PRESIDENT BUSH AND TEXAS LAW

 

Congressional opponents of the legislation enacted to give Terri Schindler Schiavo her day have claimed President George W. Bush is inconsistent for supporting this bill, because, the accusation runs, as Governor of Texas in 1999 he signed legislation now being used to deny lifesaving treatment against family wishes.  The charge is based on a serious misunderstanding about the effect of the Texas law then-Governor Bush signed.

Here are the facts:

-- In August 1996 the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article describing procedures then in effect in Houston hospitals.  Under these procedures, if a doctor wished to deny a patient lifesaving medical treatment and the patient or the patient's surrogate instead steadfastly expressed a desire for life, the doctor would submit the case to the hospital ethics committee.  The patient or surrogate would be given 72 hours notice of the committee meeting would be allowed to plead for the patient's life at it.  During that short  72 hour period, the patient or surrogate, while preparing to argue for life, could also try to find another health care provider willing to give the lifesaving treatment, food or fluids.

If the ethics committee decided for death, under these procedures there was no appeal.  There was no provision that the food, fluids, or lifesaving treatment be provided after the decision while the patient or family tried to find another hospital willing to keep the patient alive.

So under these procedures,  the hospitals in Houston were denying life-saving treatment, food and fluids against the wishes of patients and their families, when the hospital ethics committees said their quality of life was too poor.  Patients and families were being given only 72 hours after being notified of the proposed denial to find another health care provider.

– In 1997 then-Governor Bush vetoed an advance directives bill precisely BECAUSE it would have given specific legal sanction to such involuntary denial of life-saving treatment.  An effort in the Texas legislature to amend the bill to require treatment pending transfer to a health care provider willing to provide the life-saving treatment had been defeated.

– With no legal protection AT ALL under Texas law, and ongoing programs in Texas hospitals denying treatment with virtually no opportunity even to seek transfer, pro-life groups entered into negotiations with medical groups that finally resulted in a bill that:

1) formalized more protections for in-hospital review

2) gave patients 10 days of treatment while seeking transfer

3) authorized court proceedings to extend the 10 days for reasonable additional periods to accomplish transfer.

This was far from ideal, but represented an important advance over the existing situation of no legal requirement of treatment pending transfer.  The votes were not there in the Texas legislature to accomplish a more protective bill.  Pro-life groups therefore supported the legislation as an imperfect but real improvement over the existing law, and Governor Bush signed it.