Mom wins order to keep infant on life support
Appeals court keeps infant on life support
Thursday, February 17, 2005 Posted: 9:32 AM EST (1432 GMT)
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A mother fighting to keep a hospital from removing her infant son from the ventilator that has kept him alive since birth has won another temporary restraining order.
The 1st Court of Appeals reinstated the order keeping 4-month-old Sun Hudson on life support Wednesday, just hours after a probate court judge lifted the order. A hearing was set for Tuesday.
The dispute centers on the legal standard over hospital care in Texas. Under state law, a hospital must continue care if there is a reasonable probability that another hospital will admit the patient.
Texas Children's Hospital officials have said no treatment can save Sun, and they want to remove him from life support. Hospital lawyers said state officials have contacted almost 40 facilities and none have been willing to care for the infant. But the boy's mother, Wanda Hudson, believes her son will recover. Her attorney argued there is a reasonable chance another hospital would take the child.
Sun suffers from thanatophoric dysplasia, a genetic condition characterized by extremely short limbs, a narrow chest, small ribs and underdeveloped lungs. Infants usually are stillborn or die shortly after birth from respiratory failure. There have been rare documented cases of survivors, however. "He is slowly suffocating to death because his lungs lack the capability to support his body," the hospital said.
Hudson hasn't seen her son in more than a month, but says she believes she communicates with him telepathically. "Sun is going to live forever," she said. "As long as the Sun is in the sky he will live. I don't believe in death."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/17/li....ap/index.html
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(How very sad ... )