Not Playing God
Terry Trippany on Nov 21 2008 at 12:50 pm | Filed under: Feature Article
Choosing Life Over Convenience – The Story of Haleigh Poutre
Today’s newspaper stories don’t print the pictures of 14 year old Haleigh Poutre before she was nearly beaten to death by her adoptive mother and deranged stepfather at the tender age of 11 years old. Left brain damaged and in what was doctors once described as an irreversible vegetative state liberal right to die advocates advocated for pulling the plug on the little girl that now feeds herself and plays cd’s with some assistance. (see video below)
Within a week or so of the beating, her doctors had written her off. They apparently told Haleigh’s court-appointed guardian, Harry Spence, that she was “virtually brain dead.” Even though he had never visited her, Spence quickly went to court seeking permission to remove her respirator and feeding tube. The court agreed, a decision affirmed recently by the supreme court of Massachusetts.
And so, no doubt with the best of intentions, a little girl who had already suffered so much was stripped by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of even the chance to fight to stay alive. If she didn’t stop breathing when the respirator was removed, which doctors expected, she would slowly dehydrate to death.
Then came the unexpected: Before “pulling the plug” on Haleigh, Spence finally decided to visit her. He was stunned. Rather than finding a little girl with “not a chance” of recovery, as doctors had described Haleigh’s condition to him (as reported by the Boston Globe), Haleigh was conscious. She was able to give Spence a yellow block when asked to by a social worker and respond to other simple requests.
Laudably, Spence immediately called off the dehydration. Haleigh is now off her respirator and breathing on her own. She has been transferred out of the hospital and is currently being treated in a rehabilitation center.
Even though Poutre was technically spared from the slow death that Teri Schaivo was subjected to there are people that advocate for the termination of her life due to quality of life concerns. This despicable act of choosing who lives and who dies based on cost, life expectancy, or the mere inconvenience of someone living a life that makes those making such judgments uncomfortable is sad. Worse, the people responsible for putting Haleigh Poutre in this state are afforded every convenience of a defense that was almost denied the victim.
One now rejected defense of the sick bastards that inflicted such horrific harm on Haleigh was that here injuries were self inflicted. Holli Strickland, the adoptive mother, died of an apparent murder suicide withe her grandmother after being charged with the crime.
Strickland’s best friend and frequent babysitter has now come clean with the horrors that occurred in the summer of 2005.
She described the frantic scene that erupted shortly after the Stricklands returned from the game and tried to rouse Haleigh, saying, “Haleigh! Haleigh! Please wake up!”
When Haleigh didn’t respond, she was taken, bruised and in a coma, to Noble Hospital in Westfield. Over the next several days, Weiss said she answered two rounds of police officers’ questions, describing Jason and Holli as devoted parents.
But in a third round, after seeing pictures of Haleigh’s battered body attached to life-support systems, Weiss said, she decided to disclose some of what she witnessed over the summer of 2005, including times when Holli struck Haleigh with a bat or kicked her in the legs, all while Jason was present. Weiss has also acknowledged at least once hitting Haleigh herself.
Weiss portrayed Holli as the chief abuser, at least once kicking Haleigh down the stairs three times in a row when the girl allegedly did not answer a question. Weiss portrayed the stepfather as doing nothing to stop his wife’s cruelty or inflicting his own, though milder, form of punishment. She said that she twice saw Jason Strickland hit Haleigh with an open hand, slapping her on the head when she didn’t answer him.
When asked by defense attorney Richard Rubin if she ever questioned Holli about her actions, Weiss replied no.
“Did you ever criticize her?” he asked. Replied Weiss: “No.”
Haleigh became the center of an end-of-life controversy when the state sought to remove her life support in the fall of 2005. The girl, now 14, has recovered to the point where she can speak some simple sentences and attends a special needs day school.
The prosecution has rested its case against the stepfather Jason Strickland, successfully wining the bid to show the video embedded on this post.
Displaying hospital photos of Haleigh Poutre’s battered body shortly after she fell into a coma in 2005, a child-abuse specialist depicted the girl yesterday as the victim of systematic abuse that included cigarette burns and physical restraints, not a troubled child engaging in self-injurious behavior, as defense lawyers have suggested.
One photo, shown by Dr. Christine Barron during the child abuse trial of Haleigh’s stepfather, showed the girl’s bare back with nearly a dozen bruises and cuts on all sides and near the spine. Barron said the shape of many of the wounds suggested that the 11-year-old Westfield girl was struck multiple times by a “hard, solid object.”
“Is that an area a child could reach herself?” asked prosecutor Laurel Brandt, pointing to an image of a circular wound on the child’s back.
“It would be difficult to reach,” Barron replied.
After her testimony, the prosecution rested its case against Jason Strickland.
Lost in this case of Haleigh’s will to defy the odds is the fact that she would be dead at this moment, unable to live as a testament to the miracle of the human spirit. She has a story to tell and a life to live. Sadly it will never be normal, but who are we to judge whether or not Haleigh’s her will to live is any less important than our own?
Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin
