Last winter, just as the state’s highest court was about to rule that a girl in an "irreversible vegetative state" should be removed from life support, 14-year-old Haleigh Poutre started to breathe on her own.And eventually she started talking. Using simple words and spelling out others, Haleigh described the abuse she endured from an adoptive mother and stepfather. It was a terrible instance of that abuse, being kicked down stairs by her stepfather, that put her in the condition she's in.
But that abuse was nearly exacerbated, and to a fatal degree, by medical and legal officials had not Haleigh's strength kicked in just in time.
Here's a Fox News review of the story and here are Wesley J. Smith's cogent comments about it:
There is a huge lesson to be learned in this story, but we won't learn it and the media won't highlight the issue--lest we come to the "wrong conclusion" about Terri Schiavo...
I hope judges and doctors will ponder this story next time a dehydration request is made on the basis that a cognitively disabled patient--particularly a young one--will never improve or whenever hospital ethics committees try to impose futile care treatment terminations. As that great philosopher Yogi Berra once said, "It ain't over 'till it's over."
