Push Back! Constitutional Challenge to Texas Futile Care Law
Attempts by a hospital to force a woman off of kidney dialysis has resulted in a well-deserved lawsuit and constitutional challenge against the Texas futile care law. Secret bioethics committee Star Chamber-like determinations, made without formal record or right to appeal, must not be permitted to proliferate throughout the country. Texas is the front line of the futile care theory struggle. Good for the pro bono attorneys who are representing the beleaguered family pro bono against coercive imposition of utilitarian bioethics beliefs.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:30 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Thank you for posting this on your site. I'm one of the lawyers working on this case and there will never be a clearer example of the need to let someone fight for their life. I would encourage everyone who reads this to call their legislator and tell them they need to get involved and help Ruthie Webster live.
Posted by Robert D. Bennett from The Bennett Law Office
Counselor, thank you for your selfless service to the defenseless. That is a big part of what practicing law is supposed to be about.
So much for making your wishes known.
I wonder whether the doc was forced to admit that Mrs. Webster is a "long term care patient" that has a chronic condition and that further hospitalization - and therefore dialysis at that hospital - is not "medically necessary" under Medicare guidelines?
If so, this isn't a Texas Advance Directive Act case at all. It's just a case where the patient needs to go home and receive outpatient dialysis. Medicare will pay for the latter, but will not pay for "long term care."
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