Sun Hudson, a six-month-old boy with a fatal congenital disease, died Thursday after a Texas hospital, over his mother's objections, withdrew his feeding tube. The child was apparently certain to die, but was conscious. The hospital simply decided that it had better things to do than keep the child alive, and the Texas courts upheld that decision after the penniless mother failed to find another institution that would take the child during the 10-day window provided for by Texas law. Where, I would ask, is the outrage? In particular, where is the outrage from those like Tom DeLay, who referred to the withdrawal of Terry Schiavo's life support as "murder"? If it's appropriate to federalize the Schiavo case, what about the people being terminated simply because their cases are hopeless and their bank accounts empty? (And) Sun Hudson is dead, but 68-year-old Spiro Nikolouzos is still alive, thanks to an emergency appeals court order issued yesterday. However, his life support could be cut off at any moment. A nursing home is willing to take him: if his family can show that he will be covered by Medicaid after his Medicare runs out. Otherwise, the hospital gets to pull the plug...The two Texas cases pit the families against health-care institutions motivated at least in part by financial considerations...The notion of letting the health care providers decide, after doing a careful biopsy of the patient's wallet, strikes me as pretty damned outrageous. And it seems to me that the Right-to-Lifers ought to agree, though apparently anti-abortion groups had no problem with it when Gov. George W. Bush signed the Texas Futile Care Law.

Hypocrisy that borders on the psychotic. Where is the wingnut outrage over this? Do we hear about these two cases on CNN or FOX? As Mark A.R. Kleiman of UCLA reports:...read on