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How do you save the life of a special, one-of-a-kind child, trapped in an abusive home?

Unique up on them!

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Do I get to be a DSS person now? I know how to do all those special things they do to keep kids safe. 'Cept pulling plugs. I can't murder anyone. But I can do all that double naught spy stuff.

Making Sense Of Bioethics by Fr. Tad Pacholczyk: Should You Have A Living Will?
Many people believe they can exercise better control over their own destiny by filling out a living will (also called an "advance directive.") They may have concerns about becoming caught in a tangle of tubes, wires and technology as they are dying, unable to break free and extricate themselves. They hope that by signing on the dotted line, they may be able to breathe their last "easily and peacefully." At first glance, an advance directive may appear to address many of our end-of-life concerns, and hence, can seem like a good idea, but it often tends to serve as a rather "blunt instrument" when it comes to handling complex and nuanced end-of-life situations. Moreover, living wills are sometimes used to buttress or justify some of the morally problematic decisions being made in health care settings today.

I was with him, right up until the last paragraph. He may be right that assigning a health care proxy is better than trying to spell out every possible health care situation that might arise in the future. But I'm still having a problem with the concept that we should assign a person to decide whether we live or die. It's now generally accepted that somebody has to make the decision. Can we ever go back to a policy in which nobody gets to decide whether or not to murder the patients? Can we just decide in advance that nobody get to commit murder, and leave it at that?

Driver faces new charge in fatal 1996 crash
By Mike Cruz, Staff Writer
02/09/2007
SAN BERNARDINO - Florence Thompson was on her way home from work at Sears in 1996, when another vehicle crossed into her lane on Kendall Drive and slammed head-on into her car.
There were sounds of revving engines and a car racing with a truck on the rain-slicked road just before the crash, witnesses told police. Thompson survived but remained in a vegetative state for a decade.
Now, Monty Lyle Gill, of Rialto, the driver of the other vehicle in the crash, will be held to answer a charge of vehicular manslaughter, a judge ruled Thursday in San Bernardino Superior Court.
Thompson, 53, died in April after she was removed from life-support systems. Prosecutors subsequently filed the felony charge - 10 years after the April 1996 crash and after Gill had already pleaded no contest to a lesser charge in the case.

~ snip ~

She was removed from "life-support systems" on March 29, and died eight days later on April 6. In other words, her husband (Michael ) had her starved and dehydrated to death about a year after Terri Schiavo, who suffered the same fate from March 18 to 31, 2005. Now the person who caused the injuries which made her vulnerable to her killers, is being charged with her unlawful killing.

DA reopening 10-year-old case ~ 04/07/2006
Woman hit in 1996 by racing car dies ~ 04/08/2006