Breaking News: Judge orders Texas hospital to remove life support from brain-dead pregnant woman.

Fox News ^ | 01-24-2014 | Fox News

[EDINVA]

Breaking News: Judge orders Texas hospital to remove life support from brain-dead pregnant woman.

[skr]

When did trying to save a baby’s life become unimportant? Isn’t ensuring a possibly avoidable death also “playing God”?

[Jrabbit]

Compassion for the baby which is soon to be killed....he/she might not be perfect. Dad has no time for that scenario.

[blu]

Doesn't really matter to some on FR. They believe in playing god, substituting their judgement for the husband's, the court, medical experts, the church and common sense. In their eyes all everyone is a heathen except them. They are enlightened.

Thank you! I didn't quite know how to put into words the feelings I get from reading this thread. 'Twould seem some's "judgment" is more "justified" than others, to themselves at least. I wonder how many actually read the article, instead of just knee-jerkin' it.

[dfwgator]

Knee Jerking on FR?!?!? Naaaah, that never happens.

[blu]

It’s only a “reasoned response” because you agree with it. I have prayers for the baby and the mom, period.

Dear god, how is the air up there? Are you so all-knowing that YOU decide who is worthy of your prayers? Doncha kinda think GOD, you know, the REAL One, the One you pray to, might just encourage you to pray for all that need it? Or are you just so niggardly (oh yes I did!) with your prayers that you save them for only those whom you deem worthy of a little help from God?

[blu]

Please point out the flaws in my reasoning. Thanks!

[blu]

You’re a guy, right?

[MD Expat in PA]

Since she is brain dead, then this isn’t really the termination of “life support” but rather the discontinuation of artificial and prolonged continuation of some of the dead person’s biological functions.

If I understand correctly the Texas law as intended was to prevent a pregnant patient, even if she had written “Advanced Directives” and was deemed to be “terminal” i.e. receiving “futile care” but still medically and legally “alive” from being removed from life support in order for her baby to have a chance to be delivered. But even one of the pro-life attorneys who helped draft this law, did not foresee a situation where the mother is both legally and medically dead.

Thomas Mayo, an associate law professor at Southern Methodist University who helped draft the latest version of the Advanced Directive section of the Texas Health and Safety Code in 1999, said that he does not recall discussing that aspect of the law.

“It never would have occurred to us that anything in the statute applied to anyone who was dead,” Mayo said.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/01/24/5511776/fetus-in-munoz-case-is-not-viable.html

While the spirit of the law has its “heart” in the right place, it seems to be a poorly written law, left open to much interpretation, not for what is says but for what it doesn’t say.

Read it here (and have fun making sense of the legal word salad):

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/HS/htm/HS.166.htm

And note what it says here:

If the above persons are not available, or if I have not designated a spokesperson, I understand that a spokesperson will be chosen for me following standards specified in the laws of Texas. If, in the judgment of my physician, my death is imminent within minutes to hours, even with the use of all available medical treatment provided within the prevailing standard of care, I acknowledge that all treatments may be withheld or removed except those needed to maintain my comfort. I understand that under Texas law this directive has no effect if I have been diagnosed as pregnant. This directive will remain in effect until I revoke it. No other person may do so.

Note that it says nothing about actual death but only “imminent death”.

I would tend to want to err on the side of allowing “life support”, i.e. a continuation of respiration and blood flow for a brain dead pregnant woman for a reasonalble length of time when her baby is viable or very close to viability in order to allow time to perform a c-section and deliver the baby, even if that baby is born premature and with complications and or medical problems or defects. But that is not what is happing here. The baby because of gestating in the body of a dead person, both the mother and the fetus deprived of oxygen for an extended period, is severely malformed and unviable.

In this case the mother died while pregnant at 14 weeks. Fetal viability is at zero for less than 21 weeks. At 25 weeks it is 50/50. Since the mother was deprived of oxygen to the extent that she lost all brain function and is clinically dead, even if the fetus shows some growth and some sort of development, it too is also very likely brain dead or damaged to the extent that no matter how long the mother’s dead body is kept in a state of artificial animation, the baby is, as the judge ruled IMO correctly on consideration of all the medical evidence, not viable, i.e. not able to be born alive now or at any point in the future. To keep the dead mother on artificial life support is only delaying the sad but inevitable outcome.

I am amazed how far medical science and NICU care has come when it comes to the delivery of premature babies. I’ve seen this miracle in my own family when my niece gave birth to triplets at 30 weeks. Although while still not all very premature babies, many today who are born premature at even young as 25 weeks and in very rare cases even at 21 weeks can survive and thrive, but not at 14 weeks.

One has to also consider what happens to a body after brain death, even with continued artificial life support. Without input from the brain, while the heart can be kept beating for weeks, even several months with artificial life support; many other vital organs and their functions stop functioning and start breaking down. A brain dead person kept on life support has to be given hormones and other drugs to replace insulin and regulate body temperature and other very basic biological functions. Digestion and bowel functions cease and the intestines start sloughing off. The kidneys and liver stop functioning. Toxins from the normal, yet because of the artificial life support, somewhat delayed decomposition, permeate and eventually these processes take their toll. The heart even with artificial respiration, in a brain dead person (as opposed to a person in a coma or PVS), will eventually stop. The effect of all that on a developing fetus at such a young and sensitive stage does not bode well.

We have made many scientific and technological advancements in our ability to prolong “life”, much of it good, but I also think that I think sometimes we have lost sight of what “life” is and just because we can prolong life; more exactly to the point, prolong the very natural process of dying, that we should; what we “can” do vs. what we morally and ethically “should” do.

There is no happy ending for the husband and the family of a woman who died in November being kept artificially animated by force of law, a poorly written law BTW IMO that didn’t consider this aspect when drafting and passing it, only to “give” birth to an equally dead baby or one so severely malformed and damaged beyond hope that it only “lives” for a few mere minutes after being ripped from his/her mother’s womb several months later.

In a case like this, it might be the more moral, ethical and merciful thing to do to let the child, a child with no chance of life outside the womb, to die peacefully (or acknowledge that he or she is like his mother, dead but also being kept artificially alive), in his/her mother’s womb. Let the family say their goodbyes and let them bury this poor dead woman and her child and further not prolong their agony.

[Drango]

Reasoned debate and well stated.

Unfortunately there is a wacado cult on FR that believes because you have expressed these views, you are a baby killer. That you advocate murder. You advocate abortion. You are evil. You support the culture of death. You are Satan.

This fringe cult can’t be reasoned with, their false god is whispering in their ear that they are the protectors of the faith and they must demonize you.

[EDINVA]

You’ve articulated with medical expertise my ‘gut’ as posted somewhere @ #177.

[blu]

Very well stated. Thank you.

[Sacajaweau]

He is not. They’re BOTH on the machine.

[MHGinTN]

The gestating child builds its own body for life in the air world. That is why the child was found to be healthy without complications while the mother is brain dead yet her body organs are functioning on life support. The judge ordered the child to be executed, for whatever reason, but mainly to establish the power of the state to disregard the life of anyone the state chooses to dehumanize.

[Gene Eric]

How did they rig the fetus to a machine?

[Jedidah]

What’s the rush? Well, for one thing, her body is decaying. Right there in the hospital bed.

What a grotesque thing for a family to go through.

It would have been so much better if the doomed baby’s heart had stopped beating before the mother’s body was found so the family could have laid them to rest in peace.

[VerySadAmerican]

With modern medicine a person can be kept “alive” indefinitely. The child could be born and immediately put on life support to keep it alive. Again I ask, when is it playing God and when is it getting out of His way? I don’t know the answer.

[trebb]

I am sick over this. I can only pray that this baby is brain dead as well and had no chance anyways. I can only hope God takes it before the hospital is forced to turn off the machines. God help us all!

Man commits atrocities. God commits Love. pray for those who do the evil deeds. Celebrate that the child will be with God without having to be exposed to the cesspool we now wallow in.

[caww]

...” the child was found to be healthy without complications while the mother is brain dead yet her body organs are functioning on life support”....

Perhaps in other cases 'further along in the pregnancy' this could work....but in this case she was just 12-14 weeks into the pregnancy. How can a child not have developmental issues in a toxic environment as the body decomposes and expected to be unaffected?...the womans body isn't providing the environment necessary for the length of time required/needed, even though 'certain body organs" are being sustained.

I think medicine can go too far in giving false hope in some situations...this is one of them IMO

[MHGinTN]

“How can a child not have developmental issues in a toxic environment as the body decomposes and expected to be unaffected?” The oligarchical powers have salted your perspective to such an extent that I will not comment further than the following: the child was at 18 to 20 weeks when the diagnoses of healthy was made.

[Friendofgeorge]

I am simply saying, if there is a chance the baby can be born, even handicapped, then that should be the way to go.

I heard a girl on CNN say (of all places) that baby’s have been born alive from brain dead mothers?