Sunday, November 9, 2008

Not okay

What's wrong with these vignettes:
"Mr. Torres was comatose and connected to a ventilator. He was also a legal immigrant whose family lives and works in the purple alfalfa fields of this southwestern town. But he was uninsured. So the hospital disregarded the strenuous objections of his grief-stricken parents and sent Mr. Torres on a four-hour journey over the California border into Mexicali.

In the case of Elliott Bustamante, a hospital in Tucson moved speedily, and ultimately unsuccessfully, to transfer a sickly infant to Mexico, ignoring the mother’s opposition and the fact that Elliott was an American citizen born with Down syndrome and a heart problem at that very hospital."
Which comatose and infected patient, or baby with a heart condition, would Jesus deport?

Don't bother with the argument that hospitals can't just support everyone-- that's true, but that's not the point. This is a system failure.

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