His Life in Her Hands
[Guest post by DRJ]
I initially avoided this Houston Chronicle story because it’s very sad, but it also presents an interesting legal issue:
“Pedro Rosabal has been at Ben Taub General Hospital since Tuesday, taken there after police said he shot and killed his daughter, 8-year-old Osiris, and son, 6-year-old Onasis, in a west Houston apartment complex parking lot. The 33-year-old man then shot himself in the head.
Should a decision be needed on whether to pull the life support plug, Rosabal’s medical team will first need to find out if he has a designee named in a medical power of attorney. Usually, it’s the spouse. Without a designee, state law gives priority to the spouse as the decision-maker.”
Which means Pedro’s wife and the mother of his children could have the power to decide when to end life support, and that presents the hospital with a tricky ethical dilemma … that just got trickier:
“Rosabal’s wife, Hericelda Mendez-Quiroz Rosabal, visited him at Ben Taub on Wednesday, her friends said.
“She still madly loves him,” said Angie Cuellar, who added the woman embraced him as he lay in a hospital bed.”
Hericelda’s friends have no sympathy for Pedro, who they claim “beat his wife in front of the children” and called her to tell her he planned to kill their children. Meanwhile, the hospital may consider seeking out other relatives to act as guardian for Pedro or asking a court to appoint one for him.
— DRJ
I think the local Public Guardian should bring a petition for guardianship. The wife and other family members will have the chance to contest it.
Maybe a family member should petition for a court-appointed guardian, too, because Texas also has a mini-euthanasia law. The hospital can decide the patient is terminal, notify the family that it intends to disconnect him, and give them a relatively short time within which to find another facility which will take him. It would be better for the family if the hospital had to deal with a judge, and not the family, over it.
nk (d111a3) — 6/19/2009 @ 4:40 pmActually, there’s probably some game theorist out there than can provide a solution.
– Is she just acting like she is madly in love so she retains the right to decide and could take her revenge by deciding to let him die.
– On the other hand, if she is truly in love with him, whatever outcome (live or die) is probably correct (without regard to justice).
– But by behaving any other way (overt desire for revenge, no emotional response or inability to decide), she should lose this control.
So since we can probably never know the true state of her feelings, I’d go with getting another person appointed to ensure his interests were appropriately considered. Hate to be judge to have to decide this one. I wrapped my head around all of permutations on this.
Andy (c54a6f) — 6/19/2009 @ 4:52 pmWhat if she had helped kill the children? Apart from where she would have to face prosecution for the crime, I would think she’d be deemed an unfit mother and the state would act in that capacity regarding any decisions that the mother would usually make.
What if just the mother had tried to kill her child and the child had to be put on life support? I doubt she would be given the decision to pull the plug.
jcurtis (c29977) — 6/19/2009 @ 4:53 pmThis gives new meaning to the term “masochism.” The woman needs mental health assistance, stat.
Eric Blair (0b61b2) — 6/19/2009 @ 4:55 pmThere are strange things that happen between husband and wife. My wife knows a woman who killed her children. She made an ineffective gesture at suicide which was enough to get her off as insane. She spent two years and was free. The two little girls, my youngest daughter’s age (6 and 8 at the time), are gone forever. While she was still incarcerated, her husband, who had divorced her, began to visit her and they were remarried a couple of years later. He is a former Marine fighter pilot and can’t understand why his former friends will have nothing to do with him and his wife.
I say take his kidneys and pull the plug but I’m a neocon (although without the Jewish credentials) so I’m not to be taken seriously.
Mike K (90939b) — 6/19/2009 @ 5:04 pmIf Ben Taub docs decide to pull the plug and the wife/mother objects it’ll go to an ethics committee for a decision. I believe that’s were this is heading. I’m guessing they’ll side with the doctor.
J Pazzesco (007058) — 6/19/2009 @ 5:16 pmI think the real question is will a local Catholic hospital (St. Josephs) step in if the wife/mother asks they take him when Ben Taub decides to pull the plug.
In the dictionary, next to “Battered Spouse Syndrome” there will be a picture of this lady. Why didn’t the asshat just skip killing two beautiful children of God and go straight to killing his own f’up self first. Damn. If I had any say I’d do all the tests necessary to find as many donors as possible, harvest every usable part from this P.O.S. and be done with him – feed his carcass to the sharks or buzzards or coyotes.
J. Raymond Wright (e8d0ca) — 6/19/2009 @ 5:40 pmI believe that there is a very special place in hell for people that abuse and/or murder innocent children. Let’s send him on his way as rapidly as possible.
Only in Houston. I thought this new story reminded me of something:
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=5965468
jcurtis (c29977) — 6/19/2009 @ 6:26 pmFor what it’s worth, it looks to me from reading artcles about the Granados predicament that the child was found and resuscitated on a saturday and put on life support. The baby was then declared dead on wednesday ( although there was no change from saturday’s condition ) and against the mother’s wishes, the hospital made the decision to pull the plug.
Can’t find any church interference. Not much controversy was generated.
Their best bet is to follow that precedent and pull the plug as quickly as possible before it has to become a big media fed ethical controversy.
jcurtis (c29977) — 6/19/2009 @ 6:46 pmFifty years ago, this wouldn’t have been such a predicament for any hospital. Pedro would have quickly been six feet underground.
Doug (f45db8) — 6/19/2009 @ 6:50 pmI find it very annoying that people find “ethical dilemmas” where there aren’t any … and fail to find the ethical dilemmas that actually exist.
SPQR (26be8b) — 6/19/2009 @ 6:50 pmCan’t find any church interference. Not much controversy was generated.
Their best bet is to follow that precedent and pull the plug as quickly as possible before it has to become a big media fed ethical controversy.
Comment by jcurtis — 6/19/2009 @ 6:46 pm
They have to give the opportunity for transfer to another facility. I believe that’s why a Catholic hospital was mentioned, because it’s standards for end of life care would be the most
nk (d111a3) — 6/19/2009 @ 7:09 pmcaring.
That’s a big, bad love.
Patricia (2183bb) — 6/19/2009 @ 7:09 pmI had a client several years ago whose 50 year old schizophrenic son threw himself off a bridge onto an interstate during the rush hour. He had conned an attendant at the group home in which he lived that he “needed to get some air”. He broke many bones including his skull and was delivered to the regional trauma hospital where they stabilized him. This was his second leap off a bridge over a major thoroughfare in three years.
His parents were at their summoned and travelled 300 miles to the hospital. His dad, who was his judicially appointed guardian for 30 years because he was thoroughly unable to handle his own affairs.
Despite the father and mother’s desire to allow him to die in peace, the hospital refused to take him off of life support for the purported reason that there was no durable power of attorney. Of course, he had been judicially declared incompetent thirty years before while he was still a minor and therefore never had the legal capacity to sign a valid durable power.
Eventually after 10 days, the probate court ordered the transfer of the son from the hospital to a hospice where he died in peace the next day.
Sadly, this is a very complex area of the law.
vnjagvet (d3d48a) — 6/19/2009 @ 7:28 pmI didn’t mention a critical fact:
He was brain dead when he reached the trauma center, and remained in that condition throughout the process.
vnjagvet (d3d48a) — 6/19/2009 @ 7:30 pmI hate it when love is wasted on evil people.
L.N. Smithee (3ce89a) — 6/19/2009 @ 7:36 pmJ. Raymond Wright wrote:
L.N. Smithee (3ce89a) — 6/19/2009 @ 7:39 pmLike I always say when these things happen, to the chagrin of my more sensitive friends: If you have an uncontrollable urge to kill a lot of people, start with yourself.
What really irritates me is that we, the taxpayers, are probably paying for Pedro’s treatment. His wife can keep him alive at our expense. Let her pay for it.
Ken Hahn (53d2a9) — 6/19/2009 @ 10:03 pmI read a children’s book about this very story:
“See Pedro. See Pedro shoot his kids. Bad Pedro, Bad! Pity poor Pedro! Pity, pity! Opps! Pedro shoots like a cochino. He missed his own head! Opps – Pedro forgot about Abuelo y Abuelita. See, they have big knives. They loved the dead mijas y mijos. Look – a good result out of sadness! See Abuelo y Abuelita “harvest” Pedros organs. Don’t look kids! Whew, that sure was gross. Ewww! Pedro now resembles carnitas. Ay! Hold the torillas! ha ha.”
Californio (6657ce) — 6/19/2009 @ 10:55 pmoh yes, of course she still loves him. He taught her the meaning of “tough love”. A kind of love she’ll look for in another prospective partner. “Will you abuse me and make me feel inferior around my family and child? No? You’re a nice guy? I’m sorry, you’re not my type.” The individuals who set themselves in these type of sick and -expletive deleted- situations with completely psychopathic people are just a f-ed up as the ones doing the abusing and, in this case, ungodly acts against children, no less. The way things are falling these days, with husbnads/wives losing their jobs and struggling to stay sane, much less healthy, sometimes going out of the minds(literally) doing it, i believe 99% of us out here in this toilet earth need the therapy that seems to be only for the “unstable”. People have anger issues. People have money issues. People have sex issues. Everyone has issues. Handle it before it turns into something like this.
Senor Borracho (275d58) — 6/20/2009 @ 1:58 amHe obviously wanted to die and faces the death penalty if he lives. Talk about irony. We taxpayers get to pay to keep him alive now and pay again to put him down later (lucky us!). Not to mention paying for trial(s) and incarceration costs. Lets just pull the plug and save us all a lot of trouble.
Bart998 (0a0a21) — 6/20/2009 @ 12:02 pm