IMHO this is what News Activism is all about.
From North Country Gazette...
HOUSTON---"The doctors didn't underestimate our family. They underestimated the power of the internet".
Melanie Childers and Lanore Dixon, sisters of Andrea Clark, expressed their appreciation to the people who helped save Andrea's life after the ethics committee of St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, Texas, had voted to end her life support on Sunday.
"Without the Internet and the pro-life movement, our sister wouldn't be alive today", Dixon said Wednesday.
Power Of The Internet Saves Andrea Clark
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For two weeks I have carried responsibility in the legal realm for the lives of two women whom attending physicians and ethics committees have decided should not receive life-sustaining treatment. This has been a heavy burden--although I cannot compare my ordeal to that of the families and patients.
I filed papers with the court in one case (Yoland Vo) and got close to doing that in the other case (Andrea Clark). In one, a new attending physician has assumed care. In the other, the hospital is, so far, cooperating with grace and compassion to find alternatives.
I cannot express the gratitude that I feel for the bloggers, journalists, radio talk hosts who have informed the public about these cases, and the readers and listeners who have clearly expressed to the hospitals, physicians and bioethicists who support denying people autonomy in medical decisions by replacing the desires of patients and families with subjective judgments about "quality of life", that such a position is not acceptable.
OpEd - Texas Futile Care Law Doesn't Work By Jerri Ward, J.D.
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