Posted on 09/05/2006 4:45:45 AM PDT by 8mmMauser
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- Haleigh Poutre was the victim of child abuse and was nearly killed via euthanasia when Massachusetts officials gave up on her after she entered a coma. Now Poutre, once termed "brain dead" by doctors, continues to improve and is speaking a few words, her grandmother says.
Sandra Sudyka, the girl's biological grandmother, is no longer allowed to visit her granddaughter and now says she is ready to speak to the media about Poutre's condition.
She told The Republican newspaper that she last saw Poutre on July 18 but indicated she was "doing well."
"She was bright-eyed and smiling. She is always responsive to us," Sudyka explained.
Department of Social Services had asked Sudyka not to talk with reporters about Haleigh, but since they will no longer allow her and Haleigh's biological mother, Allison Avrett, to visit the 12 year-old, she said she's going to talk to the media.
"I decided since they broke the deal, I am going to talk. People should know how well she is doing," Sudyka told the newspaper.
"They don't want people to know how she is doing after they wanted to pull the plug," Sudyka said.
DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro declined an interview with The Republican but said that the visiting privileges have been suspended, not terminated.
Haleigh first began speaking in June, her grandmother told the newspaper.
"I was saying to her 'I love you,' and she was trying to say 'love' and it came out as a vibration...'ove,'" Sudyka said.
Sudyka, who is working with an attorney to adopt the girl, said she has said hello, responds to comments and questions, speaks nonverbally and is able to write her name. Haleigh can't walk and is confined to a wheelchair.
Avrett, Poutre's biological mother, lost custody of her daughter after physically abusing her. Poutre was put into a foster home where her adoptive parents also abused her. Her adopted mother committed suicide after abusing Poutre so much she had to be hospitalized.
DSS took Poutre into custody and when she appeared to slip into a coma, the agency asked the state Supreme Court for permission to take her life. That's when Poutre began responding.
Poutre has been receiving physical, speech and occupational therapy since January 26 at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton.
Gov. Mitt Romney appointed a commission to look into how the state failed to properly handle the girl's case.
I don't know if this particular child was FV.
Thanks for the bump FV.
I should have read deeper in the thread before I posted. Guess I was too quick on the trigger, too. :-)
Santorum has repeatedly drawn heat as the voice of the extreme right on controversial social issues such as abortion and gay marriage -- during an interview he infamously compared gay sex to "man-on-dog" sex -- and championing Terri Schiavo's right to remain on life support.
In 11th hour, Santorum pulling out all stops
8mm
(Original Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to September 17.)
Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.
Is it care which is futile for a patient or is it care for a patient whose life is futile?
A parallel can be drawn to the definition of Futile care much as Clinton obfuscated the meaning of the simple term, "is". Futile care may be construed as the provision of useless medication, i.e. acne cream for someone with severe burns. Or it can be construed as care for someone whose life is futile. To the well meaning, the first interpretation may be acceptable and to the bioethicists the second interpretation is a useful tool to justify the snuffing of a victim. The following is discussed in ProLifeBlogs...
......................
We've covered several distressing cases involving the infamous Texas Futile Care Law that grants hospitals "the immoral power over life and death and forces beleaguered families into an 11th-hour scramble to save their loved ones." Howard Witt, a Chicago Tribune senior correspondent, has written an excellent article (HT: BlogsforTerri) covering the case of Kalilah Roberson-Reese:
HOUSTON -- If it had been up to her doctors, the Houston hospital where she was treated and the laws of the state of Texas, Kalilah Roberson-Reese would be dead by now.As Witt explains, and as we've observed on several occasions, under the state's ridiculous Futile Care Law, a hospital seeking to discontinue treatment can pull the plug on a patient after giving the family 10 days to find an alternate facility. (Note that 10 days is completely inadequate and few are able to meet this deadline)Instead, the severely brain-damaged 29-year-old woman is being cared for in a Lubbock nursing home, where she's become a focal point in a growing struggle over a controversial Texas law that permits hospitals to withdraw life support from patients whose conditions they deem hopeless -- even if family members object.
"This law allows doctors and hospitals to abandon patients and provides them safe harbor and immunity to do it," said Jerri Ward, an Austin attorney who has filed several lawsuits to prevent doctors from ending treatment. "The Hippocratic oath has morphed from treating illness and saving people's lives to allowing doctors to make subjective quality-of-life decisions about ... who should die."Jerri Ward has been instrumental in helping families find alternate facilities and working with hospitals, often obtaining more time for the family. We certainly hope the future brings changes to both the law and the mindset that has brought about the present circumstances enabling the unilateral withdrawal of treatment against the wishes of the patient and family.
Wesley Smith has more: dying isn't dead: It is living. If doctors and bioethics committees are given the right to refuse wanted life-sustaining treatment--including tube-supplied sustenance--based on their judgments about the quality of a patient's life, then the most fundamental purpose of medicine has been subverted.
Escaping the Texas Futile Care Law
8mm
As the two of them walk across St. Peter’s Square, bystanders stop Kerry every few steps to bemoan his defeat in the presidential election just a few months before. Some of these admirers-including a few Italian priests-drape themselves enthusiastically over Kerry’s lanky frame for group snapshots.
Then a single priest stops Kerry and Durbin. He warns Kerry that he will have to answer, perhaps in hell, for his position on abortion.
Shifting Allegiances... Catholics, Democrats & the GOP
8mm
A reporting by another Schiavo on familiar topics:
The Bucks County audience was partisan, sporting "I Like Mike" and "Murphy '06" campaign badges. And vocal, with boos and cheers prompting the moderator to remind the crowd, "This is not a pep rally."
The spectators' questions yesterday steered the first public debate between the two candidates for Congress away from the official but broad subject of health care to the more divisive issues of embryonic stem-cell research and abortion.
Incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), citing the teachings of his Roman Catholic faith, said he opposes both and believes research should focus on adult stem cells.
8mm
The Pope pointed out the grave injustice of those who falsely claim that the Church is against scientific advancement. "In the face of the frequent and unjust accusations of insensitivity directed against the Church," he said, "I would like to underline the constant support she has given over the course of her two thousand-year history to research aimed at the cure of illnesses and at the good of humanity."
Benedict XVI added, "If there has been - and there still is - resistance, it was and is against those forms of research that involve the planned suppression of human beings who are already alive, though they may not yet have been born." The Pope then highlighted how history "has condemned such science in the past, and will condemn it in the future, not only because it is devoid of the light of God, but also because it is devoid of humanity."
Pope: A Society with Legal Abortion Cannot Fight Crime Effectively
8mm
It's not what we need to study right now but I can only guess that it will be slanted. So much of the curriculum now days is very liberally slanted.
Ping to a new thread by KoRn. Thanks wagglebee for alerting us.
At most hospitals the Ethics committee is usually made up of staff, social workers, clergy, and parents of other children.
We had a room full of the staff, 1 surgeon, 2 social workers, and Stephanie and I. Let’s just stack all the cards against us. After wasting 2 hours going over the issues, it is their Ethical recommendation to not continue life saving treatments to our baby! This includes vent support which she has been on since day one. Why don’t you just turn the knife back and fourth after you stick it in our hearts! According to the committee we as parents of our child can not tell the U of M Doctors how to provide care to our child. They reserve the right to discontiune support when they feel like it.
They have not fed Emmie-Rose since 9/3/2006!
8mm
(Original Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to September 17.)
We need some contact info to send complaints to, and apply pressure.
Isn't high school a little late to get started indoctrinating them? Some of those kids might still retain the opinion that disabled people aren't the bottom of the heap. Some of them might think it's wrong to murder an entire group of people just because someone thinks they're the bottom of the heap.
No problem, you weren't rude. :-)
I am glad to see things have returned to normal on this thread. You guys do a great job, keep it up!
When my wife pointed this out to me from another forum she frequents, it was the first I had heard about this. This is terrible and unimaginable! Having children myself, and one on the way, that will be 23 weeks very soon. I couldn't imagine having the baby come early, fighting for its life, only to have the hospital deciding to end its life. That "ethics" committee all belong in jail for conspiracy to commit murder!
I note the post and link from Ronaldus Magnus has a video clip with more info on the hospital, etc. Post #16
May Our Lord watch over Emmie-Rose and her parents and guide them...
8mm
TORONTO, September 19, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – At an international meeting of euthanasia and assisted suicide organizations held in Toronto September 1-9, spokesmen from the US-based group, Compassion and Choices, admitted that their Client Support Program is an active assisted suicide program. They revealed that program trains volunteers to assist their clients to kill themselves while remaining technically within the law.
Ostensibly strictly for purposes of disseminating information to people who are seeking “choices” at the end of their lives, Helen Beum the program’s director said it has 130 volunteers spanning 27 states in the US.
Volunteers in US Death with Dignity Program Admit Actively Assisting with Suicides
8mm
"They have not fed Emmie-Rose since 9/3/2006!"
Here we go again. The antilifers even consider food to be extraordinary means when it suits them.
This came out on Sunday so is dated, no updates yet...
Her parents say Emmie-Rose tries to follow the sound of their voices with her blue eyes. They say that the two-month-old baby's vital signs improve when she's held and that she is particularly comforted when held by her mother.
Chris and Stephanie Yannella of Ypsilanti Township cherish every day they're able to pick up their daughter, born months premature with a host of complications.
Each day for the last two weeks is a day their doctors predicted would never come.
Emmie-Rose was given two days to live on Sept. 3 and has beaten the odds so far, but she's still in intensive care at the University of Michigan Medical Center with a desperate condition. She weighs 2.1 pounds.
Snip...
The Yannellas, Chris, 38, and Stephanie, 31, were not available to comment for a story in Saturday's News on their Friday court filing. They spoke in an interview Saturday at their attorney's office in Ann Arbor.
"How can you just take food away from a child?'' said Stephanie Yannella. "That doesn't make sense ... We want the same treatment she's had since birth.''
8mm
(Original Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to September 17.)
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