As someone who's actually thought long and hard about right-to-die issues after facing my own medical scare (I'm 18 months cancer-free), I'm pissed. And I've updated my own living will, in hopes that my family and loved ones will never be at the mercy of the GOP and this blatant effort to make political hay. It's especially despicable given the 1999 Texas law George W. Bush signed, allowing doctors to pull the plug even when the entire family wants to keep a patient on life support.
From the Washington Post:
Perhaps the alleged contradiction generating the most buzz among bloggers this week is the story of Sun Hudson, a five-month-old boy who died last week after Texas Children's Hospital in Houston insisted on removing him from his ventilator. The hospital's decision was made possible by a law then-Gov. George W. Bush signed in 1999.
The measure allows for a patient's surrogate to make end-of-life decisions and spells out how to proceed if a hospital or other health provider disagrees with a decision to maintain or halt life-sustaining treatment. If a doctor refuses to honor the decision made by a surrogate, the case goes before a medical committee. If the committee agrees with the doctor, the guardian or surrogate has 10 days to seek treatment elsewhere.
Amid the gathering storm of the Schiavo controversy, Wanda Hudson fought a lonely battle to keep Texas Children's Hospital from removing her son from a ventilator. Mario Caballero, Hudson's Houston-based attorney said she prayed not only for her son's survival, but also for the sort of political intervention Schiavo had received. Neither Medicaid nor Hudson's bank account could cover the cost of prolonged care. When no other facility would accept him, Texas Children's pulled the plug, and Sun Hudson died seconds later, without fanfare or political outcry.
Via The Thin Blue Line
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