TX: Attorneys question whether Texas, federal law at odds

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D88VKEMO1.html


The federal law President Bush signed to prolong Terri Schiavo's life in Florida appears to conflict with a Texas law he signed as governor, attorneys familiar with the legislation said Monday.

The 1999 Advance Directives Act in Texas allows for a patient's surrogate to make end-of-life decisions and spells out how to proceed if a hospital or other health provider disagrees with a decision to maintain or halt life-sustaining treatment. If a doctor refuses to honor a decision, the case goes before a medical committee. If the committee agrees with the doctor, the guardian or surrogate has 10 days to seek treatment elsewhere.

Thomas Mayo, an associate law professor at Southern Methodist University who helped draft the Texas law, said that if the Schiavo case had happened in Texas, her husband would have been her surrogate decision-maker. Because both he and her doctors were in agreement, life support would have been discontinued

But the committee compromised in crafting the 1999 law because it provided 10 days, or in some cases longer, to seek an alternative treatment site if a doctor or hospital wanted to terminate life support but the patient's guardian or surrogate did not. Graham said she doesn't think the new federal law conflicts with that. She said it's too early to know whether the federal law will override Texas law.

Oh, I forgot, GE and the corporations own the MSM

That will be their excuse