Today is Haleigh Poutre’s birthday.  She is twelve years old.  The people taking care of her are marking the occasion, as they should:

"Franciscan Hospital for Children loves to join our
patients in celebrating their birthdays," Roffo said.
"As a pediatric hospital, we understand how important
birthdays are for kids, and we will provide an opportunity
for fun and happy feelings that can be an important part of
treatment.

        Happy birthday!

      We cannot really know Haleigh’s condition at this point.  The medical records are shielded behind a wall of confidentiality, as they should be.  There are still assertions in the air about how DSS wanted to "kill" her, which are as misplaced now as they were when first uttered.  The doctors who cared for her in those first few days in September made the best assessment they could at the time.  They did not think she was going to live, so it made little sense to them to force her to stay alive.  It turns out that time allowed her to heal some, and that, apparently, she can now breath without a respirator and, reportedly, respond to some stimuli.  We should not read too much into those reports, however, because the full details of the case are still not known.

    So, we should back off of the heated rhetoric.  Yes, DSS asked for authorization to discontinue her care a week or so after gaining temporary custody of her.  But they did not exercise it.  Would they have exercised it had the step-father, who stands accused of participating in the abuse that nearly killed her, not brought legal action?  We can’t know.  We can’t go back and replay the tape.   

    What we can focus on is the present.  Haleigh’s birth mother is still demanding to be a part of her care.  Let’s remember: the mother was accused of allowing Haleigh to be sexually abused when she was four years old and yielded her parental rights.  DSS would be negligent if it allowed the mother now to have unlimited access to Haleigh.  Yet the mother’s lawyer pulls out all the emotional stops:

"If they cared about Haleigh’s well-being they
would let Allison [the mother] in there any time, night or day,"
Murphy said.

 This is precisely backwards.  It is because DSS cares for Haleigh that they must protect her from those who were responsible for her abuse.

      The mother is now blaming the step-mother who adopted Haleigh for inventing the abuse charges against her.   This is dubious.  To my mind, only if the mother can come up with a plan not just to visit Haleigh, but to directly participate in the girl’s care for an extended period of time to demonstrate her capacity to fulfill her basic parental duties, should she then be allowed any voice in the decision-making about Haleigh’s care.

    This is a terrible case.  It is not clear how it will turn out.  At this point, however, it might be possible to find people willing to do the real care work needed to maintain her life, to be the responsible parents she has never had.  A DNR order – that is, an order not to intervene aggressively if her heart or lungs stop – seems appropriate to me.  But I would still keep the feeding tube in: it is not as extraordinary as it might appear.