Haleigh Poutre Almost Victim of Euthanasia, Now Making Good Progress

Life News ^ | September 4, 2006 | Steven Ertelt

[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.

[T'wit]

>> C. S. Lewis in his book, The Abolition of Man, acknowledged that his generation made the same mistake—and paid dearly for it. Lewis observed, "We make men without chests, and we expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor, and we are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

Glad to see a reference to THE ABOLITION OF MAN, which is one of the top, essential conservative texts. Especially this famous bitey quotation!

Liberalism has been warring on higher values, on excellence and on moral law for a century. What are they thinking? At the end of that road, necessarily, is the death of civilization itself. We cannot live together in society without a broadly shared understanding of what is good, what is right and what is wrong. The moral law, or "tao" as Lewis called it in this book, is not merely western culture but common to all civilizations of all times. A "civilization" based on contrary values such as dishonesty, cruelty and cowardice would be unthinkable.

By undermining standards and moral rules, liberalism sends us to destruction.

[T'wit]

Action coming up, according to this story. (Do we have any locals who could sit in?)

>> Jason Strickland, now of 61 South Westfield St., Agawam, remains free on $5,000 cash bail.

>> Strickland pleaded innocent last month in Hampden Superior Court to six counts of assault and battery; two of them on a child under 14, resulting in injury; and three counts involving dangerous weapons, identified in grand jury indictments as a bat, shod foot and a "wand, stick or tube."

>> A pretrial conference in Strickland's case is slated for Sept. 29.

Jason will blame everything on Holli, of course, and it will be interesting to hear the laundry list of what he blames on her. But if he had any cojones, he would have stopped the abuse. Ergo, he's guilty as an accessory even if Holli did the beating.

[floriduh voter]

FYI: Gallagher's top guy never sent out an email urging Gallagher's supporters to vote for Crist. I ckd to make sure that they weeded disgruntled voters like me out but unless I see an email from Gallagher or Brett Doster from post-election to his supporters saying to help Crist, I'm saying they aren't too enthused about cc either.

In any event, crist doesn't have the gop base locked up. He does have The Sierra Club endorsement though.

[floriduh voter]

Haleigh's in recovery. Scott Thomas is in recovery.

http://scottsfight.com/Scott's%20News.htm

Terri was murdered. May she rest in peace.

[8mmMauser]

We may add Yenlang Vo to the list. Les, anything recent from Jerri Ward or the family on this?

I recall this article from awhile back.

..................

Yenlang Vo is a hospital patient who, like Andrea Clark (more here), has been designated by her doctors for passive euthanasia under Texas' futile care statute. While a patient of St. David's North Austin Medical Center in Austin, her condition has been given the label persistent vegetative state. The diagnosis is disputed by the family, including Ms. Vo's daugher, Loann Trihn, who is an emergency room doctor and suggests that her mother is responsive.

Today we received the following message from Lanore Dixon, one of Andrea Clark's sisters, concerning her visit with Mrs. Vo: I was in Austin this weekend and asked Jerri Ward

Yenlang Vo - A Letter from Andrea Clark's Sister

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[Lesforlife]

Last message from the intrepid Jeri Ward was that Yenlang's daughter is
receiving training in dialysis and will be caring for her mom at home.

[T'wit]

That's good news. That letter from Lanore Dixon made it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Vo is responsive, not in a PVS. I hope she'll be safe until she gets out of that hospital.

[bjs1779]

Let no one forget that Michael specifically refused to let Terri have up-to-date brain tests of this sort. In fact, he refused over and over again.

Yes, poor Michael and Judge Greer even agonized over giving Terri a new swallowing test. Something that had not been performed since 1993. They couldn't take any chances on old technology either.

[bjs1779]

Thanks T'wit. One of those I seen it in yesterdays newspaper, but couldn't find it.

[T'wit]

>> poor Michael and Judge Greer even agonized over giving Terri a new swallowing test.

They didn't dare allow one, after Carla's and Heidi Law's testimony. At the end, we had Greer illegally ordering that no one feed or hydrate Terri by hand. Better he should have gone in and brained her with a baseball bat. Either way he's a murderer but she wouldn't have suffered as much.

[T'wit]

Think nothing of it. Google/the 'Net have become awfully useful for finding biblical verses. In this case I retrieved the previous verse because it was, so to speak, pro-life :-)

[8mmMauser]

Haleigh Poutre update...

SPRINGFIELD - One year after 11-year-old Haleigh Poutre was hospitalized, bruised and unresponsive, her biological mother yesterday filed a $12.5 million lawsuit against the state, saying she was coerced into giving the girl up for adoption and now is deprived of her companionship.

The lawsuit states that Department of Social Services Commissioner Lewis H. Spence and employees violated Allison Avrett's civil rights by coercing her in 1998 to give up Haleigh, then 4, to Avrett's half-sister for adoption.

After Haleigh's hospitalization in 2005, her adoptive mother and stepfather were charged with beating her. Since then, the hospitalized girl's condition has improved, Avrett has said.

Haleigh's mother files lawsuit

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Terri's Legacy List

(Original Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to September 7.)



Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.

[8mmMauser]

Ping to a thread by aculeus and thanks to FairOpinion on an amazing discovery with some "PVS" patients!

We have always been told there is no recovery from persistent vegetative state - doctors can only make a sufferer's last days as painless as possible. But is that really the truth? Across three continents, severely brain-damaged patients are awake and talking after taking ... a sleeping pill. And no one is more baffled than the GP who made the breakthrough. Steve Boggan witnesses these 'strange and wonderful' rebirths

Reborn [Pill reverses "vegetative state"]

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[8mmMauser]

A doctor takes a stab at explaining PVS and its consequences...

Is PVS (persistent vegetative state) a fate worse than death? Some think so. Resuscitation often salvages only a living shell of the former person. So should we be more realistic - perhaps by not using all our technology to its full extent, just because we can?

Persistent vegetative state: edge of darkness

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[8mmMauser]

Bobby Schindler to speak...

Bobby Schindler - brother of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who died in March 2005 after courts ordered the removal of her feeding tube - will speak at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Tidewater A room of the University Center. His speech is sponsored by William and Mary Students for Life.

Blogger and an activist to speak at W&M

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[8mmMauser]

Wrong on wrong...

He is quick to belittle Mr. Shiavo's and the Democratic Party's beliefs, yet can sincerely state that "Republicans weren't looking for a fight" and Terri "was executed"?

Not everyone who followed this story believes as you do, Kenneth. We the public will never truly know the full facts about Terri's case, and, therefore, judgment of both sides on the family battlefield should be withheld by us mere mortals.

Letters | Wrong on Schiavo

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[TheSarce]

You pegged it months ago, T'wit. Over a year later some details are coming out. From the article linked in #212 above, here's the confirmation:

Avrett lost custody of her daughter after a former boyfriend was accused of abusing her. According to the suit, Avrett left "the person accused of abusing Haleigh" and planned to regain custody. However, she stated that the Department of Social Services threatened to take her unborn child if she did not sign the adoption papers.

So Haleigh's mother was safe enough to leave a newborn in her care/custody, but not safe enough to leave Haleigh with her? If they thought she was such a terrible mother, how could they leave any child with her?

This story has stunk from the beginning, and it just gets more putrid as more details emerge.

[8mmMauser]

Rep. Mike Pense in Human Events...

.................

Terry Schiavo

The 109th Congress was not just a battleground on budget issues. The halls of this Congress echoed with debates over the value of embryonic human life and the life of a brain damaged woman in Florida. And it all started around Palm Sunday, 2005.

In March of 2005, the world was enthralled with the story of a brain damaged woman named Terry Schiavo and the effort to deny her food and water by the state courts in Florida.

With RSC support, Congress took decisive action give the family of Terry Schiavo access to the federal courts. State courts in Florida had repeatedly denied appeals of a judges order that her feeding tube be removed and House conservatives felt compelled to act.
The Palm Sunday Compromise, more properly known as the Act for the relief of the parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo, was passed on March 21, 2005, to allow the case of Terri Schiavo to be moved into a federal court. Despite intervention by the other branches, the courts continued to hold that Schiavo was in a Persistent Vegetative State. Her feeding tube was removed for the final time on March 18, 2005. She died thirteen days later on March 31, 2005 at the age of 41.

The Schiavo case showed the nation that House conservatives were willing to withstand the withering assault of the national media to defend the unalienable right to life and due process of a single, vulnerable American. RSC stood firm for life in the midst of our changing cultural times.

We Need More Conservatives in House

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[8mmMauser]

The story of the "PVS" woman who was conscious continues...

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the results of the study were “very encouraging to this woman and those treating her.” He said the same kind of tests “should be done on all people who have this kind of brain injury to help us determine whether they are in a persistent vegetative state or whether they are in a minimally conscious state and the degree to which there is any hope for recovery of brain function.”

The findings have rekindled the debate surrounding the starvation death of Terri Schiavo in 2005 and are prompting further discussion of long-term care for brain-damaged patients. Southern Baptist ethicists are calling the findings further proof that, when there is doubt, the justice system should side with life. They also said the justice system had clearly erred in the Schiavo case.

Study reveals brain activity of patient in ‘vegetative state’

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[8mmMauser]

New Hampshire race. Callis callous? Another RINOplasty?

Callis said he would adhere to the principles of the early New Hampshire Republicans, who called for smaller government.

"I wouldn't be wasting my time with frivolous legislation," Callis said. "I think in New Hampshire, we have a long history of leaving the Constitution alone."

He said congressional GOP leaders erred when they intervened in the Terri Schiavo case, in which Florida courts had ruled doctors could remove a feeding tube from a brain-damaged woman, and when they supported a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Callis will challenge Bradley in primary

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