Quotes from the mother and father of a 33-year-old woman who is 14 weeks pregnant in Texas, where the statutory law bars doctors from withdrawing life support from a pregnant patient.
“If she is dead, I don’t see how she can be a patient, and I don’t see how we can be talking about treatment options for her,” said Thomas W. Mayo, an expert on health care law and bioethics at the Southern Methodist University law school in Dallas....If the ethicists are going to make the "if she is dead" move, why don't they say "if she is dead, I don't see how we can be talking about her rights"? I can't tell how clearly the unfortunate woman made her desire to be allowed to die known. Did she specify that she would not want to be kept alive if an unborn child depended on her body? The family wants to let her go, and it seems that part of the concern is that the woman "might have gone an hour or longer without breathing before her husband woke and discovered her, a situation he believes has seriously impaired the fetus."
Critics of the hospital’s actions also note that the fetus has not reached the point of viability outside the womb and that Ms. Munoz would have a constitutional right to an abortion.
The top-rated comment at the link (to the NYT) is:
Nice, Texas! Make this man have this baby, probably he'll have to give up his job in order to take care of it, and then I imagine you will refuse to help the family in any way financially and call them "takers"..Second highest-rated is:
Did Margaret Atwood write this piece? Is this not some dystopian fiction? A brain dead woman kept alive for a fetus, with medical decision-making preempted by the state.
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288 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 288 of 288No it's not well beyond that threshold. At 8 weeks there are just the very beginnings of neural activity, fetal pain isn't present until much later, as I understand it.
The body is a CORPSE, if she is brain dead. It's being USED as an incubator AGAINST the wishes of her next of kin. THAT is my problem with this, Jr.
Inga, I don't agree that life issues should be defined the way you are attempting to do so, but what relevance is 8 weeks to this case anyway? The baby is now almost 20 weeks.
At no time during this entire episode have I ever heard either the father or his family say anything to the effect that having this baby will keep her memory alive through the child. Nor anything about how this could be her legacy by leaving a living part of her to carry on for her. Not one thing that would indicate any love or emotional attachment to the baby.
A part of me says the baby would be better off dead than being raised by these heartless people, but it doesn't deserve to die because it has a crappy family.
Actually according to this wave activity starts at week 6.
✩
Week 5: As the brain continues to develop, other organs like the circulatory system begin to function with all four chambers of the heart present. The facial features begin to develop, with a clear distinguished vision (through ultrasound) of arms and legs, complete with fingers.
Week 6: This week sees the formation of the brain hemispheres and also some wave activity. The neural tube that connects the brain and spinal cord also closes in this duration.
Week 7: By this week, the brain is growing at a rapid rate.
Week 8: Hind brain starts developing(controls heart regulation)
Week 9: The nervous system now, is quite developed for proper functioning.
Weeek 10: genitals and furhter brain development.
By week 13: Week 13: This week sees the completion of the first trimester. The heart, liver, spleen and many other organs are already functioning.
Heart, liver, brain, nervous system, genitals. And we're only in trimester 1.
Forgot to provide the link:
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/brain-development-in-fetus.html
"A part of me says the baby would be better off dead than being raised by these heartless people, but it doesn't deserve to die because it has a crappy family."
It doesn't even have to be raised by the crappy family. Let the dad give it up for adoption. Problem solved.
CStanley, there is no relevance of 8 weeks to THIS case, I was answering a question to me by El Pollo.
garage mahal said...
How's that?
Because questioning the state's role in protecting life is the reason for being if you're a conservative, right? "16 TRILLION IN DEBT!"
Uh, no. Again, a conservative would not argue the state's role in protecting rights, including life.
You are making Inga look bright. Is that the Jack talking?
And CStanley, seeing that this baby is already 20 weeks, not 14 as originally stated, I could see allowing it to make it another 4 weeks, although I still think its violating the rights of the next of kin. In cases of women with early pregnancies, my stance is the same.
JR, you and Inga are both right. Brain activity starts at 6 weeks (measured from conception) or 8 weeks (measured from last menstrual period). It's not actually a brain wave, that won't happen until later. It's blips of activity in the brainstem.
Once the baby is born everybody will be pro-life and the media will lose interest.
Also the past will be rewritten.
Inga said...
The body is a CORPSE, if she is brain dead. It's being USED as an incubator AGAINST the wishes of her next of kin. THAT is my problem with this, Jr.
I suggest you notch up the rhetoric a bit; try using more descriptive terms like "husk" and "warehoused vegetable" for effect like your compatriot does: link
Inga, it couldn't actually be a corpse. You couldn't keep a baby alive in a corpse.
This is a terrible situation, and I don't think we should assume bad motives on the part of the woman's family. I know I'd hate to be in their shoes. Surely we can all sympathize with her father here, for example:
Machado recalled touching his daughter’s skin as she lay in the hospital.
“She felt more like a mannequin,” Machado said. “That makes it very hard for me to go up and visit. I don’t want to remember her as a rubber figure.”
Inga seems to have forgotten that a child has first priority in the list of candidates for 'next of kin', so that ideally the baby should decide.
Inga seems to have forgotten that a child has first priority in the list of candidates for 'next of kin', so that ideally the baby should decide.
Freeman, it IS a corpse on machines to circulate blood enriched with oxygen. Huge doses of drugs to keep up blood pressure, hormones because a dead brain can no longer tell the body to secrete them, kidney support, IV nutrition, the digestive system will no longer function and even more support I'm not even mentioning I'm sure.
It is the State taking away the right of the family/spouse/parent to make life and death decisions for those that they love.
A telling statement because it is obvious this family has no love whatsoever for the baby.
Lydia:
No, it is not an easy issue. Neither is abortion. However, since there is another life involved, this becomes the rightful domain of society, not solely the individual. It deserves at minimum thoughtful introspection by every member of our society. Since the consequences of devaluing human life are not contained to the individuals directly involved.
Saint Croix:
That's an interesting juxtaposition. Unlike appeals of a capital punishment sentence, it's only necessary to appeal an abortion for no more than 9 months. Then the resolution becomes self-evident and mostly impossible to ignore.
An awful lot of assumptions given that the hospital officials have not confirmed that anyone has declared her brain dead, and one official stated that there isn't any difficulty for them in determining their obligation to follow the law. That sure sounds to me like she is still alive. I think the only one involved who said she is brain dead is the husband, and the pro choice activists in the media have taken the ball and run with it.
Hmmm. 220 comments and I don't think anyone has asked about life insurance. Wouldn't the husband be financially much better off if he were (hypothetically) in line for a big pot of money, and didn't have to worry about spending any of it raising a baby?
How long will a brain dead person's body keep working?
"How long will a braindead person's body keep working?" Judging from some comment sections, the fingers can keep going for years in exceptional cases.
Inga- good information- add it to my list of reasons to be skeptical that she has been declared brain dead.
"How long will a braindead person's body keep working?" Judging from some comment sections, the fingers can keep going for years in exceptional cases.
Ha! The middle finger in particular refuses to die.
I think THAT dead PEOPLE must express themSELVES with CAPlocks on and SOMETIMES off.
Unlike appeals of a capital punishment sentence, it's only necessary to appeal an abortion for no more than 9 months. Then the resolution becomes self-evident and mostly impossible to ignore.
You would think! The baby at issue in Roe was not only born, she was 2 years old. But the court found a right to abort her anyway. If you could find a working time machine.
Michael, I like CAPS, it lets me yell at you people.
Most comments are on the usual "pro-life", "pro-choice" lines.
But there may be a financial reason for husband and parents to state wishes that life support and several thousand a day in costs be ended...
That way, the husband doesn't lose his house, firefighter's pension, and family life savings when the bill collectors start looking to who gets stuck with the huge bill.
Yes Lyssa, but it's UNETHICAL to USE this DEAD woman's body as an incubator
But it's not unethical to just murder a baby she wanted to keep?
Got it.
arlise Munoz had been clear about her wishes never to be hooked up to life-support machines if she were fatally injured. But when the unthinkable happened to the 33-year-old mom, doctors told her family that they could not respect her wishes. Because she was 14 weeks pregnant, they would have to follow a Texas statute making it illegal to disconnect life support from a pregnant woman.
Amazing that nobody ever hears these discussions...ever. Nothing ever written.
Seems odd.
Did she express a desire to kill the baby she was carrying as well?
SO, even if you have a living will stating that if you die pregnant, the state supercedes the living will.
If my will asked for my body to be used by necrophiliacs for whatever they want, would state law trump that?
C Stanley, and even if her advanced directives stated she chose not to be kept alive even WHEN pregnant, the state law supercedes it. How can this be right
She had the power to determine if the baby lives or dies via abortion. If she opted to keep the baby, then no, she cannot just choose to murder.
I still think its violating the rights of the next of kin.
The family is all for killing the baby. It'd be horrificly unethical to release the baby to a family that wanted it dead.
That way, the husband doesn't lose his house, firefighter's pension, and family life savings when the bill collectors start looking to who gets stuck with the huge bill.
He isn't paying the bill.
Inga:
It is not a corpse. While the woman is dead, her body continues to function. It is now a vessel which sustains and will birth a new human life. The body is capable of fulfilling the original purpose of pregnancy. Whether its function is controlled through an integrated brain or enhanced technology is immaterial. This is a short-term reanimation which ends with the birth or natural death of the child.
An analogous situation is the recycling of body parts to sustain another life. However, the analogy falls short because the parts are not being donated. They are if not integral, then material to the development and birth of a human life conceived by the mother and father.
Saint Croix:
Wow. Two years, really? An honest review of this issue is long overdue. Humanity is overdue for a moral revival. Our selective denial of biological imperatives has not helped our standing.
I recently ran across the strongest pro-life movie I've ever seen. It's called Hard Truth.
damikesc:
I would still hold the father responsible. We have circumvented so many feedbacks in our natural and social environment that people forget that there are repercussions for their actions. They may be delayed; they may be shifted; but, they remain imminent, if only in contributing to a dysfunctional convergence.
Wow, granny and grandad sure are eager to kill their grandchild, aren't they.
I guess they'd better hope their grand child never gets to decide anything about their medical care.
Well said:
If the ethicists are going to make the "if she is dead" move, why don't they say "if she is dead, I don't see how we can be talking about her rights"?
@jr565
Like Bill Clinton I think abortion should be a safe and rare occurrence. I think we have become much too facile about the act of abortion. Is it murder? I don't know, I am not God. I grew up in the era of the shotgun wedding so you can be sure that my views are antiquated. I think that there are many good individual reasons for a woman to have an abortion, but I guess, in a perfect world, I would prefer that conception be prevented and the problem never arise.
Some things that I've seen happen.
1. A friend of mine had a baby at 26 weeks. He's five years old and normal enough- he's small for his age.
2. My son had brain damage at birth from lack of oxygen. He's not normal, but he's reading at grade level (barely) and will probably live a normal life. Mostly he's hyperactive and has trouble with impulse control.
3. A fetus that had no oxygen for an hour would be dead. No animal life is going to survive without oxygen for an hour. We don't know what happened, and won't for a long time.
Brain damage is funny. It's a matter of degree, and can be worked around. There's no way to tell until the child grows up. We don't know what will happen, and we should not pretend to know.
Interesting to me that the parent in this case comments that the daughter is like a rubber mannequin. In the Jahi case it was the opposite. The parents stated that Jahi could not be dead as her skin was soft and warm to the touch.
Guess it all depends on whether you want that person to live or die I guess.
Still trying to wrap my brain around the notion that two grandparents could be so cruel in their description of their future grandchild. What happens when the kid reads those comments in the future?
Still trying to wrap my brain around the notion that two grandparents could be so cruel in their description of their future grandchild. What happens when the kid reads those comments in the future?
Obviously, they're counting on him not doing so.
Also, Inga if it is ghoulish, in your words, to use a dead woman's body in this way (let's assume for a moment that she is indeed dead), isn't abortion many orders of magnitude more ghoulish?
If she's dead, using her body to continue the life of her child does no harm to her. She's not in any pain. Ending the life of an innocent seems quite ghoulish by comparison.
Yes indeed late term abortion is ghoulish and wrong. Abortion of a fetus that doesn't even have a working nervous system yet?
Using pro-abortion logic, we can deem the Inga creature to be sub-human and put it down, yes?
Fens Law?
"Abortion of a fetus that doesn't even have a working nervous system yet?"
Plus, a fetus that doesn't have a living mother anymore. For what it's worth, speaking strictly for myself - for my hypothetical alternative reality 14 week fetal self - please, State of Texas, just let me go with my mother. Consider this my reverse advance directive: If I'm not yet viable without her, just let me go with her.
At nearly 60 yrs old, I can say I've had a wonderful life. But if my mother had died when I was still an embryo, if I were free to choose, I'd choose to go along with her to heaven. For me, life on earth would not have been worth living without her.
US Federal Debt is over 17 trillion dollars.
Garage mahal is incapable of accurate snark... much less a discussion of facts, truth or reality.
Plus, a fetus that doesn't have a living mother anymore. ... just let me go with her.
See guys...we'd actually be doing the baby a favor if we allowed it to die!
Meade said...
"Abortion of a fetus that doesn't even have a working nervous system yet?"
Plus, a fetus that doesn't have a living mother anymore. For what it's worth, speaking strictly for myself - for my hypothetical alternative reality 14 week fetal self - please, State of Texas, just let me go with my mother. Consider this my reverse advance directive: If I'm not yet viable without her, just let me go with her.
At nearly 60 yrs old, I can say I've had a wonderful life. But if my mother had died when I was still an embryo, if I were free to choose, I'd choose to go along with her to heaven. For me, life on earth would not have been worth living without her.
Yes, but you can't choose. Hindsight is easy at your advanced age. but once there is life there are options. Without it, none.The state of Texas has to assume that the child, since it is alive, enjoys the rights that other living people enjoy i this country.
Meade spitballs that a fetus somehow lacks the survival instinct that characterizes every other creature that crawls or creeps. How very imaginative!
Meade said...For me, life on earth would not have been worth living without her.
How the hell do you know that? Life is nothing if not tenacious.
I haven't seen my mother in the 45 years since she and my Dad divorced. Not a day goes by that I don't miss her like crazy, but I haven't once thought I would be better off dead because I can't be with her.
Meade:
If you believe in Heaven, then you do not have the luxury of suicide. Whether you have faith in God or not, you will eventually join your mother in Heaven or oblivion. You cannot expect someone to choose or execute that fate for you. You should hope that no one will presume to know your will.
Your mother and father had sex with full knowledge of the risks and rewards that it entailed. She conceived you with full knowledge of the risks and rewards that you may enjoy in life. Honor the hopes and dreams she invested in a new life, your life. Don't let her death have been in vain.
He's saying he had a great mom.
I do find it fascinating that Inga always comes out on the side of terminating a baby.
He's saying he had a great mom.
Then why not the thought to go out and live a life that would do her proud and be a tribute to his love for her instead of wanting to give up on life without her?
Has no one read the literature on the healing potential of deep comas?
And just when did every woman who is an "incubator" become synonymous with brain death?
Had this hypothetical conversation years ago.
I'm OK being an incubator for my child.
But if my mother had died when I was still an embryo, if I were free to choose, I'd choose to go along with her to heaven. For me, life on earth would not have been worth living without her.
Thats rich. Using your Mother's love to justify killing someone else.
I'm betting Meade was not being entirely serious.
MayBee said...
I'm betting Meade was not being entirely serious.
I bet that's a safe bet.
Hope so, because even being gracious, his argument makes no sense. In the alternate timeline he proposes, his actual mother could have died in childbirth and he was adopted by the loving mother in his story.
Dr.Robert Fine, Medical Ethicist, who helped write this law states it doesn't apply to a brain dead woman. It appears it was written to apply to the comatose, vegetative, or unconcious woman.
So Texas is misinterpreting the law and using it to take right's away from the next of kin, it appears.
"This patient is neither terminally nor irreversibly ill," said Dr. Robert Fine, clinical director of the office of clinical ethics and palliative care for Baylor Health Care System
Ethics? I don't pay any heed to someone who refuses to admit there are two patients here...
At nearly 60 yrs old, I can say I've had a wonderful life. But if my mother had died when I was still an embryo, if I were free to choose, I'd choose to go along with her to heaven. For me, life on earth would not have been worth living without her."
Meade the problem with your position is that it is retrospective. There is no way to know what the kid's choice would be until such time that it is born and lives to an age old enough to contemplate that choice. Besides how many orphans choose suicide versus being orphans?
Inga your position makes no sense. If the mother is dead she is beyond suffering and can suffer no further harm but the child isn't frozen in place. It's in an upward continuum towards being born so therefore the state does have an interest that the life that is emerging is given a chance to be born.
(1) re:
"galdosiana said...
I've been following this story for weeks, since it first came out. Please note: the woman was at 14 weeks when she suffered the trauma. The fetus is now at more than 20 weeks gestation. The doctors have been monitoring the baby's development and vitals every day, and have said that everything is perfectly normal at this point. At 23 weeks (roughly 2.5 weeks from now), they will be able to do more tests to see what the brain development is like, to test the possibility of some kind of damage due to potential oxygen deprivation. Since no one knows for sure if there was any oxygen deprivation at all, and since every daily test indicates a healthy pregnancy (and since the woman herself has already had one healthy, normal pregnancy, resulting in the couple's first child), there is nothing to indicate any problem with the developing baby at this time."
If this can be sourced, it ought to go on the front page as it answers/short-cuts a large portion of the discussion.
(2) This whole situation is totally disgusting. Elevating the wishes of a "dead" person over a baby does not fit into my frame of reference at all.
(3) Given the callous disregard of the family for the welfare of the child, I believe that legal action should be taken to make the woman and baby wards of the state and return custody of the dead back to the family when the baby is delivered.
Meade, are you trolling your own post?
"...if my mother had died when I was still an embryo, if I were free to choose, I'd choose to go along with her to heaven."
How many children through teen agers have said the words "I want to die"? We generally don't let them.
Cubabbob, you have misstated my position. I didn't say it would hurt her to be used as an incubator. It's disrespectful to use a dead body in any way that the surrogate, which would be her next of kin and her healthcare POA wants. It's about the rights of the family and the state's ghoulish overstepping of the law as it was intended. She was 14 weeks pregnant when she was found to be brain dead, the custody of her body and that of the unborn baby was then yanked away from her husband by the state. It s legal to have an abortion up to 20 weeks in Texas. Texas took that right way from her surrogate, her POA, her husband, who knew BEST what her wishes were to have been.
You folks like to yell about rights, but you here seem perfectly alright with it being taken away from her husband. I really don't want to have to point out the irony, or should I call it hypocrisy. Small government, but only when it suits me, hmmm?
You folks like to yell about rights, but you here seem perfectly alright with it being taken away from her husband.
That's pretty much your position when it comes to a woman deciding to have an abortion without the father's consent, isn't it?
When a woman is alive she speaks and decides for herself. When she is dead her healthcare POA- next of kin, husband, parent, etc. acts in her behalf. The state doesn't take on the role of next of kin, when there IS one. Do you want the state in that role, really?
If anyone is misinterpreting the law, its the hospital, not the State of Texas.
The state of Texas is sanctioning the hospitals's action, or is it not? Shouldn't the state of Texas step in if this hospital is acting outside the state law? It appears that this hospital may be in for a lawsuit with a potentially HUGE settlement or reward. In the meantime the rights of a grieving family have been usurped.
Inga you fail to see the point and the law. Only the mother can decide to terminate a pregnancy but in this case the mother's choice can't be known. The State of Texas is in the position of not knowing what the mother's choice would have been and even it could it's in no position to act as her surrogate legally. Now if she wasn't pregnant then and if it's ascertained that is in fact brain dead then the State has no interest in maintaining alive a collection of organs so there would be no issue in further keeping those organs alive since without a brain the sum of the parts doesn't equal a person. But that is not the case. Besides the fact that it is unclear whether or not she is in fact brain dead or comatose there is the fact that there is a developing child inside the mother and to say that she is being used as an incubator is not only besides the point-if she is dead she really can't be considered any different than someone else in the same condition who would be considered an organ donor. She is donating her womb to the developing child that she allowed to be conceived and up to this medical catastrophe had not indicated she wanted to abort. Indeed what is a womb but an incubator? If she wasn't in this state and chose to remain pregnant her womb would be an incubator. I fail to see your point. Is it a bit macabre? Yes it is but there is another life at stake so consider extending the life of her organs so the baby can be born a form of triage. Indeed materially speaking if the mother is indeed brain dead today she won't be any more brain dead in six months so all that would happening is the postponement of the funeral and burial by six months. In essence no different than that of a coroner keeping a body in the morgue for six months pending identification and release for burial. At this point in time there is no reason to bury a live and developing child along with her mother.
No Cubanbob, the law is meant for women who are comatose, in a vegetative state, or unconscious, all three of these things happen in LIVE bodies. She is dead.
Her husband, her POA is her surrogate, who knows her wishes better than her husband? It's his right to act in her stead. The hospital or the state does not have the right to take away his POA for his deceased wife.
This should not be his difficult to understand.
When a woman is alive she speaks and decides for herself.
In other words, "you here seem perfectly alright with it being taken away from her husband."
Yes, it's her body to do with as she sees fit, when she is alive. When she is dead she has a POA who speaks in her stead. Simple concepts.The hospital and the state do not have the right to take away the POA from the husband.
We're not talking about material property here. It's a human life. Something you haven't acknowledged once in your arguments. Just tough luck for that human being in there, huh?
Let me put it in terms even a shit-for-brains libtard can understand and appreciate:
"It's. The. Law."
FWIW, this is rare, but not new territory, not new medical or ethical territory:
http://nypost.com/2014/01/04/pregnant-brain-dead-woman-kept-on-life-support/
A 2010 article in the journal BMC Medicine found 30 cases of brain-dead pregnant women over about 30 years. Of 19 reported results, the journal found 12 in which a viable child was born and had post-birth data for two years on only six of them — all of whom developed normally, according to the journal.
Jason, dumbass, it's NOT the law. The doctor who helped write the law specifically stated it was meant for comatose, vegetative state and unconscious women, NOT DEAD.
Such stupidity.
Heyboom,
The father is the POA of the unborn baby. It HIS call as to what happens to it. Not the state or the hospital.
Is she dead, Inga? That's not even established, dummy.
Does the treatment here sustain life? Obviously it does, because if it is withheld, the child would quickly die. That's not even in dispute.
You sure are gung ho to add another corpse to the equation. I guess that's why you leftists are so efficient at creating big piles of skulls and killing fields.
I remember you were gung ho to see Obama's brownshirts round up and jail a filmmaker to appease the howling muzzies.
So take your civil liberties/small government angle and shove it.
Igna. Idiot. The father is the POA of the unborn baby? Show me the signed POA with the baby's signature on it.
Normally, even in the case of a custodial parent, if the state learns that the parent is refusing to feed a child, it will step in and sever the custodial bond in order to save the child's life.
Wow.
Inga really really wants this baby dead.
Astonishing.
Inga: "It HIS call as to what happens to it."
Oh.
Well, since you claim the mom is dead i guess you would be okay with the dad bayoneting the baby.
Or would slow suffocation be more your preference?
Actually I'm sure Inga has some "humanitarian" way in mind to rid the world of this meddlesome baby.
Those of you comparing this to organ donation should recognize that organs can not be harvested unless the next of kin, or the deceased, authorized their use. The state can't just take your heart because it will do someone else some good.
This is government overreach pure and simple. They have ignored the wishes of the actual victims to champion a thing which is not yet a person and never should become one.
Is abortion tragic? Yes. Is this story tragic, yes. But it also is abusive. Don't get so caught up in the emotion about something which is not yet a person that you become cold to the abuse of the actual people whose grieving and emotional well being are being attacked by the hospital and the state.
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