万花筒 Kaleidoscope 2007-04-30&05-01, 生死应该由谁决定?

Hey, my love

Emilio Gonzalez doesn't have long to live, maybe a month, maybe two. This hospital wants to pull the plug on his ventilator, in which case Emilio would die much sooner, probably within hours. The hospital says it's the only humane 1 thing to do because the ventilator and other treatments are causing the 17-month-old to be in pain.

We are inflicting 2 suffering. We are inflicting harm on this child.

But the toddler's mother says Emilio was on so much morphine he's not in pain. Catarina Gonzalez says she knows her son only has a month or two to live, but she wants him to have every possible minute of life. Even though a rare genetic 3 disorder's left him unable to speak or see or eat on his own. She says his life still has value.

I put my finger in his hand, and I am talking to him, and he will just squeeze it, you know, open his eyes and turn his head towards you and he'll look at you and look at you for a good while.

So the question is, who gets to decide whether Emilio will live or die, his mother or the hospital? In an unusual law, the state of Texas says, the hospital. If doctors feel treatment is inappropriate, they can take someone off life support, even if the family disagrees. Doctors say for them, it’s a matter of ethics 4, according to this hospital spokesman.

We have to have a point at which it will be permissible 5 for a physician to say I have my sense of professional ethics, and I have my moral values, and I am simply not going to do this anymore.

Emilio's mother has taken the hospital to court because she says it has overstepped its bounds.

They are trying to play God by saying who lives and who dies.

A lawyer for Austin Children's Hospital says it's not playing God and that as a Catholic hospital, the church's teachings are clear.

In the Catholic tradition, we are obligated to use ordinary means to pursue and preserve our lives. We are not required to use extraordinary means.

So how did this Texas law come about, giving hospitals the right to decide when it's the time for someone to die? President George Bush, when he was governor of Texas, signed the law. Many see an irony 6 given his stance six years later that Terry Schiavo should be allowed to live.

The legislative 8 branch, the executive branch ought to err 7 on the side of life.

Doctor Lainie Ross, a pediatrician and bioethicist, disagrees with the Texas law.

I think the mother should absolutely make the final decision. I would definitely not pull the child off the ventilator.

Bioethicist Art Caplan says the hospital should decide. So there are situations where even though a mother's love would say I don't whatever want she to give up, medicine does have to set some limits to the continuation of care.

In Texas, the legislature is reconsidering the law, giving hospitals the right to make life and death decisions. It's not clear if a decision would be made in time, to change the fate of Emilio Gonzalez.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Austin, Texas.