Despite what most people think, its apparent that Ace did not go to law school. Every law school graduate knows that upon graduation you receive godlike insight and king-like power. Or at least that's what the brochure said.

Sorry forgot to leave my name above.

It's the National Health System, therefore the state gets a say as to whether they end up paying up for treatment that won't benefit the child at all.

Remember this next time the Dems are rattling on about Nationalized Health.

I agree with you agreeing with the Judge on the matter.

No, that's what you get when you graduate from Blog School.

I minored in masturbation-jokes.

I do have a baby, one who is about the same age.

I'd like to think that I'd have the strength to do what's in his best interest . . . but, at the same time, I don't know if I could ever take an action that would result in never again being able to see my baby smile. I've already had to go down that road once, and it's a hell I wouldn't want to wish on anyone. In the same situation, I might fight the inevitable too.

Still, this should be the parent's decision. That any judge would think s/he has the power to step in and make it for them, is terrifying. All I can feel for sweet Charlotte's parents is empathy, and I hope and pray they are able to find peace with happens. No one deserves the hell that those people are going through.

Uh-oh...the Death Express (cruising on the Slippery Slope tracks)has been invoked...Countdown for InDC Bill to come in with a persnickety contrarian comment begins...NOW.

10.
9
8
7
6
5......

If the parents want to try to keep this poor baby alive, why should they not be allowed to do so?

because the taxpayer is lumped with the burden of the cost. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, but in the event that nothing can be done, the state sees no point in paying out for care that does nothing but prolongs the suffering.

Very, very tough call on this one. I'm not sure I agree with you.

I wonder what Pope Sully would say? I'm going to pray for his guidance.

My daughter Olivia was born weighing under 2 pounds due to complications with my wife during pregnancy. Thank God both are both OK now (to see Livie, you can check out my woefully unupdated liviesblog.blogspot.com) While my family basically lived at the childrens hospital for 3 months we saw many children much worse off than out daughter. One of which is little Grace, who was born extremely premature and weighed less than a pound. Her parents were given a grim diagnosis, but she pulled through. A family in the room next to Livie was not born full-term with serious defects, but doctors thought he would pull through. Unfortunately we learned that shortly after he was allowed to go home, he suffered a major setback and passed away. While none of the children I mentioned were as dire as the child in this story my point is that an important factor in the recovery is the will of the child. This is something a doctors can't determine with technology and no judge can find in a law book. This child may or may not ever recover, but as long as their is a supportive family to care for them we should always allow them the opportunity to try. Thisisn't part of the "culture of life" so much as just basic human decency.
Of course now that she is entering her "terrible two's", I've found out exactly how much will my child has, but that's neith her nor there...

The grandmother is a bit scary.

"Charlotte’s grandmother Julie Wyatt, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, said today she did not believe doctors should resuscitate her granddaughter if she stopped breathing.

Mrs Wyatt told BBC WM radio: "I don’t think she would grow up to be a perfectly healthy child. I think she would be a lot of work for the parents. "The hospital is not withholding any treatment at all and I do believe that if they don’t resuscitate her, it is for Charlotte’s best interests, to be quite honest."

You just never know.

Reminds me of the guy born with "harl3quin baby" syndrome (changed letters and DO NOT GIS---that's not a tease, it's an incredibly sad and horrifying condition)

They usually let harl3quin babies die because of the insane amount of damage to their skin. It's a truly horrendous and frightening disorder.

But this kid's parents wouldn;t let them kill him (read allow him to die) and now he's a teenager who swims distance in the Ocean off San Diego. His entire skin is messed up still, but it just looks like burn/scar tissue. He's growing up OK.

You never know which kid's gonna be the miracle baby.

There's a little girl in my son's music class who, two weeks ago, had surgery to correct a rare condition where her skull wasn't expanding properly to accomodate her growing brain. She was back to class a week after surgery.

You just never know.

Parents have authority to make decisions for their child, but those rights are not absolute and the law does, in fact, give the state the right to intervene on behalf of the child in certain circumstances.

There is a dispute here about whether the parents have the right to order treatment that the child's doctors insist have no lasting therapeutic benefit and which will result only in the child suffering. So it comes before the court.

The judge also has to take into consideration the interests of the *child.* Parents can want a certain course of medical care, and be thwarted because the child himself has an interest in the situation, and there are times where the courts must give more weight to those interests than the parents wishes.

Sometimes that means a kid is going to get a blood transfusion that will save his life, and permit recovery, sometimes it means aggressive and futile treatment that will result in vain and preventable suffering will be avoided.

Hobgoblin,

Is that another name for "Happy Puppet Syndrome"?

That's an f'n' sad condition... and don't google that unless you want to be heartbroken.

ace, I don't know, but I'll assume so.

Amazing story about the kid, though. I'll see if I can find that. No bad pics on that as I recall, just a staright news story from a regular paper.

My thoughts exactly, Sarah. DSS's exist for a reason.

After carefully looking around,

Here's a posting from the kid's mom on a message board.

Ah-ha!

Found it, the news story

totally SFW, and a great story

Well, I guess it is a nice story, but I wouldn't want to live like that. Is it too late to starve him to death? It sounds like it would be pretty simple.

"Well, I guess it is a nice story, but I wouldn't want to live like that. Is it too late to starve him to death? It sounds like it would be pretty simple.
Posted by spongeworthy at April 21, 2005 03:21 PM "

Worst.......Fucking..........Post..........Ever!!!

Not really. Check out the AMTRAK thread.

sponge

LOL (grimly)

are you sure you're not Bill?

The one thing that always bothers me in these cases is that the death advocates all say that the victim is suffering too much and its the humane thing to let them die. Then they say that care should be denied etc until the person dies.
Why, if the victims life is so horrible, don't they kill the victim outright and end the suffering immediately? That would be the truly humane thing to do following their logic.

Hell, you don't have to go to the UK to find kids being allowed to die against their parent's wishes. Why right in Texas our dear leader signed a law, "...Advance Directives Act, which lets a patient's surrogate make life-ending decisions on his or her behalf. The measure also allows Texas hospitals to disconnect patients from life-sustaining systems if a physician, in consultation with a hospital bioethics committee, concludes that the patient's condition is hopeless." And sure enough, "With the permission of a judge, a Houston hospital cut off life support for a badly deformed 6-month-old baby last week against his mother's wishes after doctors determined that continuing life support would be futile. The baby died almost immediately. "

The quotes from Seattle Times story

Iblis, I asked some Right to Deather at Evangelical Outpost why a .45 slug wasn't the best way to "end suffering," setting aside aesthetics.

Sputtering, incandescent rage I got. But no answer.

What Death Express? No tracks anywhere, don't hear a whiste, etc., etc., none of you is a doctor or lawyer, yada yada yada, only so much money to go around, so forth and so on.

Sorry, had to be said.

So. . .the Ace thinks that if it were his baby he would kill it, but that he would not be so arrogant to kill somebody else's baby. He will be glad to hear that the Baby is not in constant pain like it is commonly alleged. She may have been, but even the NHS does not think that she is any more. The NHS has gotten a lot of their facts messed up. Last autumn, they originally got the Judge to make this order. Then they testified that she was in constant pain, was blind for life, and deaf for life. . .Now they don't even pretend that--but think that she still is not healthy enought to warrant life. With all the facts--no person in their right mind would kill that little girl. . .

-Joshua
SaveCharlotte.com

vonK,

that's amazing.

"almost immediately" WTF does that mean?

5, 10, 20 minutes?

Thanks for the link, Joshua.

What a beautiful little girl Charlotte is . . . and what a heartbreaking story.

I was going to post about that story that vonk jumped on. The baby had a form of defect that was causing constriction of the organs, usually babies are stillborn with this defect. Painkillers were being given to the baby to keep it from pain. The mother had questionable mental stability and a history of psychological problems. She refusesd to believe the doctors diagnosis, and they complied to try to find a facility to take care of it. The hospital exhausted the list of possible long-term care facilities, none would take the baby. When it was removed from life support, it died, I dont remeber after how long.

As someone who went to law school (and even graduated!!) I feel qualified to say that law schools are full of the most amazing collection of utterly brilliant totally stupid people (or was that fucking stupid brilliant people? I can never keep that straight). Seriousy, it is absolutely amazing the number of smart, insightful students who operate quite effectively without a lick of common sense.

Iblis wrote:

Why, if the victims life is so horrible, don't they kill the victim outright and end the suffering immediately? That would be the truly humane thing to do following their logic.

That's the next step.

That is exactly what you'll start hearing soon (or what you've probably already heard) from the "There Is No Culture of Death, We Swear" crowd when you complain about starving and dehydrating people to death.

Boy, this is a tough one. I SAY that if the baby crashes, best to let it go. However...
Lo, these 25 years ago my first son was born, and went into arrest in the neonatal unit; they rescusitated and inserted lines and all; how scary was it? My father-in-law refused to go look at his only grandson, for fear he'd have to bury him in a few days. Did the kid get better?
He's currently an Airborne Combat Engineer, as we speak walking the mountains of Afghanistan looking for Osama Bin Laden. (No shit)
I like to think he's done OK.

That's the next step.

Yes, but then it becomes too close to execution, and you know how these clowns feel about that.

Its also interesting how the cost issue creeped in. In Portugal,(socialized medicine) they practice benign neglect, allowing elderly patients to die of alliments that are easily treated in the US simply as a cost savings measure. Malpractice suits are also extremely rare there.

Uh-oh...the Death Express (cruising on the Slippery Slope tracks)has been invoked...Countdown for InDC Bill to come in with a persnickety contrarian comment begins...NOW.

Excuse me, buit can you point me to the restaurant car?

The Death Express is coming? Old news. Ask Luke Winston-Jones which are the best seats.

“Misery can only be removed from the world by painless extermination of the miserable.”
—a Nazi writer quoted by Robert J. Lifton in The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=506716

Point of Order--
I think you meant 8th trimester foetus. (British spelling and all.)

Soc!al!sm--Dehumanizing people for a century. (flippin' filter)

"none of you is a doctor or lawyer"
I'm a lawyer who cohabitated with a doctor for 3 years. Is that close enough?

holdfast--
Couldn't agree more.

Liked SaraW's post!

Neonatal/pediatric intensive care is about as expensive as it gets - as much as 100,000 a month. To the UK's credit, as well as the US's, we have spared no expense to give some infants a shot.

But what if we treat, and conclude there is No Shot?

Can the parents demand unlimited decades long futile care costing millions as their "right" from taxpayers and those covered with insurance?

America is slowly realizing that with medical costs 40% more per capita than any other advance nation, with a lower life expectancy and over 70 million working poor uncovered or inadequately covered...with health costs projected to amount to 79% of GNP by 2075 unless something is done to stop the 3-5% growth in heath care costs above productivity rises........we have to limit what we give away to the indigent patients.

Like the nations with official universal health care do.

Bush as Gov signed legislation that recognized the nature of indigent familiess not paying a cent to insist on every item of care the taxpayer would provide them for free - and passed "futile care" laws saying the doctors can unplug despite the wished of parents.

T Schiavo, indigent since 2001, would have fallen under Bush's law if it wasn't for the Hospice passing her 80,000 a year costs onto other patients. If it wasn't for the malpractice lawsuit, a weak one at that, Michael Schiavo and Terri, dead above the brainstem - would have been indigent the 1st year.

I suppose that if some people think life, all life is sacred to Jesus and must be preserved at all costs - we can accomodate their beliefs by tremendously jacking up taxes on all Americans. Or we can say, fine, pay for your "Love of ALL Life" yourself. That they can form a Church of the Blessed Vegetatives and pool their life savings, property deeds, and business value to pay for all futile medical care of any churchmember that goes vegetative or who has an infant that is birth-defect doomed to stretch out its "beautiful life" from days to years.

"with health costs projected to amount to 79% of GNP by 2075"

ROFL! Didn't you say once you had an MBA? Where did you get it? DeVry?

Yep, SarahW nailed it. However, it comes down to what is defined as aggressive and futile treatment. I say this as an attorney and as an RN who worked in neonatal & pediatric ICUs.

There was another DSS case about a year ago where aggressive care was stopped. Under the circumstances of that case [10 month old with trisomy 18, aka Edwards Syndrome with a life expectancy of about a year needed sx to close a murmur], I agreed with the decision to not perform surgery or continue resuscitating the baby beyond oxygen and hand ventilation.

I quickly scanned the website that Joshua linked. There are not enough facts to have an opinion regarding this little girl, meaning that I'm not comfortable with denying her treatment. And, what treatment is the baby receiving that can be termed aggressive?

Un-named RN & lawyer - If you look at the Save Charlotte website ACE linked you see some newspaper articles linked. They don't have the specific medical diagnosis made public ( medical privacy grounds, I guess) - but it seems there is severe brain, lung, and kidney malfunction - sadly typical of premies of her 19-24 week gestation - and it's the lungs that usually doom them.

From the Telegraph, on the lung condition that dooms her & the brain damage - which appears to be microcephaly not anacephaly:

But Charlotte's chronic respiratory disease is still expected to be fatal and her neurological condition is as bad as it could be. Her head is still the size of a new-born baby and there has been no brain growth. Fed continuously through a tube, she is seriously undernourished. She remains "a terminally ill child", the judge said

SpewFan -

The 79% number comes from rising medical costs outstripping GNP growth and tax base by 3-5% a year - if it continued unchecked, which it obviously can't before we impose limits on care - the unfunded liability would be 60 trillion and health care costs 21% of GNP, would rise to 79%. That comes from conservative columnist Tony Blankley of the Washington Times, who says the medicare, medicaid costs dwarf the 3.7 trillion in unfunded SS liability and appear insoluable without eventual rationing.

Link:

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050419-085949-2544r.htm

Shame on Tony Blankley too. I will give you credit for "if it continued unchecked, which it obviously can't" and call bs on "before we impose limits on care ". Has it occured to you that things like, say, technology may have an affect on medical supply and demand? I don't think its farfetched to suppose medical care may actually decrease in price as technology makes some of the more expensive components of health care today mere commodities in the future.

Ace,
Mrs. Hammer agrees with your assessment of the blog. That's why I don't give her the password - she'd delete me in a heartbeat.

So, Cedarford, you obviously support the SSA's Social Security outlook, and think that needs changing immediately too, right?

The logic is the same. We can't predict the stock market tomorrow, the weather today, or accurately pin down how many people were in the US in 1990 - but your 2075 number is good to start making changes on now? Puh-leeze.

SpewFan - We have been hearing about how technology would lower costs for 40 years. At one point it actually looked like drugs might save over surgical treatment. But then the costs of drugs exploded.

Can we get some sort of image to go with this story? Newspaper headline, picture of the baby, whatever... something we can put a "Support Hillarycare!" caption on. That's all I ask.