FROM ONE NEWS NOW/AFA

Court: Mental disability not a death sentence


Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 8/28/2010 4:00:00 AMPennsylvania's Supreme Court has ruled against family members who wanted to end the life of a man with mental disabilities.

The court ruled that state law requires life-preserving treatment for people who are not near death and have not refused treatment. Randall Wenger of the Independence Law Center and an allied attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) tells OneNewsNow the court stood with 53-year-old David Hockenberry, who has had acute mental disabilities since birth.

"His guardians -- his parents -- decided that they wanted to withhold medical treatment for him when he had pneumonia," Wenger explains. "They went to the courts to try to get the medical treatment stopped because basically they thought he'd be better off dying from pneumonia than being treated for pneumonia."

The trial court disagreed, so Hockenberry was treated and recovered from the illness within a few weeks. However, his parents appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court in order to deny medical treatment in the future.

"Having a disability shouldn't be a death sentence when a treatable medical condition arises," the ADF-allied attorney contends.

In this case, Wenger thinks the court did the right thing in ruling in favor of life for the disabled, so his group is "pleased and gratified that there are such good rulings so we don't have to continue walking down that frustrating, slippery slope."