Your Child’s Life or Death: Who Controls “Medical” Decisions?
Rep. Kidd’s “Simon’s Law”seeks to make it you.
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Imagine for a moment that your child is seriously ill and in a Missouri hospital.
If medical staff decides to stop life sustaining treatment or food do you think you should be informed? As the parent, should your consent be required?
You would, of course, answer yes and assume the parents informed consent is already required.
But you would be wrong. When it comes to a disorder that is determined to be “lethal” or “incompatible with life”, life sustaining care and food can be, and often is, discontinued without the parents knowledge or approval.
A death sentence for your child you never even knew about.
One such case here in Missouri has sparked a push for “Simon’s Law”. In 2014, Simon Crosier was born with a genetic disease and was a patient at a St. Louis Hospital. Due to the hospitals “futility policy” A DNR (do not resuscitate) order was placed in his records and “comfort feeding” was ordered. Comfort feeding is not designed to sustain life or recovery. The parents where never informed of these decisions nor did they consent to them.
His mother, Sheryl Crosier, testified his monitors where turned off and she was not allowed to feed him even her own breast milk. She watched her child die and no one at the hospital tried to save him.
In fact, no one was allowed to.
When Representative Bill Kidd of Missouri discovered what had taken place, and had personally visited with the mother, he began to champion HB 1361 “Simon’s Law” here in Missouri. He wanted to make sure it never happened again. Representative Kidd commented, “ I thought the bill would easily pass through committee and be voted into law, but when we got to the hearing the room it was filled with lobbyists from hospitals and medical groups”(see who opposed the bill below). After passing the Children’s and Families committee on a 9 to 0 vote, Simon’s law was Referred to Rules and Legislative Oversight on 3/15/18. There it died. It was never taken up by that committee, much less voted on by the full house. As is the case with many good bills, if house leadership is not behind it, they simply do not allow it to proceed through the process.
Since that time a similar bill has been passed and signed into law in Kansas, but with no enforcement mechanism. Kansas Gov. Signs nations first “Simon’s Law” 2017
Representative Kidd fights on and will introduce the bill again in the next legislative session.
Mo. House bill 1361 “Simon’s Law” text.
COMMITTEE ACTION: Voted “Do Pass with HCS” by the Standing Committee on Children and Families by a vote of 9 to 0. Testifying against the bill were Stuart Sweet; Joan Rosenbaum, MD, St. Louis Children’s Hospital; Jonathan Mullin, St. Louis Children’s Hospital; Paul And Kim Kosednar; Sarah Younger MD; Naomi Lauriello, American Academy of Pediatrics Missouri Chapter; Jane Moone, Missouri Hospice & Palliative Care; Laura Miller-Smith; and SSM Health