Haleigh Poutre Almost Victim of Euthanasia, Now Making Good Progress

Life News ^ | September 4, 2006 | Steven Ertelt

[8mmMauser]

Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- Haleigh Poutre was the victim of child abuse and was nearly killed via euthanasia when Massachusetts officials gave up on her after she entered a coma. Now Poutre, once termed "brain dead" by doctors, continues to improve and is speaking a few words, her grandmother says.

Sandra Sudyka, the girl's biological grandmother, is no longer allowed to visit her granddaughter and now says she is ready to speak to the media about Poutre's condition.

She told The Republican newspaper that she last saw Poutre on July 18 but indicated she was "doing well."

"She was bright-eyed and smiling. She is always responsive to us," Sudyka explained.

Department of Social Services had asked Sudyka not to talk with reporters about Haleigh, but since they will no longer allow her and Haleigh's biological mother, Allison Avrett, to visit the 12 year-old, she said she's going to talk to the media.

"I decided since they broke the deal, I am going to talk. People should know how well she is doing," Sudyka told the newspaper.

"They don't want people to know how she is doing after they wanted to pull the plug," Sudyka said.

DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro declined an interview with The Republican but said that the visiting privileges have been suspended, not terminated.

Haleigh first began speaking in June, her grandmother told the newspaper.

"I was saying to her 'I love you,' and she was trying to say 'love' and it came out as a vibration...'ove,'" Sudyka said.

Sudyka, who is working with an attorney to adopt the girl, said she has said hello, responds to comments and questions, speaks nonverbally and is able to write her name. Haleigh can't walk and is confined to a wheelchair.

Avrett, Poutre's biological mother, lost custody of her daughter after physically abusing her. Poutre was put into a foster home where her adoptive parents also abused her. Her adopted mother committed suicide after abusing Poutre so much she had to be hospitalized.

DSS took Poutre into custody and when she appeared to slip into a coma, the agency asked the state Supreme Court for permission to take her life. That's when Poutre began responding.

Poutre has been receiving physical, speech and occupational therapy since January 26 at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton.

Gov. Mitt Romney appointed a commission to look into how the state failed to properly handle the girl's case.

[ahayes]

I'm confused. You equate me with a Nazi and then you're surprised you got your post deleted?

[BykrBayb]

No, I did not. I just showed where your material came from. If you'd rather paraphrase Mother Teresa, go for it. I promise I won't compare you to her, any more than I compared you to a Nazi. But when you get your material from a Nazi propaganda poster, don't be surprised when somebody posts the source.

[bjs1779]

You don't like novels? :-)

Is that what you are trying to sell here?

[petnurser]

I just closed the window using the 'x' in the upper right.

[T'wit]

>> They wait until brain death.

I know from first-hand family experience that they harvest organs from people who are not brain dead and not on life support. That's the problem we address -- the slippage of rules meant to protect patients in the face of the demand for transplant organs. The big money involved poses too much temptation to cut corners, to blur moral rules and to lower standards.

[T'wit]

You'll find much historical information here (Wikipedia). It is very easy to find a lot more. Try googling Hadamar, T-4 Aktion, Nazi euthanasia, Josef Mengele and so on.

Nazi T-4 Euthanasia Program

[phoenix0468]

...not to pull the plug in a hurry.

That is unless your situation could tarnish the reputation of some liberals in a highly inefficient and vastly over funded government bureaucracy.

[T'wit]

>> could tarnish the reputation...

Good ol' CYA games. Yes, those must have had some role in the bureaucratic decision to take Haleigh off "life support." The bureaucrats had screwed up time after time after time in not recognizing that Haleigh was an abuse victim. Then it was too late -- the child was beaten nearly to death. The DSS had a lot to cover up.

[phoenix0468]

We had a recent and similar tragedy here in Oklahoma.
A mother was allowed custody of her child despite signs of abuse. The child later died, according to authorities, at the hands of the mothers live in boyfriend. The department of human services representatives blame the courts for allowing the mother custody. The courts blame DHS for not presenting enough evidence to deny the mother custody. Of course, no matter, the mother was at fault, IMO, for allowing the abuse (and some believe she is compulsory).

Bottom line is these types of agencies have been and will continue to be unruly bureaucracies that are inefficient.

[T'wit]

>> The child later died, according to authorities, at the hands of the mothers live in boyfriend.

In the realm of child abuse, boy friends are the worst. It is unbelievable what single mothers will put up with to have a man around, even though it puts their children in the gravest risk.

[Lesforlife]

Sadly, he made the wrong diagnosis about his own moral condition
as he wickedly pronounced death sentences upon the innocent
but disabled!

[BykrBayb]

A mother's most important function is to be a life support system for her child(ren). Even a dog understands that. Any woman who doesn't, is no mother.

[BykrBayb]

J

[8mmMauser]

Reminiscent of visitors to our threads who pretend to be conservatives and then remove their masks to show darker motives, Senator John Danforth has worn the label of Christian before revealing his inner motives. He now uses Terri's plight as a lever to assault the more faithful and those whose fundamental beliefs we think to be the core of conservative thought.

................

Exclusive: Republican shortlisted to be Bush's Vice President to lay out most explicit case for gay rights; Blasts Frist, GOP handling of Schiavo case

The former Missouri senator shortlisted to be then-Governor Bush's running mate in the 2000 presidential election -- said to have been second choice only to Vice President Cheney -- will come out vehemently against administration and Congressional Republican policy in a book to be published next week., according to an advance copy obtained by RAW STORY.

Bush's second choice for Vice President to assail GOP over Schiavo, gay rights

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Terri's Legacy List

(Original Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to September 7.)



Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.

[8mmMauser]

How THEY think...

We see this around us on a daily basis. We see it in President Bush's blind and groundless optimism regarding, say, Iraq as it careens ever deeper into civil war. We see it in Congress's attention to private lifestyle issues like gay marriage. We see it in Gov. Sonny Perdue's celebration of Georgia's "meteoric" rise in relative state rankings of SAT scores from 50th to 46th, even though the scores themselves have declined.

And we see it most graphically in the inevitable knee-jerk responses to scientific and medical progress that affect the arena of human sexuality and procreation. In such responses, there is little coherence, consistency, knowledge or rationality. Indeed, when it comes to our unalienable right to life, as the speaker in Yeats' "The Second Coming" says, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." And frequently, the right to life of the unborn (unattached cell clusters) or undead (Terry Schiavo) trumps the right to life of the vibrantly alive.

Ameliorating the effects of our humanity

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[8mmMauser]

Madame X

Anyone who writes on pro-life topics knows how this goes: You look at some transgression against the sanctity of human life, such as hastening the death of the elderly, or permitting the abortion deformed infants, and you predict the logical next step that the culture will take. Then you sit back and listen to a chorus of more enlightened souls, all in favor of hastening the death of the elderly, of aborting deformed infants, or whatever, tell you that of course permitting such compassionate and reasonable responses to life’s human tragedies won’t open the door to more extreme examples of playing God.

Then you watch time run through a couple of years’ calendars, by which point your extreme predictions have come to pass. Only, now not many people consider them extreme. In fact, they seem compassionate and reasonable. What was that problem you had, anyway, with snuffing Terri Schiavo, or euthanizing sick children in Holland, or attempting to clone human beings? And now yet another issue, even further down the road to perdition, has taken the place of cloning or whatever as that extreme act we would never, ever, ever consider doing. At least for a few more years.

Here We Have No Lasting City/How Parents Are Trying for Immortal Babies

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[8mmMauser]

Associated Press publishes excerpts from John Danforth's new book. These are the lead excerpts. Shows the threat of Terri's Legacy to those who embrace the left.

.................

Excerpts from former Missouri Sen. John Danforth's new book, "Faith and Politics: How the 'Moral Values' Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together."

---

"This is not a coalition of traditional Republicans and the Christian Right in the nature of a merger of equals. This is the takeover of the Republican Party by the Christian Right. That is the significance of the Terri Schiavo case. It was the total victory of Christian conservative activism over broadly shared Republican principles, a victory won with no resistance from traditional Republicans."

---

"Religion is now a divisive force in American politics, but that is not to say that it should be so. As we relate our religious faith to our politics, we can choose whether we are reconcilers or dividers."

Excerpts from former Sen. John Danforth's new book

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[T'wit]

>> A mother's most important function is to be a life support system for her child(ren). ... Any woman who doesn't, is no mother.

Any man who doesn't -- indeed, who isn't the other half of the team caring for, protecting, and teaching the child -- should be kicked out on the spot.

[GladesGuru]

Thank you for your clear, concise and accurate post about the economics of organ donation. I never realized the seriousness and unavoidibility of conflicts of interest when an agencies/NGO's are allowed to both make the kill decision and to profit from that decision.

[T'wit]

See the linked article at #426.