Doing to, not for (Baby Tinslee & TADA)

“We’re doing things to her. Not for her.” (Wini King, spokesperson for Cook’s Children’s Hospital, January 3, 2020) This may be the best description of a very sad case.  Tinslee Lewis was born prematurely on February 1, 2019, with severe heart and lung defects. She had cardiogenic shock and was admitted to the Cardiac ICU at Cook’s … Continue reading →

False story about Texas Advance Directives Act (TADA)

I’m a subscriber to the new reader-supported online news site, The Texan which is the project of former State Senator, Konni Burton, having recently paid for the annual subscription. (A heads up: if you click through on all my links, you’ll risk using up all your free views this month.) But I’m disappointed to see … Continue reading →

More thoughts on Texas Advance Directive Act

I was asked about the #BabyTinslee case and what we should do, what can we do, in the disputed cases. We need to educate more. People don’t understand basic medical ethics in this day of “choice.” Autonomy doesn’t supersede nonmaleficience. In other words, the First Principle of medicine, “Cure when possible, but first do no … Continue reading →

A Lawyer, A Life, A Lie

Lawyer Wesley Smith has done good work in the past on end of life issues, but he is once again lying in order to score political points. In his January 7, 2020 op-ed column for National Review, Smith accuses the doctors in the Tinslee Lewis case of wanting her to die, writing, “continued life is precisely what the … Continue reading →

Miracles in a predictable universe

We are blessed with a universe that’s predictable and testable, yet we pray for miracles. And we pray for miracles, but act as though human actions can block them. Is the will of the Creator Who spoke the physical laws into existence limited by humans if they act as though the universe is predictable and … Continue reading →

Baby Tinslee Lewis and the Texas Advance Directive Act

I was a relieved to hear that the doctors caring for 9 month old Tinslee Lewis decided not to remove her ventilator on Sunday, November 10, 2019. Their decision, most likely due to public outcry, was announced 2 hours before removal was planned. Later in the day, and a local judge issued a restraining order … Continue reading →

Why does TRTL lie? (UPDATE)

I can’t tell you why, but it’s true: Well below their “Donate Now” banner, Texas Right to Life (TRTL) is shamefully spinning another one of their false stories. Just as they lied on their website that Chris Dunn was “slain“ by his doctors, they now post that a woman, Mrs. Carolyn Jones, had to be … Continue reading →

Emergency: Liberty Right Infringement

Texas Right to Life General Counsel Emily Cook is attacking Texas Medical Association on Facebook, even though virtually every other pro-life, medical, nursing, hospital, and disability group in Texas oppose SB 2089 by Hughes, that would change the “Texas Advance Directive Act, “TADA” will harm patients and attack the right of doctors to refuse to … Continue reading →

Another kind of lawyer joke

“[T]he doctor/bioethics committee thinks the patient should die.” Wesley J. Smith, Esq., Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee, 4/10/2019 LifeNews.com Wesley Smith is a rarity among the many lawyers who chased bioethics to the bedside late in the last century: he actually believes in the sanctity of human life and in the right of … Continue reading →

Texas Advance Directive Act 2019 Legislature

The Texas Advance Directive Act is being attacked in the State Legislature, again, as it has just about every Session for the last 10+ years. In my opinion, one group is doing the bidding of the trial lawyers to destroy Texas’s tort reform by attempting to force every end of life treatment disagreement into the … Continue reading →

Response to criticism about Texas Advance Directive Act

Inalienable rights are negative rights: the right not to be killed, the right not to be enslaved.

Doctors are human beings with inalienable rights, including the right to conscience 

Continue reading →

Death Politics

Someone named Rich DeOtte has written a Facebook piece attacking friends of mine. Rich mocks Dr. Joe Pojman as “a rocket scientist” and “knucklehead” (needless to say, that’s not popular in the Nuckols household) and takes a slap at Kyleen Wright, of Texans for Life Coalition and the Texas Medical Association. Dr. Joe Pojman, Ph.D., … Continue reading →

Death, lies and video

Death, lies and video Supported only by his imagination, what he saw in videos produced by Texas Right to Life lawyers, and a news article,Dr. Phillip Hawley, Jr., M.D., wrote “A Tragic Case of Modern Bioethics; Denying Life-Sustaining Treatment to a Patient Who Wanted to Live” about the truly tragic, but inevitable death of Chris … Continue reading →

The Ethics of Texas’ Advance Directive Act

Laws relating to medical ethics debates are generally behind medical advances. Unfortunately, those debates often become emotional and heated, and the individuals who are affected often face the “hard questions” of ethical dilemmas while reacting to life and death emergencies. When law-making is controversial, it’s best to go back to the basics of ethics for … Continue reading →

Texas Advance Directive Act: What the lawyers really want

I’ll admit that I’m not a lawyer and have to do my homework to even attempt to understand lawyer-speak. (For example, see this definition of “Abatement”) How I wish more lawyers would admit they aren’t doctors, especially when they accuse doctors and entire hospital committees of killing patients. Earlier this week, I reviewed the latest … Continue reading →

Lawyers, politics, and end of life

Two days before Christmas, 46 year old Chris Dunn died in the ICU at Houston’s Methodist Hospital. Almost everything you’ve read and heard is a deliberate, political skewing of the facts. Texas Right to Life turned Mr. Dunn’s imminent death from metastatic pancreatic cancer into a crusade against the Texas Advance Directive Act (TADA or … Continue reading →

Public Health Hearing on #SB303

Last night, an emergency meeting ot the 83rd Texas Legislature’s Public Health Committee addressed Senate Bill 303, by Senator Duell in a 12 hour long meeting. Representative Susan King, who authored the Companion Bill in the House and sponsored SB303 in this meeting, appeared only one day after a fracture of her tibia. This woman … Continue reading →

Update on the Texas Advance Directive Act (SB 303)

The Texas Advance Directive Act of 1999 (TADA) describes “Advance Directives to Physicians” (what most people would call a “Living Will”) and contains Section 166.046, an attempt to outline the procedure for resolving a disagreement between a doctor and patients or their surrogates about what is medically appropriate treatment. The law currently in effect requires … Continue reading →

Back to Basics on Texas Advance Directive Act

Laws relating to ethics debates are generally behind medical advances. This is good because it means that there *are* medical advances.   However, the debates often become emotional and heated, and the individuals who are affected face real dilemmas and emergencies. When law-making is controversial, it’s best to go back to the basics of ethics … Continue reading →

Vanity: I’m Published in Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas Advanced Directive Act)

I submitted an editorial to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram which they have titled, “Nuckols: Navigating healthcare’s difficult decisions.” It was published March 28, 2013, but I can’t tell whether it’s in the dead-tree version.  (In case you ever wondered, no one notifies the author when a piece like this or a letter to the editor … Continue reading →