Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping!
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Posted on 02/01/2006 4:20:00 PM PST by tbird5
The case of Haleigh Poutre, the battered child at the center of a legal and medical dispute in Massachusetts, is so horrific as to evoke medieval tableaux of hell. This 11-year-old girl was failed by all the adults in her life, from her biological and adoptive families to social workers and medical professionals. Haleigh, who seems to be emerging from her four-month-long coma and has been moved from intensive care to a rehab center, would have been dead today if the stepfather charged in her near-fatal beating had not fought (most likely for self-interested reasons) to keep her alive.
This tragedy should have been a national outrage. Yet it has gotten only scant attention. Syndicated columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin blames this on a "post-Schiavo syndrome." After last year's pitched battle over whether Terri Schiavo should be kept alive in a vegetative state, most people shudder at the thought of a repeat. Malkin may well be right—but if so, the blame rests with the right-to-life advocates who made Schiavo their cause célèbre.
To put it simply: Haleigh Poutre is no Terri Schiavo. Schiavo had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, and had undergone a barrage of tests showing that she had no higher brain functioning and no consciousness—a fact on which all unbiased medical experts agreed. (Her case had also undergone repeated court review.) Haleigh had been in a vegetative state since Sept. 11. After the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that she could be taken off life support, the girl began to show improvement.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Even though we are correct that dehydration of useless eaters is on the rise.....
We've seen that 'court review' is often a misnomer, and more often than not a crossing of legal t's and dotting of bureaucratic i's than a consideration of meaningful fact.
If the State had been better at review, she wouldn't have remained to BE beaten.
Letting her die permits her attacker to be tried for murder. I say try the State workers for murder. They failed her.
I believe Michelle Malkin was asking where all the people that wanted to keep Tookie Williams alive were at.
Although not quite reaching the heights of death threats, here on FR the roar alone was enough to treat each Shiavo thread as untouchable. Even a mere wisp of disagreement initiated an avalanche of verbal retribution the likes of which I had never seen on FR before or after.
Incorrect. To those who do not know (except perhaps from reading it in this article), Michelle Malkin has been covering this extensively. From one of her pieces here: Save Haleigh
As state officials prepared to remove Haleigh's life support, the supposedly impossible happened. She began breathing on her own, responding to stimuli, and showing signs of emerging from what the medical establishment had deemed her hopeless condition. Everyone had given up on Haleigh — except Haleigh. ''There has been a change in her condition," announced a DSS spokeswoman, Denise Monteiro. ''The vegetative state may not be a total vegetative state."
Unbelievably, the state had weaned Haleigh off her breathing tube before the state supreme court had made its ruling — but the government failed to inform the court of the development. Haleigh's medical records and the social service agency's brief remain sealed.
As well it should have. Killing innocent people is wrong, whether pretty young girls or handicapped women. Or men.
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Try them in the federal system and give 'em 15 to 25.
EXCERPT:
Haleigh Poutre was discharged Thursday from Baystate Medical Center in Springfield and admitted to the Franciscan Hospital for Children. She has been hospitalized since September, when authorities say she was beaten into a coma.
A statement issued by the Franciscan Hospital said: "It is our hope that her stay at Franciscan will afford her the opportunity to maximize her potential for gains in her recovery."
The hospital advertises itself as the largest pediatric rehabilitation facility in New England.
Franciscan Hospital for Children
Attention: Miss Haleigh Poutre
30 Warren Street
Boston, MA 02135
phone: 617-254-3800
fax: 617-779-1119
Message To Patient
Franciscan Hospital for Children provides a secure and confidential way for family and friends of our inpatients to send a message over the Internet using this document. Between Monday and Friday, your message will be printed and confidentially delivered to the patient, usually within 24 hours. Messages received on the weekend are delivered to the patient the following business day.
This just sickens me. Why must we go through this over and over? If the Culture of Death is so eager to end life, there are thousands of monsters on death row all over the country, they are guilty, end their lives, not the lives of the innocent.
My Senior Drill Instructor at Parris Island said the same thing as he taugh us to twist our bayonents between the 3 & 4 rib to break them. That's a harsh reality that doesn't equate to an argument or even a discussion. But it also has nothing to do with what technic you use to fight bad laws in the name of humanity.
The author is an idiot. She should reserve her ire for the MASS DSS who tried ti have life support removed from the little girl after just three weeks. Or the Judge that oredered it. Or perhaps the left wing lunatic Mass politicians who made it all possible.
Message sent, thanks for the link!
In context, that is a lie. The facts -- determined by one man alone -- were never reviewed. Yet they were contested, and remain so. The US Congress even passed an Act asking that the facts be reviewed and/or reheard by others.
"Schiavo had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, and had undergone a barrage of tests showing that she had no higher brain functioning and no consciousness." It is that gross lie which sustains the evil rising in our nation regarding the severely disabled but not braindead or in PVS ... Terri was severely retarded but not in PVS based on neurological conditions. Those continuing to promote the lie as stated in the quote have an agenda that we who value even the disable life had better awaken to oppose more vigorously!
Would you mind re-posting Bobby Schindler's reply to this column on this thread? (this is the same article, posted on a website after appearing in the Boston Globe.) Thank you... it is a SUPERB response and shreds the writer's assertions into what they are: lies.
Thanks for the ping!
Gladly, here it is:
Dear Ms. Young,
I writing in response to your column, “Haleigh Poutre is no Terri Schiavo”.
After reading all of the dishonesty that you purport as truths in regard to my sister Terri, I have to say that this is not only the most irresponsible article that I have yet to read from the media regarding Terri’s situation, but possibly the most egregious.
You wrote that, “Schiavo had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, and had undergone a barrage of tests showing that she had no higher brain functioning and no consciousness – a fact on which all unbiased medical experts agreed.”
I want to know how you’ve researched Terri’s case, and how you’ve obtained this information. Could it be that you’ve gathered your ‘facts’ from the other opinion pieces similar to the one you’ve written about Terri?
If you are referring to autopsy that ostensibly proved that Terri was PVS, then you are entirely wrong. The Independent Medical Examiner who performed the autopsy, Dr. Jon Thogmartin, went to great lengths to caution those reviewing Terri’s autopsy that a post-mortem, forensic examination could neither confirm nor refute a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state. This is because PVS is a clinical diagnosis based on the behaviors of a living patient and not forensic pathology.
Moreover, Dr. Stephen Nelson – a consulting pathologist who assisted Dr. Thogmartin with the autopsy report – admitted that, while Terri’s symptoms were consistent with PVS, he could not rule out the possibility that Terri was in a minimally conscious state.
And there are numerous pathologists and physicians that have responded to the autopsy finding as being misleading and ambiguous. This information could have been and still can be easily provided to you.
I wonder if you were you aware that – as indicated in Terri’s medical records – she was talking when given rehabilitation in the months following her injury? This completely refutes the PVS diagnosis.
Additionally, did you know that there were more doctors on record with the court (from some of the most distinguished institutions from across the country) stating that Terri was not in PVS than there were doctors that said she was? Furthermore, most of these affidavits (there are more than 42 in total) submitted by these doctors said that if Terri was given proper therapy, her functioning capacity could have improved. Why was this never reported by the media?
Did you know that a recent British Medical Journal has reported that nearly 43% of all PVS diagnoses are, in fact, misdiagnoses? Based on this report, the Independent Medical Examiner findings, the sworn testimony and affidavits of over 42 physicians, neurologists and other healthcare professionals contradicting that Terri was in PVS, I believe it is incredibly reckless for you to make the sweeping statement that Terri was PVS.
The fact that my sister received no therapy for more than thirteen years, which also was rarely if ever reported by the media, only added to the deterioration of her condition. No autopsy report could have ever determined how much Terri would have improved if she was receiving proper rehabilitation and therapy during the past thirteen years.
To make the statement that, “. . . all unbiased medical experts agreed” as to the condition of my sister is so completely disingenuous that the only conclusion I can draw is that you did absolutely no research into the doctors that evaluated Terri.
Dr. Ronald Cranford, hired by Michael Schiavo, has testified in almost every major case that the removal of the feeding tube should be permitted. He even takes pleasure in the moniker, Dr. Humane Death. To call him ‘unbiased’ is like calling Rush Limbaugh a liberal democrat. And one of the other doctors that testified in my sister trial, Dr. Peter Bambakidis, was later discovered as having ties to same organization as Michael Schiavo’s attorney George Felos.
But aside from all this, what is really sad is that your article and so many others like yours does nothing but discriminate against the disabled by labeling them with this dangerous and subjective PVS diagnosis. The PVS diagnosis was created for one reason and to serve only one purpose – to kill those that are the weakest and most vulnerable among us.
No amount of damage to the brain or level of disability should give anyone the authority to kill. But this is exactly what you are saying - and is now happening all the time - that we can justify the killing of human beings because they have reached a level of profound brain damage that is unacceptable for us to care for them anymore. So, tell me, how long do you give Haliegh to improve before you give up on her and decide that she must die?
What is really shameful though is that I have to respond to articles like yours and defend my sister’s life and explain why her family should have been permitted to love her.
Columnist Nat Hentoff commented on the media and how they have handled my sister’s case. He said that it was so shoddy and inaccurate that it was the worst case of ‘journalistic malpractice’ that he’s seen in 25 years.
It continues.
Bobby Schindler
-Men(ace) in Black? SCOTUS goes Rogue...--
-Useless Eaters vs The Death Cult--
-Thunder on the Border-- (Minuteman Project)--
1- an unaccountable Judiciary.
2- whose life is it, anyway? Yours, or someone else's?
3- whose Country is it?
There are other vital issues, of course- but these three will determine just who we really are as a nation.
Please note: re-ping to the thread because Post #24 is Bobby Schindler's response to this article... Thanks 8mmMauser!
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping list...
I agree completely. And the more we let them know, by voting, how unhappy we are with the current state of the union, things are changing. Slowly, but better than not at all. At least on a couple of those fronts. :-/
I'm sorry to say that I don't quite understand what you are saying. Would you please elaborate? I'm interested to know your thoughts.
Thanks for the ping!
I agree.
Will we get pulled if we post on this older thread?
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