Posted on 01/04/2020 8:05:27 PM PST by Morgana
Judge Sandee Marion, Chief Justice of the 4th Court of Appeals, denied Tinslee Lewis a temporary injunction today, allowing Cook Children’s Medical Center to turn off her life support and let the 11-month-old baby girl die. The family says they will appeal the decision.
As previously reported by Live Action News, little Tinslee was born in February 2019 with medical concerns, and in July, was placed on life support at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. The hospital enacted the state’s 10-Day Rule, which gives family’s just ten days to find a new facility to care for their loved one before the hospital removes life support and the patient dies. Thanks to a temporary restraining order issued in November, Tinslee is still alive and at Cook Children’s.
But now, Marion has ruled that the hospital can remove her life support, and they plan to do so in just seven days.
“I am heartbroken over today’s decision because the judge basically said Tinslee’s life is NOT worth living,” her mother Trinity Lewis said in a statement shared by Texas Right to Life. “I feel frustrated because anyone in that courtroom would want more time just like I do if Tinslee were their baby. I hope that we can keep fighting through an appeal to protect Tinslee. She deserves the right to live. Please keep praying for Tinslee and thank you for supporting us during this difficult time.”
Tinslee has Ebstein Anomaly – a rare heart defect – and chronic lung disease along with severe chronic pulmonary hypertension. Doctors believe she is in pain and suffering and that there is nothing more that can be done to help her. The family disagrees, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott is supporting them, along with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“The Attorney General’s office is involved in the ongoing litigation, fighting to see that due process and the right to life are fully respected by Texas law,” the two said in a joint statement. “The Attorney General’s office will be supporting an appeal of this case to the Second Court of Appeals.” They said they will be “working diligently to do all we can to ensure that Tinslee and her family are provided the care and support that they seek.”
Texas Right to Life spokesperson Kim Schwartz told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the hospital’s decision “was not based on whether treatment is or isn’t working. But the bottom line is that the 10-Day Rule allowed a hospital committee to make this life-or-death decision without giving Tinslee due process.”
She added that the 10-Day Rule leaves families in a “race against a countdown to save their loved ones.”
Terri’s list ping
This isn’t a scenario of a husband wanting insurance money and inheritance ifnhe shuts off the life support. Most of these are not Terri Schiavo scenarios.
Sometimes doctors actually know what they are doing.
That said, i hope she recovers, and/or another hospital steps up and says they will take her as a transfer if necessary.
FReepers I thought this case rang a bell. I posted about it in November.
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3794010/posts
The baby doesn’t look like she is in pain in the picture.
Sometimes I think they just want the body parts as with Jahi McMath. Remember her? I met her mom, I knew that story well as I posted it here and met her mom at a pro life convention.
The vultures were swarming over Jahi’s body but her mom would not give in.
I trust no one in the medical world anymore.
or the bed...
A horrible tragedy. Heartbreaking to even read about.
Every time it happens.
Should society commit the necessary assets for every person on life support to stay alive as long the machines can keep them?
Millions die every year who could be extended by modern medicine. Maybe a few weeks or a few months. Maybe even a few years.
It’s a question that should be considered.
Murder
It depends, you do have to be extremely careful who to trust. if its a lifelong doc, its different than one you don’t know from Adam or Eve.
The bottom line is you have to be in charge of your own care, no one else cares as much if you live or die than you do. Same with your family, especially when they can’t do it for themselves.
And everything needs to be verified. I have known people that have had to prevent nurses and docs doing things to theirkids that would have killed them, because they got dosages wrong, or they did not know their treatment would have a different effect than the parent did.
I read that this baby is septic, and goes into cardiac arrest 3 times per day that requires them to resuscitate her. No children’s hospital will accept her because there is no magic cure for her. The only reason she probably is not suffering is because she is sedated and intubated.
This is outrageous. Let the child die “ naturally” without heroic Measures just because we now have all kinds of medical technology that can technically keep a person alive doesn’t mean that all these cases are right to life cases
At the end of life..hospitals keep people on machines for another year for the money they make..that’s the biggest cost of our medical care.and it’s not like the person is even there to be w family.
This baby is not even stable, crashes constantly. The hospital,in this case, wants to turn off support but mom cannot accept it.
I’m a nurse and I’ve seen cases where the family refuses to accept the inevitable fact that their loved one is terminal.
I took care of a young woman who had suffered a cardiac arrest after discontinuing dialysis voluntarily. She persisted in a vegetative condition. The family just couldn’t come to accept the fact that she was never going to recover. Finally the nephroligist stopped the dialysis.
She suffered so much during the 6 months I took care of her. I felt so bad for her and her family.
How exactly was this patient suffering if she was in a "vegetative" condition, as you put it? How can any person in the sub-animal state you describe feel any pain or anguish?
That is because she is sedated and given meds to keep her paralyzed. She pulls at the tubes and wires otherwise. Diagnosed with Ebstein’s anomaly (heart malformation), chronic lung disease, and pulmonary hypertension. Simple functions such as nursing staff moving her to prevent bed sores or changing her diaper can send her into respiratory arrest.
What an evil law.
Being taken off of artificial means after so long is murder?
They’re not starving the child.
Murder?
More like nature.
The world didn’t always have the means to keep people who would naturally die, alive for years and years and years.
It's a decision that every family in these circumstances considers as carefully as any decision can be considered, and the decision should be theirs.
Well your opinion is good enough for me :)
Seriously, pain or not isn’t the biggest issue.
If they take her off support and she lives THEN it becomes an issue of murder if they decide to starve her.
Not every decision is murder.
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