Battle Over Possible Euthanasia of New York Teenager Gets Pro-Life Attention

Bronx, NY (LifeNews.com) -- The battle over the life and death of a teenage girl in New York has drawn the attention of pro-life advocates in recent days. The fight to save Javona Peters reminds some of the struggle of the Schindler family in Florida to save the life of Terri Schiavo, a beloved daughter and sibling whose former husband eventually took her life.

In this case, Peters' parents are disagreeing on whether or not to remove her feeding tube and take her life.

Peters fell into a coma in October while she had a routine medical procedure at Montefiore Medical Center. Doctors have pegged her as being in a persistent vegetative state, a medical diagnosis pro-life advocates dispute because so many patients have partially or fully recovered.

Peters' parents were never married and are estranged and have considered a medical malpractice suit against the hospital, according to a New York Daily News report.

But Janet Joseph and Leonard Peters are also feuding over Peters' care and have each filed separate requests to be given custody of their daughter. Peters has been opposed to removing the feeding tube but has wavered recently.

Edward Gersowitz, an attorney for Joseph, told the newspaper that "Because of her condition, she cannot make decisions for herself, and the court will have to appoint a guardian to make decisions for her."

As a teen, Peters doesn't have a living will or some other advanced directive providing guidelines for the type of medical treatment, or withdrawal, she favors.

The case has drawn the attention of the Schindler family, which sent out a notice about the case from its foundation, which helps disabled patients receive legal help and appropriate medical care.

Leading bioethics watchdog Wesley J. Smith has also commented on it and he says the PVS diagnosis seems "rushed" to him.

Smith says he sympathizes with the father and the pressure he is under to take Peters' life.

"We know that too often medical teams and social workers pressure and cajole for such outcomes," he said.

Smith draws comparisons to the case of Haleigh Poutre, a Massachusetts girl whom LifeNews.com reported was also declared PVS, but who has recovered from the abuse she suffered.

In that case, state government officials had ordered her feeding tube removed but she recovered from the PVS state shortly beforehand.

Wesley J. Smith put this out on blog on December 28, as may be found in amplification in the link of the thread article, a link posted from the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation,

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This is a terribly tragic case: Javona Peters has been diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state (a terrible name for a diagnosis, the only one I know of which contains a pejorative, a derivation of the V word). She became unconscious less than three months ago, and so the diagnosis seems rushed to me. In any event, from the story:

The emotionally shaken father of a 16-year-old girl in an irreversible coma at Montefiore Medical Center is wavering in his opposition to ending what's left of her life."I'm 85% changed in my mind now, but I don't know the legality," said Leonard Peters, whose daughter Javona Peters is in a permanent vegetative state after what was supposed to be a routine operation on Oct. 17. "I've got to think about it. I've got to talk to my lawyer," he said, a day after the Daily News reported on the teen's condition. "I mean, if nothing is working for Javona, I don't see the point now."........................

Pulling a Feeding Tube from a 16-Year-Old?

8mm

For Immediate Release (January 2, 2008):

ARTL’s Rohrbough: Pro-lifer of the Year
Jill Stanek Poll Selects Columbine Dad Brian Rohrbough

Colorado Right To Life congratulates our former president, Brian Rohrbough, who is now the president of the newly-formed national pro-life organization, American Right to Life, for winning the Stanek Pro-Lifer of the Year poll.

Jill Stanek, herself one of the “30 most prominent pro-life leaders of the past 30 years,” according to World Magazine, wrote on her popular JillStanek.com blog:

Congratulations to Brian Rohrbough for being named the Stanek blog's 2007 Pro-lifer of the Year by our poll. Brian received over 41% of the vote [out of a field of nine nominees], which he got from all over the country - not just from supporters in his home state of Colorado. … Brian's arrival on the public pro-life scene was launched tragically by the killing of his son Dan during the Columbine massacre on April 20, 1999. Since then, Brian has used his publicity in large part to decry abortion, as evidenced by the words he chose for his son's plaque at the Columbine High School memorial, dedicated this past September.

To avoid influencing the holiday poll, held between Christmas and New Years, CRTL did not link to Stanek’s website from ColoradoRightToLife.org, nor did they inform their members of the voting.

Mr. Rohrbough has gained national recognition opposing the failed strategy of the pro-life industry, which is the regulation of child killing, and for promoting the valid alternative, the promotion of the God-given right to life in personhood efforts. More information about Mr. Rohrbough is available on the “Who We Are” page of AmericanRightToLife.org. “We thank Jill Stanek for keeping the pro-life community updated about the ongoing fight to end ‘legalized’ child killing,” said current CRTL president Joe Riccobono, “and we thank ARTL president Brian Rohrbough for providing a strategy for victory!”

Contact Leslie Hanks
V.P., Colorado Right To Life
303 753-9394 or 720-394-8946
lhanks@coloradorighttolife.org

Recoveries and/or saved lives? There are so many. Ambien which is a sleep aid is waking coma and pvs patients up. What a positive twist of fate. Ambien, not just for sleeping.

If people wake up, they can't be labeled and cast aside. Life matters. Conception to natural death, not committees who I can guarantee you are avoiding Ambien at all costs. Ambien could slow down business at the huge hospices and institutions. They wouldn't have anybody misdiagnosed to fill the rooms.

In order to make money, they need a steady pool of patient-victims. They'll neglect, overmedicate or misdiagnosis if they are merchants of death.

If you've ever seen someone whose arms cannot reach a giant cup they can see but nobody is helping them, you know what I mean. If we don't get staff to provide hydration as a matter of their daily activities, this country's over. Dehydration is tkg lives daily under the radar. These people have no living wills. It is simple neglect that is taking lives.

If staff won't, where do we start? Nowadays, people can't just waltz in and volunteer. They don't like "strangers" who actually are kind and compassionate hanging around. LFL, you know what I'm talking about.

Here is one for her Dad:

Man awake, talking after 47-floor fall
AP on Yahoo ^ | 1/3/08 | David B. Caruso - ap
Posted on 01/03/2008 7:21:17 PM MST by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK - Doctors say they have never seen anything like it: A window washer who fell 47 stories from the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper is now awake, talking to his family and expected to walk again.

Alcides Moreno, 37, plummeted almost 500 feet in a Dec. 7 scaffolding collapse that killed his brother.

Somehow, Moreno lived, and doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center announced Thursday that his recovery has been astonishing.

He has movement in all his limbs. He is breathing on his own. And on Christmas Day, he opened his mouth and spoke for the first time since the accident.

His wife, Rosario Moreno, cried as she thanked the doctors and nurses who kept him alive.

“Thank God for the miracle that we had,” she said. “He keeps telling me that it just wasn’t his time.”

Dr. Herbert Pardes, the hospital’s president, described Moreno’s condition when he arrived for treatment as “a complete disaster.”

Both legs and his right arm and wrist were broken in several places. He had severe injuries to his chest, his abdomen and his spinal column. His brain was bleeding. Everything was bleeding, it seemed.

In those first critical hours, doctors pumped 24 units of donated blood into his body — about twice his entire blood volume.

They gave him plasma and platelets and a drug to stimulate clotting and stop the hemorrhaging. They inserted a catheter into his brain to reduce swelling and cut open his abdomen to relieve pressure on his organs.

Moreno was at the edge of consciousness when he was brought in. Doctors sedated him, performed a tracheotomy and put him on a ventilator.

His condition was so unstable, doctors worried that even a mild jostle might kill him, so they performed his first surgery without moving him to an operating room.

Nine orthopedic operations followed to piece together his broken body.

Yet, even when things were at their worst, the hospital’s staff marveled at his luck.

Incredibly, Moreno’s head injuries were relatively minor for a fall victim. Neurosurgeon John Boockvar said the window washer also managed to avoid a paralyzing spinal cord injury, even though he suffered a shattered vertebra.

“If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one,” said the hospital’s chief of surgery, Dr. Philip Barie.

New York-Presbyterian has treated people who have tumbled from great heights before, including a patient who survived a 19-story fall, but most of those tales end sadly.

The death rate from even a three-story fall is about 50 percent, Barie said. People who fall more than 10 stories almost never survive.

“Forty-seven floors is virtually beyond belief,” Pardes said.

Science may never be able to explain what protected Moreno when the platform he and his brother were using atop an Upper East Side apartment tower broke free and fell to the ground.

Edgar Moreno, 30, of Linden N.J., died instantly. He was buried in Ecuador, where the brothers are from.

Alcides Moreno, whom his wife described as strong and athletic, may have clung to his scaffolding platform as it dropped. It is possible that the metal platform offered him some protection, although doctors said they were unsure how.

An investigation into the cause of the accident continues.

Rosario Moreno said that her husband remembers little of the fall but that he didn’t need to be told his brother had died.

The injured window washer spent about three weeks on a ventilator, unable to speak, and initially his only means of communication was by touch.

“He wanted to touch my face, touch my hair,” Rosario Moreno said.

She would take his hand and hold it to her skin. Then, one day, he reached out and touched one of the nurses.

Rosario Moreno said that when she heard about it, she jokingly lectured her husband to keep his hands to himself. He answered in English, “What did I do?”

“It stunned me,” she said, “because I didn’t know he could speak.”

There is still a rough road ahead for the tough New Jersey man, a father of three children, ages 14, 8 and 6.

He was scheduled to undergo another spinal surgery on Friday, and he will need another operation to reconstruct his abdominal wall. There is a chance he could develop complications, even life-threatening ones, during the months ahead.

Moreno will remain in the hospital for at least a few more weeks, doctors said. After that, he will need extensive physical rehabilitation. It may be another year before doctors know how much he will improve.

The medical staff was guarded Thursday about his prospects for returning to a normal life. Doctors said they believe he will walk, but they also suggested that some of his injuries are likely to be lifelong.

“We’re optimistic for a very substantial recovery, eventually,” Barie said

Rosario Moreno said she knows this much for sure: His days as a window washer are over. “I told him, ‘You’re not going back to work there,’” she said.

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