Mother Fights Hospital's Decision to Remove Her Son's Life Support.(Catarina Gonzales)

As NRL News goes to press, unless another hospital will admit him or a court intervenes, Children's Hospital of Austin will remove 16-month-old Emilio Gonzales from life support on April 10. Although his mother has specifically requested that the hospital should continue treating her son, Texas law allows doctors to override her decision and remove his ventilator.

Emilio's mother, Catarina Gonzales, told NRL News that she holds no unrealistic expectations; she recognizes that Emilio is quite ill but she simply wants him to die naturally, not by a direct act of euthanasia by his doctors.

Although tissue and bone testing have not yielded a definitive diagnosis, Emilio is suspected to have Leigh's disease, a disorder of the central nervous system that causes deterioration in motor skills. He has been at the hospital since December, currently breathing with the help of a ventilator (through his mouth and throat) and receiving nutrition through a nasogastric feeding tube.

"I know there's no cure. I know my son is going to die," said Gonzales. "But I want him to die when God calls him, not when someone pulls the plug."

According to information found on the National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke web page, people with Leigh's disease "may live to be 6 or 7 years of age. Some have survived to their mid-teenage years."

But doctors at Children's Hospital have declared that further treatment for Emilio is "medically futile," and they had originally scheduled removal of the ventilator for March 23. They contend that Emilio "is in seizures half the time and has no purposeful movement," Michael Regier, general counsel for the Seton Family of Hospitals, told the Associated Press.

However, Gonzales insists that her son is conscious and deserves a chance to live. "He responds to my voice," she said. "He is deaf in the left ear but can hear on his right. He opens his eyes and moves his hands and legs."