Pennsylvania Court: Guardians Can't Pull the Plug on Mentally Disabled People

Harrisburg, PA (LifeNews.com) -- In a ruling involving a mentally disabled man whose legal guardians sought the power to end his medical care, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has determined that state law requires life-preserving treatment for people who are not near death and have not refused treatment.

The Alliance Defense Fund and allied pro-life attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of 53-year-old David Hockenberry, who has had acute mental disabilities since birth, arguing that his legal guardians should not be allowed to deny him life-preserving treatment while he is not terminal or unconscious.

Hockenberry’s guardians unsuccessfully attempted to deny him temporary life-preserving medical treatment for pneumonia.

“Having a disability shouldn't be a death sentence when treatable medical complications arise,” said Independence Law Center Chief Counsel Randall L. Wenger, one of the allied attorneys.

"The court made the right decision to protect Mr. Hockenberry’s right to live. He is not dying or unconscious, and his life isn't worthless just because he has a disability that may lead others to view his life as less worthy to live," he added.

“A person’s value isn't based on his or her physical or mental abilities,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No one should be allowed to decide that a person’s life is not worth saving just because he or she has a disability or medical condition.”

In December 2007, Hockenberry developed aspiration pneumonia. Hockenberry’s guardians--appointed as his legal guardians in 2002 by a trial court--tried to decline his required ventilator treatment to assist his breathing, but the hospital proceeded despite their objection. After three weeks on the mechanical ventilator, he recovered from pneumonia and no longer required the treatment.

Hockenberry’s guardians filed a petition with a trial court in January 2008 that would allow them to end his care if a similar situation were to arise in the future. The Department of Public Welfare objected, stating that Hockenberry was neither terminally ill nor permanently unconscious and never appointed a third party with the power to refuse healthcare necessary to the preservation of his life.

Hockenberry’s guardians filed a series of appeals until their case reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.

In March, ADF and allied attorneys argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that people should not be considered better off dead just because of a disability. The high court concurred that the Health Care Agents and Representatives Act requires life-preserving care for such persons.

“We hold that where, as here, life-preserving treatment is at issue for an incompetent person who is not suffering from an end-stage condition or permanent unconsciousness, and that person has no health care agent, the Act mandates that the care must be provided,” the opinion states. “The enactment...regulates the situation in which the incompetent person suffers from a life-threatening but treatable condition, obviously reflecting the Legislature’s assertion of a policy position of greater state involvement to preserve life in such circumstances.”

Related web sites:
Alliance Defense Fund - http://www.telladf.org

Does a normal healthy person have the right to make out a living will for themselves that states that under no circumstances should any artificial device like a ventilator be used to save their life?

Sure but they'd be morons to sign a document with your wording in it.

The question here isn't "normal healthy people", the question here is how do we treat the weak, the young and the helpless.

My brand of conservatism says the primary purpose of government is to protect it's citizens and that extends to those citizens who can not fend for themselves. Those that will not fend for themselves but can do not fit into any of that category.

Yours is what?

It is clear that the importance of money trumps lives to some here.

There used to be many charity hospitals, many run by religious groups. I wonder what happened to many of them. Lawsuits? Unmanageable federal or state red tape? Hoops they couldn’t jump through?

Hospitals are now (at least a lot of them) money making businesses. Naturally cutting corners and denying services are in their interests.

I have a good friend who has state med insurance for low income - her doctor told her to go to the hospital to get rehydrated, she was quite ill. The hospital refused to rehydrate her, saying that they were a business and wouldn’t make money on her treatment.

Nice try on your part, but I said no such thing.

You're the one who posted the Nazi imagery Snookums. Not me.

I merely posted a literal translation of what you were saying.

Really? You speak German?

If you don’t like the fact that you were parroting a Nazi propaganda poster,

You obviously suffer from not only an extremely poor religous education but a lack of serious logic skills as well. I'm the one who wants the State completely removed from the situation.

You're the one who wants them decidin who lives, who dies, and who pays for it. That's awfully Third Reichy of you if you ask me.

Remember Bayb, Arbeit Macht Frei.

Guttentag.

Why don’t you try to defend your call for the destruction of life unworthy of life?

I'll donate $1,000.00 to FR in your name if you can pull a single quote documenting that I called for this kid to be killed. Just one.

Come on, Scooter, you can do it.

so you try to deflect by making up false accusations about others.

You're the one who posted a Nazi propaganda poster equating it with my position. So know you've gone from violating one Commandment, to violating two. Maybe this one'll make it up from the dusty recesses of your hindbrain:

"Thou shalt not bear false witness".

So come on Bayb, find that quote where I said the kid should die and I'll toss a grand JimRob's way in your name.

This is just my opinion. I worked Psych and saw the problems that caregivers have so I’m not clueless about their plight.

Should a person NOT have a living will or not be mentally capable of signing a living will, then it falls to the caregiver/spouse/parent to make the call.

However, in order to make that binding, it should be a situation where that person has a low chance of the body continuing on it’s own. Starving, dehydrating or “snowing” should not be an option where a living will is not in place. A vent should only be used for treatment and not for maintenance. A body can be maintained forever on the right machines but no Right to Lifer is suggesting that.

This case was for treatment, to get the man through a bout of pneumonia. The hospital saw a man who had a chance of recovering, the guardians didn’t want him to recover.

We should side with Life and never take steps to euthanize anyone, including through lack of basic needs or medication if no living will is in place.

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