Emergency Romney Flip Flop Flyer

The Flip Flop to top all Flip Flops

Romney said earlier this week that the government was wrong to intervene in the Schiavo case.

"I think it's probably best to leave these kinds of matters in the hands of the courts," Romney said.

The Romney camp is counting on the ignorance of the masses?

Let's mosey on into the archives and pull up the details of the now apparent Romney publicity stunt surrounding the court case of Haleigh Poutre, shall we?

A synopsis of the Haleigh's close call from NRO:

Within a week or so of the beating, her doctors had written her off. They apparently told Haleigh's court-appointed guardian, Harry Spence, that she was "virtually brain dead." Even though he had never visited her, Spence quickly went to court seeking permission to remove her respirator and feeding tube. The court agreed, a decision affirmed recently by the supreme court of Massachusetts.

And so, no doubt with the best of intentions, a little girl who had already suffered so much was stripped by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of even the chance to fight to stay alive. If she didn't stop breathing when the respirator was removed, which doctors expected, she would slowly dehydrate to death.

Then came the unexpected: Before "pulling the plug" on Haleigh, Spence finally decided to visit her. He was stunned. Rather than finding a little girl with "not a chance" of recovery, as doctors had described Haleigh's condition to him (as reported by the Boston Globe), Haleigh was conscious. She was able to give Spence a yellow block when asked to by a social worker and respond to other simple requests.

Laudably, Spence immediately called off the dehydration. Haleigh is now off her respirator and breathing on her own. She has been transferred out of the hospital and is currently being treated in a rehabilitation center.

Saying that he wasn't being motivated by politics, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney ordered an independent investigation into the state's handling of the abuse case of 11-year-old Haleigh Poutre.

The girl is at the center of a right-to-life case reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo case in Florida.

At a news conference Monday, Romney said that "one cannot look at the life of Haleigh Poutre without being overwhelmed with sadness. She was not someone who fell through the cracks---doctors and social workers were watching. But errors in judgment were made".

The Supreme Judicial Court had ruled that the public has no right to attend court proceedings or see documents in the case. Romney said that he was appointing the independent panel because "an individual is a child of God, and this is something that we care very deeply about and that's why were going to focus on this particular case".

According to the Reporters Committee, the high court upheld a lower court order keeping the case secret, cited a state law directing that juvenile care and protection proceedings be closed to the public. Although Massachusetts courts have found a common-law right of access to judicial records and a First Amendment right of access to records in criminal cases, none of those cases involved juvenile court records, Greaney wrote for the four justices who joined the majority.

"The result is unbelievable," said Edward McDonough, one of the attorneys seeking access to the case. "It's all been done behind closed doors -- the government approving the actions of the government when the life of a child is at stake. This is a shocking degree of government secrecy."

Two justices concurred with Greaney, according to the Reporters Committee, but wrote a separate opinion questioning whether a child's life support hearing should be closed simply because it takes place in the context of a care and protection proceeding. Life support cases raise different public issues than care and protection proceedings, they noted.

What was that Romney said this week? 

"I think it's probably best to leave these kinds of matters in the hands of the courts," Romney said.

FLIP FLOP

DSS had four Social Security numbers for Haleigh Poutre, kept sloppy notes, didn’t visit her regularly and tragically failed to protect the vulnerable little girl, a legislative committee reported yesterday.

Report from the Terri Schindler Shiavo Foundation to Romney.

The dishonesty is dishonorable.