Judge rules against mother of sick baby

A Texas hospital can remove an 11-month-old girl from life support against her mother’s wishes, a judge ruled Thursday. Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth said it would wait seven days to do anything, giving Trinity Lewis, Tinslee Lewis’ mother, time to appeal.

Who is Tinslee Lewis? She was born prematurely on Feb. 1 and has been in the hospital since then with a rare heart defect, chronic lung disease, and severe high blood pressure. She stopped breathing in early July and has since required sedation, ventilation, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, in which a machine oxygenates the blood in place of the heart and lungs. Her mother said that despite her sedation, Tinslee smiles, stares, and squeezes her hand. Her care team does not think those actions are purposeful and says Tinslee is in constant pain and will never recover.

Dig deeper: Read Mary Jackson’s report in Vitals about the legal and ethical ramifications of Tinslee’s case.