Posted on 02/09/2015 7:33:09 PM PST by Morgana
AUSTIN — The fight over the death of Marlise Muñoz, the pregnant and brain-dead North Texas woman who was left on life support for two months, appears likely to begin again soon at the Capitol.
A Fort Worth lawmaker is pushing a new state law that would provide representation for fetuses in court hearings — an idea that Muñoz’s family opposes.
A blood clot caused Muñoz, 33, to collapse at her Haltom City home in November 2013. Two scans taken at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth revealed that she was brain-dead. Her family immediately asked the hospital to remove her from life support, as her husband said she would have wanted. Doctors refused, saying that because she was 14 weeks pregnant, state law compelled them to keep her alive.
Her parents and husband recall the “torture” of watching her body deteriorate for two months before a judge ordered the hospital to grant the family’s wishes.
“We felt that they were pushing aside her wishes — pushing aside our wishes — and using Marlise as an experiment, if you will, to see how long the baby could survive,” said her mother, Lynne Machado.
The proposal by Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, would appoint a representative to speak on behalf of the fetus if a pregnant woman is declared brain-dead or otherwise permanently incapacitated. Krause is working with legislative bill-drafters and has yet to introduce a specific measure in the House.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
But what about the added costs of raising the child and the tones of carbon emissions he or she will emit?
Do we really need more useless eaters polluting the environment?
Yrees have standing in court — then a living human being certainly should.
If the woman was on life support (oxygen, and I would suppose some type of parenteral nutrition) then why would her body “deteriorate”?
Maybe she had some muscle constriction, but deterioration?
Brain dead?
Must . . not . . say . . it . . .
Brain dead corpses have been kept on heart/respiratory support before to support the still living baby until it could survive on its own.
In this case, Texas law was already clear. The “family” judge shopped until they found a judge willing to order the body removed from function support while the baby was still alive. As I recall, it took weeks for them to find a judge willing to sentence the baby to die. Another few days, and that baby could have been removed from the body with a good chance to survive.
Her husband clearly wanted the baby dead.
I am not certain how a new law would protect the baby, when it has already happened that a judge was willing to disregard the law that was already in place. Won’t an evil judge like that disregard any other law meant to protect human life?
I suspect that the wishes of the mother were disregarded by the family. Unless she was a heartless creature, I seriously doubt that any woman would not want her baby to survive her under those circumstances.
I went through some pretty harrowing months of gestation and I would do it again to make sure the outcome was a healthy child. I saw a woman on Huckabee the other day that accepted the fact that her pregnancy would rob her of her sight, but would not submit to an abortion that could have saved her eyes.
I really question the motive of the husband. The only thing that I can think of is that he might not have been the father, which is cold, but the alternative is even worse.
The same penalty should be imposed for killing the fetus(baby) as though it was a bald eagle egg....
I must ask- how would giving birth, take the mother’s eyesight?
I only caught the last part of her story, but she apparently had a rare condition develop during gestation that was causing her to go blind. I assume that the doctor had told her that terminating the pregnancy would stop the deterioration of her eyesight.
It must have been an excruciating decision and one that every woman would have to make for herself. I think one must consider other living children and the possibility of needing to become a primary income earner in the future. I would assume that it would be categorized as a medically necessary abortion in the event that abortion becomes restricted by law and should, therefore, be left up to the patient.
She seemed at peace with her decision and was very proud of her daughter whom I believe is now an adult.
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