Haleigh Poutre, the little girl almost dehydrated to death by the State of Massachusetts because she had a severe brain injury, has lived to see her step-father/abuser, Jason Strickland, jailed for twelve-fifteen years. From the story:
A judge sentenced the stepfather of Haleigh Poutre yesterday to 12 to 15 years in state prison for participating in a horrific pattern of child abuse, saying he had deprived Poutre of the “most precious gift” of a normal childhood…
The sentencing of Jason Strickland was handed down three years after the case drew national attention when the state prematurely sought to remove Poutre’s life support after she fell into a coma from a near-fatal head injury in September 2005. A few months later, just when the state won court approval to end her life, saying her condition was “hopeless,” the 11-year-old girl became alert, breathing on her own and responding to commands.
And therein lies a terrible irony: Had MA finished Haleigh off—which is what the state would, in effect, have been doing by removing her feeding tube—Strickland might have been punished for murder while the state’s action, taken to cause her death, would have been merely described as a sad but necessary example of medical ethics. Such are the times in which we live.
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