April 15, 2022

Baby Tinslee Goes Home After Surviving Hospital's Attempt to Invoke Texas's "10-Day Rule"

Tinslee Lewis
After several years of legal battles to prevent a hospital from disconnecting her life support, three-year-old Tinslee Lewis is finally going home to live with her family.

Tinslee has spent most of her life at Cook Children's Hospital in Texas. After her premature birth in 2019, she received special care due to a heart defect causing her heart to press against her lungs. After nine months, however, the hospital invoked Texas's 10-day rule, threatening to withdraw life-sustaining care unless her family found another hospital to take her in 10 days.

Pro-life groups and disability advocacy groups helped Tinslee's mother, Trinity Lewis, put together a legal defense to fight for her daughter's life. On April 7, over 800 days after Cook Children's Hospital initially invoked the 10-day rule, Tinslee was healthy enough to go home.

In a statement to Live Action News, Texas Right to Life wrote, "“She’s on home health now and is doing great! She shakes her head ‘no’ when she’s annoyed and when her grandpa leans over and asks her for a kiss, she kisses him on the cheek. Cook Children’s worked with the family to improve Tinslee’s health to the point that she no longer needs a hospital setting for care. She turned three years old on February 1.”