Rushing to judge others – Star editorial April 10th/09

Rough night’ for baby Kaylee, Star April 10/09.

Help me out here, but was it not Mr.Wallace, the father, who suggested Kaylee be taken of the respirator so her heart could be harvested and given to the Lillian O’Connor, another child in need of a heart transplant? It is a legitimate question to ask whether Mr. Wallace and Ms.Vitelli, the parents of Kaylee, were not in some way seeking public attention and glory by offering their dying child’s heart to another dying child – something they had no right to do –and by the same magnanimous effort ridding themselves of the liability of a severely handicapped child that would require constant attention for years to come. It seems he is now vacillating between wanting to keep his daughter on the respirator and “pulling the plug,” while putting words in the mouth of hospital staff to the effect that he is wasting resources. I don’t believe him. Mr. Wallace’s last pronouncement is now “that they are ‘not going to go with life support’ for their daughter.”

It is not so that the media pounced on this issue and these people by their own volition. It was Mr. Wallace who brought this to the fore, and kept it in the public eye by repeatedly calling radio stations and newspapers about the situation and their personal struggles.

There seems to be a trend these days, of people in stressful circumstances to air their sorrows and frustrations in public. After a while, it becomes an addiction, where the publicity is reinforcing and supporting their need for attention. There is a downside to this for these Thespians, when their histrionics are no longer news; they are left alone with only themselves and their personal grief and frustrations.