A group of “pro-life” activists in Texas are doing everything they can to prolong the suffering of an 11-month-old paralyzed girl who will never recover from her condition.
Tinslee Lewis has suffered since birth due to a heart defect and lung disease, and doctors at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth have made it clear that there is nothing they can do to improve her situation. Allowing her to die would be the humane thing to do. The only other option is letting her suffer.
It’s one thing for her mother to refuse to make that decision. You can only imagine what she must be going through. But anti-abortion activists and Texas lawmakers have weighed in — of course — saying that they want the girl to suffer more.
On Thursday, a judge ruled in favor of the hospital, effectively saying they could take her off life support. The “pro-life” crowd is furious about it.
“I am heartbroken over today’s decision because the judge basically said Tinslee’s life is NOT worth living,” [mother Trinity] Lewis said in a statement released by Texas Right to Life, an antiabortion group that has been advocating for Lewis. “I feel frustrated because anyone in that courtroom would want more time just like I do if Tinslee were their baby.”
…
Politicians and activists across Texas have publicly staked out positions in Tinslee’s case. [Texas Attorney General Ken] Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called the situation “complex and heartbreaking” and vowed to help Lewis exhaust her legal options to keep Tinslee alive.
The judge didn’t say her life wasn’t worth living. The judge sided with the experts who said there’s no life to be lived. If there was a way for her to recover, then you can be sure the doctors would be fighting for that. There’s no good way to tell a parent — or conservatives who refuse to accept reality — that a child will not recover. In this case, it took a judge to make the decision, but it wasn’t out of a desire for cruelty. It’s just an acceptance of the inevitable.
All these people demanding the girl be kept alive have no regard for her quality of life. Just as they oppose euthanasia for older patients, they would rather see people technically alive even when they’re longing for peace. These decisions are never about the victims. It’s about the people making them. The people who want to make this case all about themselves because they don’t give a damn what they’re doing to the patients. It’s cruel. It’s heartless. It’s selfish. And it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from conservatives.
Torturing Tinslee is no way to show love for her.
(Image via Texas Right to Life. Thanks to Whitney for the link)
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