January 25, 2006
Save Haleigh
By Michelle
Malkin
I have a question
for the hordes of bleeding-heart Hollywood stars who joined the
"Save Tookie" brigade, who bowed their heads in prayer
with ex-Crip gangster Snoop Dogg and the Rev. Jesse Jackson and
pleaded to protect convicted Death Row murderer Stanley "Tookie"
Williams, and who lobbied so hard for the government to err on the
side of life.
Where are
you now?
In Boston,
an innocent girl was sentenced to death by the state. Her name
is Haleigh Poutre. Last fall, she was hospitalized after her stepfather
allegedly burned her and beat her unconscious with a baseball
bat. Haleigh was kept alive by a feeding tube and ventilator.
Doctors said she was "virtually brain dead." They said
she was in a "persistent vegetative state." The medical
professionals pronounced her "hopeless."
Less than
three weeks after Haleigh's hospitalization, the Massachusetts
Department of Social Services was raring to remove Haleigh's feeding
and breathing tubes. Even her biological mother (who had been
deemed unfit to care for Haleigh and whose former boyfriend was
accused of sexually abusing the child) wanted her to be put to
death. The only person who wanted Haleigh alive was her stepfather,
who will likely be charged with murder if Haleigh dies.
Earlier
this month, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of
killing Haleigh, saying it was "unthinkable" to give
the power to make a life-and-death decision to the man accused
of putting Haleigh in a coma. Instead, the court did something
just as unthinkable: It handed that power over life and death
to the same child welfare agency that had failed time and time
and time again to protect Haleigh from her abusers in the first
place. According to the Boston Herald, a report by her
court-appointed guardian showed that the Department of Social
Services had received 17 reports of abuse or neglect involving
Haleigh in the three years before her adoptive mother and stepfather
were charged with pummeling her into a coma.
"State
can let beaten girl die," the headlines trumpeted. But there
was just one small complication for all of those who, for whatever
reason, were in such a rush to "let Haleigh die":
Haleigh
is fighting to live.
As state
officials prepared to remove Haleigh's life support, the supposedly
impossible happened. She began breathing on her own, responding
to stimuli and showing signs of emerging from what the medical
establishment had deemed her hopeless condition. Everyone had
given up on Haleigh -- except Haleigh. ''There has been a change
in her condition," announced a DSS spokeswoman, Denise Monteiro.
''The vegetative state may not be a total vegetative state."
Unbelievably,
the state had weaned Haleigh off her breathing tube before the
state Supreme Court had made its ruling -- but the government
failed to inform the court of the development. Haleigh's medical
records and the social service agency's brief remain sealed.
Politicians
in Massachusetts are vowing full-scale investigations of the state's
incompetent child welfare bureaucrats. But where's the accountability
for the medical experts whose faulty diagnosis led to Haleigh's
court-approved death sentence? Will they step forward and reveal
themselves? Will they explain how they erred? Will they apologize?
It was The
Experts' unequivocal assessments that led the court to declare
Haleigh in "an irreversible vegetative state" and to
assert that "the child could not see, hear, feel or respond."
Now, they admit they were wrong. And now, Haleigh's life depends
on the whims of a hopeless government agency that didn't think
the court needed to know that the child was breathing on her own.
Haleigh's
story is a wake-up call to "right-to-die" ideologues
who recklessly put such unlimited trust in the medical profession
and Nanny State. With such uncertainty surrounding persistent
vegetative state diagnoses, the presumption must be in favor of
life. Yet, the "right-to-die" lobby's mantra seems to
be: When in doubt, pull it out.
While Haleigh
clings to life, I've pondered how we might help persuade the plug-pullers
to put off the child's state-sanctioned death sentence. I propose
nominating her for a Nobel Prize. It bought Tookie Williams five
extra years.
Jamie Foxx
and Susan Sarandon, will you join me?
Copyright
2006 Creators Syndicate
