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.

[8mmMauser]

We have a winner!!!

You mean it wasn't an accident in a car? Sometimes the MSM makes mistakes, dontchaknow.

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[T'wit]

Call it even. I don't recognize Barry Goldwater as seen from the left forty years later. This guy was five years old. I was in the audience.

[swain_forkbeard]

Strict brain death seems like the best definition of dead to me. If there is no mind (ah but what does that mean?)and the brain can't maintain breathing or BP, you're gone. But I ask this, do you know if measurable electical activity ever drops to absolute zero? In other words, is there ever an objective measurement of death? Of is it, as uncomfortable as it may be to admit, almost always a QUALITATIVE judgement? Is it, rather than a neat boolean on/off, dead/alive, yes/no, instead a continuum of functionality? Where we easily recognize the fat spot right in the middle, but have problems with the edges or boundaries?

[Dante3]

That editor should be fired.

[floriduh voter]

I hope you got a round of applause for representing Terri's Legacy. You represented thousands of posters, lurkers and media in D.C.

[floriduh voter]

Lisa MacPherson was in some type of accident with a motor vehicle but the police turned her over to the sci-fis instead of taking her to the hospital, not that it would have been much better for her at the hospital.

The only difference between Lisa and Terri is that when Lisa was starved and dehydrated, she additionally received cockroach bites. They were both murdered.

[floriduh voter]

Tampa Bay Bucanneer Chris Simms was in surgery after the game yesterday to have his spleen removed. I wonder if he has a feeding tube.

[T'wit]

>> But I ask this, do you know if measurable electical activity ever drops to absolute zero?

Can't say, but I don't see how it could be otherwise. By the old definition, all systems stop at death. Ergo, no electrical activity, or at least none associated with that person's life.

I prefer the old definition. "Brain death" necessarily includes uncertainty whether "mind" is actually gone and whether the condition is irreversible. It also involves an ulterior motive for deciding one way instead of the other. This is not scientific.

[T'wit]

>> I hope you got a round of applause for representing Terri's Legacy

Thank you, but the day belonged to the America's servicemen and women. They deserved every cheer and every tear from the crowd. Thanks too to Kristinn, the D.C. chapter and to Jim Robinson for putting together this beautiful tribute. I can only imagine that Terri was smiling down on the gathering :-)

[8mmMauser]

There is another way to tell sometimes because it has happened from time to time and to us. It flouts scientific specifics as it entails faith. One may witness the dying of someone close and actually observe the moment of death as the soul breaks free and instantly, the physical person becomes an empty container. One knows from this exactly the moment, and once witnessed cannot be disabused that this happened.

Perhaps that is one explanation of the difficulty of defining the moment of death, a matter of faith left in God's Hand.

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[8mmMauser]

Amen to T'wit's comment. It is humbling to be around those whose sons and daughters have given their all, and who shine with such courage and love for our America.

It is humbling and joyful to be a tiny part of such a noble gathering of patriots.

[8mmMauser]

Haleigh Poutre Update...

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass.— The financial guardian of a 12-year-old girl who was hospitalized after allegedly being beaten by her adoptive mother is seeking at least $100,000 from the adoptive mother's estate.

Holli Strickland adopted Haleigh L. Poutre in 2001. State prosecutors allege Strickland and her husband, Jason Strickland, 32, severely beat Haleigh, landing her in the hospital, unconscious in September 2005. Holli Strickland died about a week later, alongside her grandmother in an apparent murder-suicide.

Jason Strickland pleaded not guilty last month to assault and battery charges in Haleigh's case.

The girl's court-appointed guardian, David M. Murphy, has filed suit seeking more than $100,000 from Holli Strickland's estate, according to The Republican newspaper of Springfield, for medical care and to compensate for the 12-year-old's suffering.

Although Holli Strickland signed a will that excluded Haleigh, Murphy's suit contends the girl is a creditor whose debt must be settled before the estate is doled out, the newspaper reported.

When Haleigh was taken to the hospital she had severe brain damage. Haleigh has since been in custody of the state Department of Social Services. She had been the focus of a right-to-die case last year before she showed improvement and state officials transferred her to a rehabilitation hospital in Boston.

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Information from: The Springfield Republican, http://www.masslive.com/republican/index.ssf">http://www.masslive.com/republican/index.ssf

Brain injured girl's guardian sues adoptive mother's estate

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Terri's Legacy List

(Original Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to September 22.)



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

[8mmMauser]

Letter to the Editor of the Bellesville News Democrat...

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

Recently, an angry Democratic writer asked American voters, "How stupid are you?"

My dad was a Democrat and my mother was a Republican. I guess that makes me a political mixed breed. I know I am not angry enough to be a Democrat.

In some ways I have been stupid. The day President Clinton looked into the TV and sincerely said, "I did not have ... etc.," I said, "What if there really is a right-wing conspiracy?" Boy, was I stupid.

I cried the day I watched Terri Schiavo's husband celebrate his liberal victory while that poor girl starved to death. I am a mother, a registered nurse and a Christian, and I was so stupid that I never dreamed such a thing could happen in this great country.

Letters 9/26

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[8mmMauser]

George Orwell is alive and well. Abortion is a matter of "reproductive health."

The Center for American Progress is perhaps the most serious outfit on the left. Headed by John Podesta, onetime Clinton chief of staff, the Center mixes policy analysis and political activism. Its email "The Progress Report" recently warned: "Across the nation, states are cracking down on women's reproductive rights by banning abortion."

Most people would think that reproduction involves having, rather than, aborting, children. But no matter. The Center worries about South Dakota's ban on abortion, as well as a proposal before the Michigan state legislature prohibiting any attempt "to coerce or intimidate a woman into seeking an abortion." (Who, one wonders, could be against the latter?)

Reproductive Killing Rights

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[8mmMauser]

Now this tome comes from even farther out into the tuliwaggles than we live. Something about the pure and very free air in these parts is really good for the mind.

The Terri Schiavo saga exposed the prickly euthanasia issue for the nation and the world. Many people, yours truly included, still believe that Terri Schiavo was more alert than we were lead to believe and that she did wish to live. Again, our bodies belong to God. Even when we suffer, we come closer to Christ, who suffered for us. Someone on a feeding tube tends to be very much alive, and without rehashing the entire story, there was no “mercy” in the so-called “mercy killing” of Terri Schiavo. Am I wrong? Deny yourself food and water for a couple weeks, and just before you die, tell me how you feel! There is no mercy in that kind of death. It is needless, and agonizing torture. We treat animals and prison inmates better than this woman, who had every right to live, and committed no crime to deserve the cruel and inhumane death given to her, and that God’s Commandments and our Constitution forbid.

Our Bodies… “On Loan From God”

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[T'wit]

>> ...the moment of death as the soul breaks free and instantly, the physical person becomes an empty container...

Yes, and through long human experience, we have a common term for it -- "giving up the ghost."

[8mmMauser]

Coincidence? Pope, Padre Pio, Easter, Terri, and Sydney Claire Smith. Interesting how the name, Padre Pio, comes up...

Half a world away, Sydney Claire Smith, 14 months, lay in Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin battling the identical illness. Her kidneys and liver shut down and her heart stopped twice for a total of 36 minutes, as the infection that began in her urinary tract ravaged her tiny body. Her parents, Jillian and Shannon Smith, stood by helplessly as their once healthy infant was on the brink of death. As they prayed and kept vigil at their daughter’s side, the television news alternated coverage of the final hours of Terry Schiavo’s life after she was removed from a feeding tube and the pontiff whose body succumbed to the infection on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 2.

Snip...

Initially, there was no improvement. Father Reifenberg was summoned and, using oils blessed in the Holy Land given to the Smiths by a family of another sick infant, conferred the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.

“At this point, we also became acquainted with Padre Pio,” recalled Jillian describing how a cousin gave her a biography of the 20th century Italian priest who bore the stigmata - the bleeding wounds of Christ - and who was canonized June 16, 2002. “He (and Pope John Paul II) became a sort of prayer focus for us.”

More than coincidence

Incidentally, my tag line is from the Divine Mercy...

Pope, Padre Pio credited for saving girl near death

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[T'wit]

>> She had been the focus of a right-to-die case last year...

Listen to the AP twist words! This had nothing to do with a "right to die." The child's adoptive parents abused and beat her nearly to death. Then her guardian -- the state child protection [!] agency -- went to court to finish her off, for its own reasons. All of them trampled the poor girl's rights.

[8mmMauser]

Ping to wagglebee thread... It is not just euthanasia, it is homicide. Uhhhh.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, September 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The doctor accused, along with two nurses, of murdering four patients in a New Orleans hospital in the days after hurricane Katrina struck has denied the accusations. She also said she does not believe in euthanasia.

Arrested and charged with four counts of second-degree murder for lethally injecting patients during a panicked exit from the flooded Memorial Medical Center, Dr. Anna Pou insists she and the two nurses only gave “comfort care” to the elderly patients.

Doctor Charged in Katrina Deaths Denies Committing Murder, Euthanasia

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[T'wit]

>> ...he is reminded of a question one of his grandfathers asked the other, “Who are you to deny the boy hardship?”

Now, there is a wise and wonderful grandfather!