There’s a well-known saying about motherhood, that having children is like watching a piece of your heart walk around outside of your body. These little people that demand our time and energy and sometimes drive us up the wall are also the most precious people in our lives.
When our kids are little, they depend on us for everything, and when they’re sick, we do all that we can to help them get better. I know I’ve made the late-night trek to urgent care and then to the 24-hour pharmacy more than once with a tiny sick person.
I’m grateful that I’ve never had to deal with childhood illness other than a high fever or projectile vomiting (yuck, by the way), but some moms aren’t so fortunate. Laura Nieves’ 2-year-old Zody Cervantes had meningitis and suffered a seizure in an emergency room two months ago. He’s currently on life support, being treated for severe brain damage.
Laura claims that the doctors at Rady’s Children’s Hospital in San Diego twice told her that they would be taking Zody off of the machines that are keeping him alive. Both times she said that she did not give her consent, and she even posted signs near his bed stating that she did not give her permission to take her son off of life support.
She recalled to NBC 7 San Diego a conversation in which a hospital staff member told her that they didn’t need her consent. Chief Medical Officer Buzz Kaufman, M.D. said that while he was not part of the conversation, it wasn’t part of the hospital’s plan to remove Zody from life support. “I've been here 40 years and, in my experience, we've never done that,” he told the news team.
Here’s the scary part: Apparently the hospital staff member was correct about the not needing parental consent. Citing 1983 California court case “Doherty v. Superior Court,” San Diego County Medical Society’s Ted Mazer, M.D. said there’s no legal precedent requiring parents’ permission to take children off life support. In that case, two doctors confirmed that the child was brain dead, the court appointed a legal guardian to the child, and life support was removed.
According to Laura, Zody has been improving, responding to touch and voices. “I couldn't be happier. After seeing all the movements and I know there's going to be a lot more progress,” she said. I hope she’s right.
Do you think there’s ever a case where doctors should end life support for a child against the parents’ wishes?
Image via slightly everything/Flickr
This Hot Dad Wants to Do Your Ironing
This Hot Dad Wants to Cook You Dinner
This Hot Dad Cooks AND Does the Dishes
Kanye West is Gay?! 
Comments 36
It should be a parent's choice but as others have mentioned, reflexes are not the same as actual responding. It does come down to money though and honestly how many of these people just won't see the truth? I was in a coma with a TBI at the age of 13 and initially it was very, very bad. My mom has said on numerous occasions that she would have taken me off life support if I was brain dead. Which I totally agree with, we were not meant to have machines breathe for us and work our hearts for extended periods of time, when our brains are no longer there.
It should be a case by case decision, not some cookie-cutter generalization
Doctors choice is the only way to make it less agonizing for the parents. Who would want that choice?? What mother can say "yes, let my baby go?". If the doctor says, "Sorry, your child is dead" - it was the doctors choice, not yours. The mother and father won't have to live with the guilt for the rest of their lives for "killing" their child by turning off the machine. Its unfair to ask parents to make this choice.
It should be the parents choice. I don't care if they are on medicaid or private insurance. No parent should have a doctor take their child away from them. Brain dead or not, that is still their child.