Skillz Unlimited

Six days ago, a 6-month-old baby boy named Sun Hudson died when Texas
Children's Hospital disconnected his life support, against the wishes
of his mother, because they decided that further treatment was
"futile" and Wanda Hudson, the boy's mother, had no medical insurance.
The Houston Chronicle reported:

Sun's death marks the first time a hospital has been allowed by a U.S.
judge to discontinue an infant's life-sustaining care against a
parent's wishes, according to bioethical experts. [...]
Texas law allows hospitals can discontinue life sustaining care, even
if patient family members disagree.



A far more important case, one would think, than the Terri Schiavo
case. In the Hudson case, for the first time ever, a hospital
bureacracy terminates the life of a child (who was not in a vegetative
state), against his family's wishes, when the family can't pay their
bills. If that's not an important case, what is?

As it happens, the Texas Futile Care Law that empowered the hospital
to pull the plug was signed into law by then-Governor George W. Bush.
A number of left-wing blogs have pointed to the law as proof of Bush's
? and the Republicans' ? hypocrisy. Austin lawyer Jerri Lynn Ward
says, however:

[T]he legislation was passed to prevent hospitals from withdrawing
life-prolonging treatments from patients and the fear [was] that the
hospitals were creating and implementing such protocols because of
money.
According to Ward, the use to which the hospital put the law in the
Hudson case was unanticipated and unintended by the law's authors. Be
that as it may, it seems clear that money motivated the hospital's
decision: surely, if the mother had money, the hospital would have
acceded to her wishes. Attorney Ward again:

I do know that, as an attorney representing health providers ?
including hospice ? I have given presentations to providers about the
legal aspects of treatment options under Texas Law for children with
terminal diseases. One thing that I taught was that the Courts would
always defer to the treatment decisions of the parents.
I was wrong. I will have to revise my powerpoint presentation because
of the judge in this case ? and this bothers me.

It is certain that this baby was funded by Medicaid. Had the parents ?
or an insurance company been paying the bills ? I do not believe that
the hospital would have gone to the courts to pull the respirator. It
is probable, in my mind, that this respirator was pulled because of
the issue of money. That should bother everyone.



So where's the Republican outrage in the Sun Hudson case? Where's the
maudlin, wall-to-wall "Save Terri" type of media coverage? There's no
interest in the Sun Hudson case because there's no political advantage
to be gained there. And the Hudsons aren't the Republicans' ? or the
media's ? kind of folks. They're poor, and they're Black.


Is it fair to ascribe cynical political motives to Senate Republicans
in this case? Actually, yes. We don't have to guess. ABC News obtained
a memo of talking points prepared for Senate Republicans regarding the
Terri Schiavo case. It's on ABC's website. A few choice items from the
memo:

This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited
that the Senate is debating this important issue.
This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has
already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for
Democrats.
This legislation ensures that individuals like Terri Schiavo are
guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted
Bundy.
So the Republicans see the Schiavo case as a way to defeat Bill Nelson
in 2006 and a way to "excite" their "pro-life base". Evidently,
though, pro-life is one thing and pro-poor-Black-life is another.
Meanwhile, the disgusting media circus continues.


Part of the reson they made such a big deal about the Schiavo case was to turn your eyes and ears from the announcement "iraq invasion all wrong, no weapons of mass destruction". Bush fucked up and was muffling it with Schiavo. Schiavo is not a special case, the shit happens all the time. No one cares when it happens to black people.