Massachusetts Legislature Votes To Authorize Removal of Feeding Tube and Life Support

[Beowulf]

I find this story sickening. Michael Schiavo has started this vicious process:

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) -- Doctors were to perform more tests Thursday on a severly beaten and comatose 11-year-old girl whose condition may have improved since the Massachusetts high court granted permission to the state to remove her from life support.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday that the Department of Social Services, which has custody of Haleigh Poutre, had the authority to remove her ventilator and feeding tube.
The next day, doctors told the agency that Haleigh's condition had changed, DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro said, and the state now has no immediate plans to remove her life support.
"There's a possible change in her condition," Monteiro told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "She's having some responses."

http://wbz1030.com/topstories/local_story_019110153.html

She was beaten into this condition by her parents, then the Supreme Court rules that Social Services has the right to remove her feeding tube and ventilator and just today, as I find out, the legislature voted to allow the same.

She didn't ask for this, her parents will be found "mentally incompetant" and thus, walk free, and those that have the power to help her have condemned her to death. How sad! How disgusting!
I don't normally condone SCOTUS or the Feds stepping in but this vicious cycle needs to be stopped before another innocent person is condemned to death.
WTF is this, our new healthcare system? Kill off the weak since it's cheaper? This is NOT the system I defended!

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

Ah, but there IS no slippery slope, http://www.freeconservatives.com/vb/images/icons/shake.gif .

[MSGT]

Last fall, Haleigh was hospitalized after her stepfather allegedly burned her and beat her nearly to death with a baseball bat. Haleigh, in a coma, was kept alive by a feeding tube and ventilator. Doctors said she was "virtually brain dead" -- in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery (http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/01/17/life.support.ap/).

-snip-

A day after the state's highest court ruled that the Department of Social Services could withdraw life support from a brain-damaged girl, the agency said yesterday that Haleigh Poutre might be emerging from her vegetative state. DSS also said it has no immediate plans to remove her feeding tube.
''There has been a change in her condition," said a DSS spokeswoman, Denise Monteiro. ''The vegetative state may not be a total vegetative state."
Monteiro said Haleigh is breathing on her own, without the ventilator she has depended on for four months. Monteiro also said that doctors at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield elicited responses from Haleigh during tests performed yesterday.


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004316.htm

[MSGT]

The state Department of Social Services sought a legal order to withdraw life support from a brain-damaged girl, who is now showing some signs of improvement, within three weeks after she was hospitalized following a brutal beating, court records show.


http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/01/20/dss_sought_early_end_to_life_support/

[USPatriot8320]

we have to ask ourselves this; Would you, as a person, want to be kept alive in that state?" Since Terri, I had made sure, thanks to a lawyer, a friend, and power of attorney, that if I end up in a state such as this, my life will end... I also made sure no family member or partner could intervene...

[USPatriot8320]

Above all else, I want my soul to be freed....

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

Oh MSGT, you KNOW those "reactions" are merely reflexes don'tcha? http://www.freeconservatives.com/vb/images/icons/icon8.gif

And SURELY the state wouldn't have a compelling reason ($$$$$$$$$) to pull this child's feeding & hydration tubes.

Hmmm, libs don't want 'big brother' around when there's a republican in the big chair, but it's just fine and dandy for ol' Unca Sam to decide when someone (like Terri Schiavo or this child) should be offed.

Yeah it's stories like those, and that of the lady here in FL that entered the hospital to have her baby, and ended up losing both arms and both legs that REALLY give me complete confidence in the medical professionals and the almighty power of the state (in regards to issues like these). :crazy:

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

we have to ask ourselves this; Would you, as a person, want to be kept alive in that state?"

Yes, it is very important to get that straightened out, HOWEVER, WE have no right deciding for another based upon what "we" might or might not like or want.

[USPatriot8320]

Oh MSGT, you KNOW those "reactions" are merely reflexes don'tcha? http://www.freeconservatives.com/vb/images/icons/icon8.gif

And SURELY the state wouldn't have a compelling reason ($$$$$$$$$) to pull this child's feeding & hydration tubes.

Hmmm, libs don't want 'big brother' around when there's a republican in the big chair, but it's just fine and dandy for ol' Unca Sam to decide when someone (like Terri Schiavo or this child) should be offed.

Yeah it's stories like those, and that of the lady here in FL that entered the hospital to have her baby, and ended up losing both arms and both legs that REALLY give me complete confidence in the medical professionals and the almighty power of the state (in regards to issues like these). :crazy:

:claps: No legislature should decide when someone should die...

[Melz]

That's what scares me when new "precedents" are made which may have nothing to do with this quality of life decision now, but later will. There are too many people who don't have the moral capacity to determine someone else's quality of life or chances to improve. Even doctors are wrong sometimes, they have been in such cases.

I don't want the Federal government in our lives telling us how we can live our every day functions out, that is for real. But, just like with abortion, I do believe that the Federal government needs to step up and PROTECT those who are in these situations. I think that there needs to be a mandate, country-wide, to make sure that the innocent and helpless cannot be murdered. If you leave it to the states, there are idiots everywhere. Hence, much killing of innocents without the leaders and protectors of this country able to stop it.

[Republican_Legion]

I do believe that the Federal government needs to step up and PROTECT those who are in these situations. I think that there needs to be a mandate, country-wide, to make sure that the innocent and helpless cannot be murdered. If you leave it to the states, there are idiots everywhere. Hence, much killing of innocents without the leaders and protectors of this country able to stop it.

I think if current judges started reading the constitution and federal law correctly which I think the laws that apply in all 50 states such as federal laws regulating murder charges etc would be enough to strike down orgeons law. The court in orgeon pretty much said NO to the law of the USA and decided hitman doctors can exist but only mafia hitman cant.
The federal goverment or the state goverment should NEVER break the law. I believe that for orgeons law to be legit the SCOTUS must decide that murder can only be regulated by states.

Melz you have a very good point that there is bloody idiots who would legalize things in states but like 'homeschoolRus' I think that the constitution protects the unborn.

[Timberwolf]

Welcome to the Godless society...it is truly upon us.