Life for Lauren
This is a video of Lauran Richardson. Whether she is conscious or not is irrelevant to her equal moral worth as a human being. But she seems reactive to me, particularly when she is being stroked and loved by her father.
The fight in this case is over whether she lives as a profoundly disabled woman or is made to die slowly over two weeks by dehydration--as Terri Schiavo did.
If we did that to a dog, we would go to jail. Do it to a disabled woman who needs a feeding tube and it it is called medical ethics.
There is a Web site, Life For Lauren, which can be found at www.lifeforlauren.com
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 3:09 PM
13 Comments
13 Comments:
This woman looks conscious to me.
She smiles, blinks, moves her face, etc.
She just can't talk. Yet. I compare her to an infant who cannot sit on her own yet.
Would you withhold food from an infant who hasn't learned to sit up on her own yet?
This absolutely blows my mind!!!
What is going on in this world and in people's minds and hearts?
I guess Terri Schiavo looked conscious to many people, but the autopsy and pre-death MRIs blew that theory out of the water.
Wesley, the only reason why they have to be dehydrated to death is because of anti-choicers like you. You seem to be saying that a lethal injection is more merciful for animals, and so it would also be more merciful to human beings.
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080206/NEWS/802060349/1006/NEWS
WILMINGTON -- The father of Lauren Richardson has been ordered by a court to refrain from releasing any recent still images or video of her for public distribution.
The restraining order, dated Feb. 4, prohibits the distribution of any photographs, videotapes or other recordings of 23-year-old Lauren Richardson taken after Aug. 26, 2006, the date she suffered the severe brain injury from an accidental heroin overdose.
This week's restraining order, also signed by Glasscock, sets up a list of authorized visitors to Lauren Richardson at The Arbors nursing home, and requires visitors to sign a statement acknowledging the court restrictions on photos and video.
Interesting.
I am glad to see the court protecting Lauren's privacy and dignity :-)
It's seems the video has definitely had an effect, that's probably why the other side fought to have it removed.
It much harder for the pro-death movement to sell their agenda if the person is NOT PVS.
Once the person has been deemed PVS, the job gets easy as that diagnosis robs the person of their dignity and pro-death can better write that person off as a human being.
The video might also cause pro-life doctors to get involved and question or doubt the diagnosis.
Obviously, it is much harder to proceed with pro-death process of starvation and dehydration for a PVS patient when you many many doctors doubting and questioning the PVS diagnosis.
Hoepfully, Lauren will get some the benefits that Terri was denied such a fMRI and a PET scan to better determine her condition.
As far a Lauren's right to Privacy, has courts determined with Clear and Convincing evidence, that Lauren would not want videos taken of her?
Taking and posting videos of brain injured people is fairly common practice and I have seen many websites where the family has no problem showing their brain injured loved one.
Just because the person is brain injured does not mean that they are any less of a human being.
James said:
As far a Lauren's right to Privacy, has courts determined with Clear and Convincing evidence, that Lauren would not want videos taken of her?
Oh James, I would hardly think Lauren even thought that someone would take videos of her in this state and post them on You Tube :-)
And the court found in clear and convincing evidence that Lauren had stated during the Schiavo case that she did not want to live in such a state. She and her mother promised each other not leave each other in a hopeless state if such a thing might happen.
Wesley,
It looks like Lauren is a very pretty girl and so young.
I find hard to imagine that people wouldn't have any problem taking this young and pretty girl and virtually turn her into a living skelelton over a period of 2 weeks while they starve and dehydrate her to death.
As everyone knows, Terri appearence at the end of those 2 weeks of starvation ad dehydration was that a living skeleton.
I guess Patti fights for abortion rights, too.
Tell me, is an infant who can only lay on their back and feed from a bottle considered brain dead? Why don't we starve them, too, if you think it is acceptable for a human who can't feed themselves to be terminated?
If you say it is not acceptable to starve an infant who can't feed him or herself, then why is it acceptable to do it to anyone else?
I have a cousin who was "supposedly" in a vegetative state. She was even less alert than this young woman in the video. She was this way for five years as a teenager. She was fed via feeding tube. Today she is 30 years old, is a high school teacher, and it is like nothing had ever happened to her. Thank God she had parents who loved her and valued her life.
Jackie: Please keep abortion out of this discussion. There are plenty of people who are not pro life who oppose these dehydrations.
As to the court order: This is standard for the course. The privacy of the person is not the real issue, it is their HUMANITY. In the Robert Wendland case here in California, when his dehydration was about to commence, before stopped by court order, the hospital said he was basically unconscious. But then a TV station was able to play a video of him taking pegs out of a board and putting them back in when requested, proving the lie of the hospital spokesperson.
You know the old saying: out of sight out of mind? That is why the advocates for dehydration want to keep the public from seeing the person in question as a living breathing person. Having them an abstraction helps the PR cause.
Who is the guy who court-ordered the video to be taken down? Is it the judge who ruled custody for the mother? Wow, so while the custody ruling is being appealed, he's making sure no photos of the girl's present state get out. That's...unpleasant.
Now, does anybody have a good way to find out the legal situation in Delaware? Life for Lauren has _no_ legal background page. Zip. Nada. This just isn't good. They have to try to fight this on the legal plain.
For example: If custody decisions in Delaware are made on a "best interests" basis, then determining Lauren's wishes may not be the central issue. The two may not have to be linked. A higher judge could potentially rule that her father's custody was in her best interests. Is this not correct?
If custody and medical DPA-type decisions _must_ be linked to finding the person most likely to carry out the incompetent person's wishes, then what is Delaware's standard of "clear and convincing evidence"? For example, is there any statutory law or any precedent that requires that second-hand reports of conversations can count? Could a higher court potentially rule that there must be written evidence?
These are the kinds of questions that no one seems to be answering on the Internet. Hopefully, Lauren's father has a lawyer or lawyers who _are_ investigating them. But until there are answers available about what (if I can put it this way) legal wiggle room is already in the system, it makes it hard for people to, e.g., write letters or make appeals to the governor (as someone recently urged doing).
Lydia McGrew said...
Who is the guy who court-ordered the video to be taken down? Is it the judge who ruled custody for the mother? Wow, so while the custody ruling is being appealed, he's making sure no photos of the girl's present state get out. That's...unpleasant.
Now, does anybody have a good way to find out the legal situation in Delaware? Life for Lauren has _no_ legal background page. Zip. Nada. This just isn't good. They have to try to fight this on the legal plain.
No, it was her guardian ad litem who advocates for Lauren's best interests.
I have two other links for you from the original story on Delaware Online. It should help you with the background.
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080131/NEWS/801310382/1006/NEWS
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080203/NEWS/802030355/1006/NEWS
Somehow I think they are trying to prevent another circus like they had with Terri Schiavo. All the smears, all the accusations, and all the false information floating around.
Just my opinion :-)
Patti, so there's absolutely no ambiguity, I am _totally_ against Lauren's feeding tube being withdrawn. And I think it was wrong for the judge to order the video taken down. I'd read the story you link already. I'm hoping somebody, somewhere has a more in-depth analysis to help the pro-life side legally. I'm entirely on the father's side, here.
Blogger Lydia McGrew said...
Patti, so there's absolutely no ambiguity, I am _totally_ against Lauren's feeding tube being withdrawn. And I think it was wrong for the judge to order the video taken down. I'd read the story you link already. I'm hoping somebody, somewhere has a more in-depth analysis to help the pro-life side legally. I'm entirely on the father's side, here.
Understood.
I don't think there is anything else out there. Just twists and turns on the original article.
I believe Lauren specifically stated that she did not want to live in a circumstance such as Terri Schiavo's. PVS with no hope for recovery. She told her mother and uncle and said it was 'gross' and "Don't ever leave me hooked up to life support. I would not want that. I think it is horrible. I think that I do not ever want to be kept on life support if the doctors say there's no hope." Her mother promised her that it would not happen. And she is simply trying to keep the promise.
I am glad the baby was born healthy and I hope he/she is not heroin addicted.
Lauren's doctors testifies that she is indeed PVS and there is no hope for recovery. And that includes a neurologist assigned by the courts.
"All the medical evidence supplied by the physicians -- by the independent neurologist and by Lauren's own doctors -- is in agreement: Lauren is not in a coma but is in a persistent vegetative state. A large portion of her brain was destroyed by a lack of oxygen following a heroin overdose of August 2006. She is unable to communicate or experience consciousness. Her continued existence is dependent upon tube feeding and hydration.... No improvement in her condition can be expected."
Therefore granting Lauren's wish is not unreasonable. To keep her alive simply because her father objects or because WE think she shouldn't be let go demeans Lauren, demotes her to an object that anyone can control, and denies her person hood.
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