Maine plan on care for hurt baby overturned
State had ordered no resuscitation
PORTLAND, Maine -- The Maine Department of Health and Human Services should not have made an end-of-life decision for a baby boy in foster care without a court hearing to air the parents' objections, the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday.
The state's highest court ruled unanimously in the case of a brain-injured infant allegedly shaken by his father in Bangor.
The state child welfare agency put the baby in a foster home and obtained a ``do-not-resuscitate" order based on the opinions of doctors, who said the boy would not recover. The parents objected, saying the order effectively revoked their parental rights.
In a unanimous ruling, the court sided with the parents, concluding that their rights had been violated because of the way the judge had handled the case. The court, which heard arguments last month, had suspended the ``do-not-rescuscitate" order on May 11.
The baby's father could face a manslaughter charge if the boy dies. As it stands, the father, Mathew L. Williams of Bangor, faces a charge of aggravated assault.
The boy, called Matthew W. in the court filings, was 6 weeks old when he suffered brain injuries that doctors said were consistent with ``shaken baby syndrome."
The parents remain together as a couple, and they remain unified in their wish that there be no ``do-not-rescuscitate" order in place for their son, a lawyer said.
The case appears to have some echoes to that of Haleigh Poutre , the 12-year-old Westfield girl whose life support the Massachusetts Department of Social Services had sought to end. She showed signs of improvement just after the Supreme Judicial Court in January upheld the end-to-life support; she is now in a Brighton rehabilitation hospital.
