http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28115
According to the article, the doctors kept insisting that they pull the plug on their 3-month-premature-son, then insisted on giving him vaccinations before his parents felt he was strong enough, and then they called CPS because the parents wouldn’t take government handouts for their medical bill!
This is totally insane. I am going to see what I can do about donating some money to help these people.
I would be a little reluctant to take up the ‘cause’ just yet, as the medical folk involved have not responded to the ‘allegations’. Everything that is cited in the article is…“according to Goforth” alone, without any corroborative statements from anybody else. The story basically revolves around the father ‘quoting’ and interpreting what the medical staff have supposed to have said, but there is no way of verifying this from the article alone. This guy could be a complete nutter for all we know.
While the writer of the article maintains that the medico’s have declined to respond, I seriously wonder whether their testimony might get in the way of an otherwise ‘good’ story, and thus just how ‘multiple’ the requests for comment were!
What are the creds of this worldnetdaily.com?
And of course, it brings up the whole controversy about just how much medical intervention is ‘appropriate’ when dealing with premmie babies, given that the rates of SERIOUS disabilities in later life are incredibly high. And IMHO it is the right AND the responsibility of the medical staff involved to give the parents of such a child an honest and medically informed appraisal of the likely short and long-term outcomes for the child. It is quite possible that Mr. Goforth may have misinterpreted such a proffering of this information as a partisan ‘demand’ to end the childs life. There’s just not enough information HERE for me to figure out exactly what has gone on.
I did a cursory search on the San Antonio Express-News website, and couldn’t find anything; unusual, I think, given the nature of what’s happening.
I read the story cessandra linked to, and found the same problems that kambuckta found. There’s too much Goforth, and not enough doctor, hospital or anything else, so the article was pretty one-sided. I also have a problem with this worldnetdaily site itself, since many of the articles on the homepage seem to have a rather conservative bent.
My own feelings on this subject are that physicians and other clinicians have the ethical and moral obligation to be honest with their patients and families about the condition of the patient. That’s all I felt Dr. Baden was trying to do. Besides, I have severe problems with the baby’s being too weak for a vaccination, but strong enough to undergo major eye surgery.
As to the financial obligations, even though they’ve been met thus far, and even though Mr. Goforth has pledged that all of it will be paid, what happens in the future when the donations dry up? Methodist Hospital isn’t cheap, and neither is the level of ICU care that the baby seems to need. If we don’t pay it out of taxes now (where the burden is much less), we’ll be paying for it later, when the Goforths are forced to declare bankruptcy because of their son’s medical bills.
I, for one, would like to see a more balanced picture before making any sort of judgment on this.
Robin
And I just ran a Google search on “Joshua Noelle Goforth” to see if I could find anything that way, and the only things I could find were church-ministry webpages asking for donations for their son, and with the same “facts” listed in the article above.
Robin
I Googled “Joshua Goforth” and the few items I looked at seem to present Joshua & Noelle as poster children for fundamentalist home schooling.
IMHO it seems that there may be more to this story than meets the eye “according to Goforth.” YMMV
Hmmm…it’s wrong to take government handouts, but it’s okay to beg?
Not that I’m saying people shouldn’t donate, but um, this IS your child’s life we’re talking about! Not to mention I get sick and tired of people who let their children suffer because of their religious beliefs-like on not taking government aid for medical conditions and the like.
