{"id":234479,"date":"2020-11-11T17:47:18","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T23:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=234479"},"modified":"2020-11-11T17:47:18","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T23:47:18","slug":"hospital-appeals-us-supreme-court-tinslee-lewis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/hospital-appeals-us-supreme-court-tinslee-lewis\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospital appeals to U.S. Supreme Court to remove life support from baby Tinslee Lewis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In October<\/a>, Live Action News reported that the Supreme Court of Texas had refused Cook Children’s Hospital’s request to remove baby Tinslee Lewis<\/a>‘s life support, which would have overturned a July appeals court injunction<\/a> requiring that Tinslee’s medical care continue. The July ruling was significant for Tinslee’s case specifically, and was also considered a legal blow to the constitutionality of Texas’s ’10-Day Rule,’<\/a>\u00a0which requires families who oppose a hospital\u2019s decision to end a patient\u2019s life support to find another facility willing to take the patient within 10 days.<\/p>\n

Texas Right to Life has just provided an update in the case via a press release emailed to Live Action News on November 10th, noting that on the one-year anniversary of the day Tinslee was spared from death, “Cook Children\u2019s filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States in yet another attempt to remove the toddler\u2019s life-sustaining treatment.”<\/p>\n

The appeal, the pro-life group noted, “comes after the Texas Second Court of Appeals\u00a0issued a 148-page opinion<\/a>\u00a0in July protecting Baby Tinslee and decimating the deadly 10-Day Rule. Cook Children\u2019s first appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Texas in August, and the state\u2019s highest bench\u00a0declined to hear their appeal<\/a>, thereby further safeguarding Tinslee.”<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Texas Supreme Court rejects hospital\u2019s plea to withdraw treatment from baby Tinslee<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tinslee<\/a> has been hospitalized for the entirety of her young life, relying on machines that help her breathe and eat due to significant heart and lung problems. Multiple times, Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth has petitioned the court for permission to remove Tinslee’s life support because of what they call her “ongoing daily agony.” Most recently, the hospital has alleged<\/a> that Tinslee has required “deep sedation and paralysis” to “facilitate mechanical ventilation, decrease the pain caused by daily cares, and mitigate events that can lead to significant deterioration in her condition.”<\/p>\n

One of Tinslee’s physicians, Dr. Jay M Duncan, testified<\/a> under oath that he believes Tinslee “cannot recover… a nd has no chance of long-term survival” from “severe chronic lung disease, ventilator dependence, pulmonary hypertension, and bronchiectasis.”\u00a0Documentation provided by Cook Children’s to the court further maintains that Tinslee is without visitors 99% of the time, a claim that Tinslee’s mother Trinity Lewis counters by noting that she is a working single mother with another young child who is unable to visit the hospital with her due to current COVID-19 visitor restrictions. Lewis further stated that “Cook’s recent court filings don’t tell the truth about my little girl\u2019s condition and show Cook’s will say anything to have my daughter\u2019s life ended.”<\/p>\n