[8mmMauser]

Emilio Gonzales update...

A strange deja vu wafts over us, a probate judge, a guardian siding with the death dealers, and finds an innocent has no right to live, under the Constitution and Texas law!

Has the Greer plague spread?

Note that although the doctors (Grimly, I imagine, with that stern look of condescention the death grizzlies can assume) said he would not live beyond April 5, he is still around and maybe doing better, typical. They would have had him put to death some time back.

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

The court-appointed guardian for a 17-month-old, terminally ill infant on life support wrote in newly released legal documents that the child does not have a constitutional right to life-sustaining treatment.

Attorney Jody Helman was appointed by Probate Judge Guy Herman to mitigate any conflict of interest presented by the baby's mother or the defendants, a group of doctors and a family of hospitals. Helman submitted his most recent judgements in a 53-page document late Friday, saying the case of Emilio Gonzalez involves "letting a patient die, not making a patient die."

Gonzalez, blind and deaf since his birth on Dec. 3 2005, has spent the majority of his life hooked to a respirator. His mother, Catarina Gonzalez, insists she can communicate with her son and wants the Children's Hospital of Austin to keep him on life support until she finds alternative care. Hospital doctors say extensive treatments and a breathing tube are causing the dying baby to suffer unnecessarily.

Shortly after transporting the child to intensive care, doctors diagnosed Emilio with Leigh's Disease, a disorder characterized by the degeneration of the central nervous system.

Catarina succeeded in getting the hospital to grant several temporary restraining orders, forbidding doctors from tampering with or removing Emilio's life support. The legal battle that will decide the infant's fate will culminate at a hearing that begins May 30.

Herman originally scheduled to make his judgement Tuesday morning but granted the lawyers on both sides a continuance after key witnesses were unavailable to testify on that date. He said he expects the proceedings will occupy two days.

Herman said lawyers erroneously told reporters Monday about a continuance he hadn't yet granted. He told attorneys this grace period would be their last.

A brawny stack of filed court documents reveals Catarina's multiple attempts for injunctive relief, which were ultimately denied by the Travis County Attorney's Office. She said in the requests she could not afford to pay legal bills with the mere food stamps she collects and the costs Medicaid covers.

A cadre of medical experts also weighed in on Emilio's grim prospects of surviving the "irreversible" disease. A doctor's note filed in March predicted Emilio would not live past April 5.

"The patient's brain deterioration is irreversible," said Dr. Sikander Adeni, co-chair of the Neonatal/Pediatric Ethics Committee. "Emilio is not sedated; he initiates breaths spontaneously but is ventilator dependent. He has no gag reflex."

However, Catarina said when doctors lower the amount of oxygen the life support machine generates, her son responds with voluntary breaths. She said in multiple court filings she believes Emilio's spontaneous breathing is a sign that he is not merely living on account of a machine.

Helman said in his Friday filings Texas statutes and the U.S. Constitution would not support Emilio having a guaranteed right to keep the breathing tube.

He also asserted that attempts by the hospital to withhold life support do not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Emilio's mother did not attend the brief Tuesday hearing.

Gonzales baby has no right to life support , attorney says

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[8mmMauser]

Here is another take on Emilio and the guardian ad litem, Jody Helman, who sounds like his name, a man from hell.

The hearing comes up May 30. I hope Jerri Ward receives all the powers and prayers possible to block this evil!

AUSTIN — A terminally ill toddler whose fate may hinge on a judge's ruling has no legal right to remain on the machines keeping him alive, according to a review by the 18-month-old's court-appointed guardian.

That opinion figures to weigh heavily at a May 30 hearing in the case of Emilio Gonzales, whose mother is fighting doctors' efforts to take him off life support and allow him to die.

"It's real surprising to me that a guardian ad litem would care more about the rights of doctors and the hospital than about Emilio," said Jerri Ward, the Gonzales family attorney.

Guardian sides with doctors wanting to cease child's life support

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[T'wit]

Yes, it sounds as if Greer is catching. Here we go again

>> The court-appointed guardian...

The guardian ad litem, instead of representing Emilio, says Emilio doesn't have any rights! Gee, thanks, pal. Jay Wolfson did that to Terri, then celebrated her death later, at a seminar, with the same George Greer and Michael Schiavo. It was like a meeting of Murder, Inc.

[T'wit]

This is interesting!

>> Catarina said when doctors lower the amount of oxygen the life support machine generates, her son responds with voluntary breaths. She said in multiple court filings she believes Emilio's spontaneous breathing is a sign that he is not merely living on account of a machine.

Karen Ann Quinlan did not die when removed from the respirator.* (Which, btw, proves that she was not "brain dead.") Her parents had asked that she be removed from what we now call "extraordinary care." It was the doctors who objected, and when the time came, they took pains to wean Karen Ann off the respirator. She lived almost ten more years, breathing on her own. Interestingly, her father** angrily rejected a suggestion that she be starved/dehydrated to death. The feeding tube is her nutrition, he replied. Food and water are not "extraordinary" care in the eyes of everyday folks.

(*George Greer thought she did and used his own mistake in building his case to kill Terri.)

(** Nancy Cruzan's parents did dehydrate/starve her to death. A year or two later, her father committed suicide. Could anyone be surprised?)

[T'wit]

Once upon a time, it was our national pride and joy to keep patients alive with respirators. We called them "iron lungs" and manufactured them by the thousands for victims of infantile paralysis -- polio. Many of these victims had no chance of recovery, yet they could live some sort of life in these huge, complicated machines. A few people are still in them.

Most prominent polio victim: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was wheelchair-bound all his life.

[mtbopfuyn]

Texas statutes and the U.S. Constitution would not support Emilio having a guaranteed right to keep the breathing tube

Perhaps, but there's that little bit in the Declaration about "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life...".

[floriduh voter]

Some pro-life candidates say “Let the courts decide to murder innocent people.”

[floriduh voter]

Child death by starvation on soy diet:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8P102RO0&show_article=1

[BykrBayb]

So, disabled people don’t have the same constitutional rights the rest of us have, and that’s not a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act? Where do they find these amoral morons?