that typically these private facilities are receiving significant amounts of state funding and indirect control.
But I see that we are becoming repetitious, which is a sure sign that we are talking past each other. There are better ways to invest our time. So, I’m outta here. Stay on for ‘the last word’ if you wish; you’re welcome to it.
Shalom
Bump for life!
Even if a family wants to transfer their loved one, it takes time to contact the insurance company to find out what doctors and hospitals are covered, then find a doctor that will accept the patient, then find out if the hospital where the doctor has 'priviledges' will accept the patient.
Also, good luck with getting the insurance company to cover anything once a doctor and hospital have decided to yank 'like support'. Even if the family decides to appeal the rejection, that takes times.
These poor families are basically being forced into allowing their loved ones to be 'legally' murdered. Ours has become a society that loves death.
Um, you are trying to use the scriptures to justify withholding of care from patients? Wow, good luck with that.
Crazy huh?
Sure seems so to me, but then, people can try to use the scriptures to justify most anything. They will have to answer to the author some day though.
By "state funding" I presume you mean that these hospitals accept patients on Medicare and Medicaid. I suppose under your liberaltarian system, hospitals should be allowed to turn these people away.
But I see that we are becoming repetitious, which is a sure sign that we are talking past each other. There are better ways to invest our time.
Yes, as I mentioned before, you should go purchase a textbook on logic.
Though I never imagined that I would see the day when a FReeper accused another FReeper of blasphemy and idolatry because they were pro-life.
Actually, the law does not allow “killing.” It does allow a doctor to refuse to do to a patient what Michael and the courts did to Terri.
When the law was written, Terri Schiavo’s case had not happened.
The law has never been used to withhold or withdraw food and water. Everyone - including some people that might have wished otherwise a couple of years ago - agreed on the language that would have ensured that the law should be changed so that food and water could not be with held under the law. We also fixed the timeline to give families more time to get together before the ethics committee meeting, and after.
I'm confused. Are you saying that care is terminated but that food and water are not? In other words, Terri Schiavo could have lived indefinitely under this system?
A person who only needed food and water has never been refused under this law. For one thing, a doctor is not needed. For another, lots of people would have gladly stepped in to feed Terri.
The Schiavo case was one where the courts ruled that she wanted to die, and ruled that the docs had to follow her husband’s directives.
Section .046 of the Texas Advance Directive only pertains to doctors who refuse to do what the patient or family demands and whose decision not to act - to write new orders, to do surgery, etc., is found to be ethical by a committee.
All of those patients in post #15 are true cases. The substitute law is described in #20. In #28, there are links to one of the stories, as told by other people.
Thank you for clearing that up, I still think it’s a bad law though.
The tender mercies of the wicked. You don’t even realize to whom that refers, nor to what deeds, do you?
You cannot receive God’s message by excerpting His Word out of context. Until you invite Him in, you will not know Him. Though He speaks to you, you do not recognize His Voice, nor understand His Word. You repeat some of His Words, but you know not what they mean. He’s reaching out to you. Pay heed.
Additionally, another poster’s theory that medical care could be done the same way home schooling is done is still invalid. Even if medical licensing laws were abolished for the care of relatives, the fact still remains that an untrained person would not be able to do these things — as I stated earlier, this is a lot more complex than relearning geometry so that you can teach it to your child.
Well said!
So your last word in support of the wholesale extermination of a large group of people is “Shalom?”
I didn’t see any mention in Greers orders to order the docs to follow the loving husbands instructions. Greer ordered that Michael Schiavo “shall remove nutrition and hydration”. Isn’t that a pretty mental picture, Michael angrily ripping out Terri’s feeding tube after all that time he had been trying to kill her?
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