A New "Haleigh Poutre" in Texas?
SHS's good friend, attorney Jerri Ward, is gearing up to fight a case in Texas that is eerily reminiscent of the Haleigh Poutre case. An attorney ad litem for a terribly abused baby named David Coronado Jr., wanted to stop all treatment because the baby is expected to remain profoundly cognitively disabled. From the story:
The fate of a brain-damaged 6-month-old Dallas boy is uncertain after his court-appointed attorney on Tuesday withdrew a motion to let doctors take the baby off life support...The baby's attorney ad litem, Holly Schreier, told a juvenile district court judge that doctors at Children's Medical Center Dallas had assessed a change in the baby's condition. She did not say what the change was, and she did not return a call for comment.A few points: First, the child was only injured last month. What's the rush? Second: It is wrong for a guardian to want her ward dead "in his best interests" because he is expected to be seriously disabled if he survives. The message of that decision is stark: his death is better than living with serious disabilities--which I don't think a guardian should be allowed by law to assume.
A doctor reported in December that he expected David to suffer severe disabilities if he survived. It is unclear if doctors now expect the baby to remain in a vegetative or minimally conscious state. Meanwhile, word of the possible hearing on withdrawing the child's life support had spread over the weekend among right-to-life and disabilities-rights groups, at least one of which readied attorneys to intervene Tuesday morning. "Brains are very resilient, and in a 6-month-old baby, to conclude that he's neurologically devastated and is going to stay permanently that way I think is irresponsible," said Jerri Lynn Ward, an attorney representing Not Dead Yet, a disabilities-rights group.
We saw this same rush to remove treatment and "death is better than profoundly disabled" kind of thinking in Haleigh's case. But for the time it took to get the Supreme Court's approval for the dehydration, Haleigh would be dead today instead of in rehabilitation and going to school. Good grief! Do we never learn?
Hopefully, this will be the end of the matter and the baby will receive proper care. If not, I will comment about it here.
Labels: David Coronado, Jr. Case. "Death is Better Than Disabled" Attitudes. Haleigh Poutre.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:41 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
This actually reminds me of the position that Emilio Gonzales' guardian took in 2007. If anyone wants to read the article about it, it's on SAFE's News Archives page.
Interesting how disability rights groups are still placed after right to life groups when such things are discussed-still being treated as an aftertought.
SAFEpres: Just as being tall helps the unqualified get elected to office, those who are able to display vigor have the advantage in drawing attention over those who are not, and people have an automatic prejudice in this regard. One reason anti-abortion activists get ridiculed is that on some level some find it disproportionate that the able-bodied are expending energy on behalf of mere foetuses. Similarly humans display an attitude of specieism towards laboratory animals, and are oblivious to the disabled, who are not as physically capable of fighting on their own behalf. I am not as concerned about foetuses and babies as I am about those further along in life, but if life is not respected at one end of the spectrum, it ends up disrespected further down the line. Public attention has been focused on the abortion issue and there is not enough attention to the other right-to-life issues, courtesy of Roe v. Wade, the feminist movement, or at least that part of it that identifies as "pro-choice,"etc.; "pro-life" has become identified with "pro-life" v. "pro-choice," the religious right (which into the bargain destroyed the Republican party) and "conservatism" vs. liberalism, etc. Meanwhile the issues of the rights of the elderly and of the disabled got shunted over to the side. Identification of religion with these issues has been distracting, divisive, and counteproductive. One doesn't have to be religious, let alone of any particular religion, to be pro-life. It would be better to establish the pro-life issue as secular and as encompassing the rights of all to life, and then the various religious proponents could sign on like everyone else who wants to, but not be seen as driving the train, as they are now, which only confuses the public. Not everyone who supports the right to life per se is Catholic or even Christian. In order to get the point across it may be necessary to go back to square one and identify the movement as one on behalf of all the vunerable, more p.r. re the elderly and re the disabled, etc. Otherwise the "fanatic" label can be applied. People can understand, if it is pointed out to them (again, we're dealing with a public that isn't in the habit of thinking and empathizing) that at any moment they might become disabled, and that one day they will be old, and would not want to be disregarded, disrespected, mistreated, discarded, etc. It's amazing how lacking many are in empathy, common sense, logic, but that's what there is to work with and has to be worked with; it will take some work, but it's doable, and the more practice people get at thinking and empathizing, the better off society will be. It just has to be put in their face. Those who are vulnerable are those who are not able to get in their face. Humans are animals, and animals prey on those less able to be physically dominant, same as people think the tall candidate is entitled to lead. People think the elderly and the disabled should die "to make room for me" and are more concerned about foetuses because "that could have been me" and have to learn to make the logical step to "that could be me, that will be me." Otherwise we're not going to have a society that's worth living in, or even possible to live in. Things got to the mess they are in now by people having delegated thinking to "science" and regarded those with "credentials" as having wisdom. Abandoning one's own responsibility to think leads to losing control over whether one lives or dies.
(sorry forgot to paragraph)
I am a religious person who is pro-life and I totally agree with lanthe: the pro-life movement will have to focus its energies on making secular arguments against abortion. There is a lot of ground to gain if this is done. I suspect that we are entering an periof of increasing religious discrimination, or at least a more public hostility to certain religious beliefs. And I don't think that, in any case, one can make a purely religious argument to eliminate all abortion in a religiously pluralistic society.
Anyway, regarding this article I would be curious to know what exactly are the "life support" measures that are being used with this child.
I think this term is becoming a kind of shorthand for "useless technology that tortures an unwilling participant." And it could be referring to a machine that forces the lungs to breathe, or only a feeding tube. It's unclear. Deliberately?
Also, I think it is irresponsible not to have at least some side information about the recovery possibilities with very young children and their brains. At this age, an entire half of the brain can be destroyed, and the other half take over the functions of the lost half.
holyterror: I'm glad you agree. It ought to be possible to do something along those lines. On your second comment, I agree that it's irresponsible. With this ilk, responsible went out the window long since, along with logic, reliable competence, and reverence for life, if those qualities ever even were in the same room with them; they just want their way.
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