RIP common sense

Lawyers for 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan, who has been denied a lung transplant because of a controversial federal policy, say Health and Human Services' Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' decision to review the policy - but not in time to save Sarah - is unconstitutional. Sarah would be at the top of the adult lung transplant list if she were 12, because she only has weeks to live and a lung transplant would as-good-as cure her of cystic fibrosis. The Murnaghan family is fighting a little known organ transplant policy that is effectively pushing Sarah to the bottom of the adult transplant waiting list because it mandates that adult lungs be offered to all adult patients before they can be offered to someone under 12 years old. Law firm Pepper Hamilton LLP wrote a letter to Sebelius on Monday calling the policy "unfair, arbitrary, and capricious" and saying that Sebelius's failure to make an exception is a violation of Sarah's constitutional rights to "due process" and "equal protection," according to a family statement. Seriously, people. There has to be a better way. As an uncle of an almost four-month-old girl, I would most definitely have something to say about that crap if my niece is similarly denied medical treatment based on some unethical excuse for a policy. This is not on.