By Judie Brown
Texas is a large state with literally thousands of amazing people. It is also the state where newborn babies are at risk of being excused from life because of conditions that some say might make their existence incompatible with life. If that sounds preposterous, take a moment to consider these examples.
In 2020, the case of Baby Tinslee came to our attention. Cook Children’s Hospital had urged the “Texas Supreme Court to make a quick decision regarding the fate of a terminally-ill girl whose been on life support since she was born.” Tinslee has a rare heart condition, and her struggles prompted some, including hospital officials, to suggest that she was living a life unworthy of continuing. Clearly if her life support were denied, this little girl would die.
Fortunately, Tinslee’s mother did not listen to the naysayers. Two years later she joyfully announced that her daughter was heading home. Texas Right to Life, the organization that fought for the child’s right to live and receive care, said Tinslee’s case is a “success story that shows in the absence of an anti-life countdown, families and hospitals can work together for the benefit of the patient.”
A second case involving care for a baby named Wren also involves a hospital that could have enforced a rule that would have perhaps ended in the death of this little girl. Thankfully, given the pressure from groups, including Texas Right to Life, “as of April 17, 2025, the hospital has opted to hold off on starting the 25-day countdown on Wren’s Life.” The group explained, “They have provided 14 days to secure a transfer for Wren, with a newly scheduled meeting to make a final decision on May 2. Please pray that a facility will accept Baby Wren and that they will honor her parents’ wishes.”
These two children, whose lives were put at risk because of arbitrary rules that would culminate in death sentences unless a miracle occurred, are victims of a situation that can only be described as heartless.
Texas Right to Life explains the rule:
Under the reign of the anti-Life 25-Day Rule, enacted in 1999, a partial hospital committee has the power to decide to withdraw treatment for any reason, including the subjective anti-life assessment of “quality of life.” The hospital can then remove treatment, even life-sustaining treatment (ventilator, dialysis, etc.), and the patient cannot appeal the decision. Even if the patient is conscious, coherent, and actively requesting the continuation of life-sustaining treatment, the 25-Day Rule gives the hospital the power to overrule the patient’s wishes. The alarming provisions under the 25-Day Rule have been accurately described by people across the political spectrum as “death panels.” The patient and his or her legal surrogate have a mere 25 days to arrange an emergency transfer to another facility that would be willing to continue treatment. Such a transfer is often extraordinarily complicated in such cases, and there are no practical means under the 25-Day Rule for a typical patient to stop the ticking clock on their own.
Such examples of rules that place limits on how long care may be provided to an ailing child smack of the sort of prejudice that seems to creep into man’s thinking when trust in the will of God is replaced by regulations, rules, personal opinions, and sadly, financial concerns.
The obvious inhumanity of life-limiting rulemaking reminds us that Saint John Paul II taught that the disabled person is “a unique and unrepeatable person in his equal and inviolable dignity [and] needs not only care, but first of all love which becomes recognition, respect and integration.”
Any child who has a disability deserves love, affirmation, and care, but first of all love. We pray today for unconditional love for every person deep in the heart of Texas and in every state. That is the only response that thwarts man’s deadly rules.