Let me say that while I certainly hope that little Sarah Murnaghan’s life is saved by the double lung transplant she just received, I’m far less thrilled with the way her family shoved her to the front of the line and cozied up to conservatives and Fox News to get their way. Now that the young girl was given preference over some adult (and the heck with his or her story), Sean Hannity was a vision of altruistic beneficence last night. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact the girl became a Republican cause célèbre asking for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to grant special treatment. But even amidst all that selfless compassion, Hannity just couldn’t turn down the opportunity to use the moment to attack the Obama administration.
After Murnaghan’s aunt told us about the successful surgery, Hannity said:
I know this is such a great night for the family and I don’t want to ask too many political questions. But if in fact the Health and Human Services secretary had had her way, she (Sarah) would not have been allowed to move up to this place. It took a judge’s order. What is your reaction to that part of this debate?
The aunt, predictably, accused Sebelius of letting “politics get in the way of common sense and goodness.”
“We couldn’t be happier that things worked out well,” Hannity assured the aunt. Then, dismissing her, he spent the next two minutes attacking Sebelius with Fox News’ Dr. Marc Siegel. Siegel assured us with a glowing report of Sarah’s prognosis - and no mention about how pediatric lung recipients face greater risks and how Bioethicist Dr. Art Caplan, director of NYU Langone Medical Center Division of Medical Ethics, feels they “(are not) necessarily the best use of the scarce supply of organs.” Siegel asked the loaded question, “What American out there wouldn’t want their children to have this chance?”
Any good Fox watcher knows the answer: the secret Muslim, Death-Panels-R-Us Kenyan in the White House and his evil henchwomen! Hannity said:
Well, Kathleen Sebelius wouldn’t sign this, to make this exception. …Was she basically giving this girl a death sentence then? …Talk about death panels. This sounds like a death panel. Thank God a judge overruled here.
Of course, the judge was a Republican. And what nobody mentioned? The reason Sebelius didn’t want to make an exception in the first place. Politico reported what Hannity didn’t:
“I can’t imagine anything worse than one individual getting to pick who lives and who dies,” she said. Sebelius said putting Sarah next in line would disadvantage other young people who have also been waiting for transplants — three of them at the same hospital.
“Unfortunately, there are about 40 seriously ill Pennsylvanians over the age of 12 also waiting for a lung transplant,” she said.
As for those 40 seriously ill Pennsylvanians who got pushed aside? Well, they must have been Democrats so who cares?
I hope little Sarah lives a long, healthy life with her new lungs. I also hope she grows up into a better person than the people who helped her get them.
There are surely – among those 40 other patients in line for a transplant – some who might have been more worthy of receiving those organs. By jumping the queue, this family has placed the life of another person at risk.
Oh wait … IOKIYAR.
……..
I’m curious. Isn’t this the SAME Kathleen Sebelius who, just a little over a year ago, overruled the FDA’s decision to expand Plan B emergency contraception to minors? I guess when the issue is “abortion politics” (how the far right was framing the Plan B issue), then “politics” is allowed to “get in the way of common sense and goodness.”
I’d just like to have asked the aunt this question: What makes YOUR niece so much more special than all the other children who’ve now lost THEIR chances of getting a necessary transplant? Somehow, I’ve got a feeling she’d be showing a lot less “goodness” herself.
