Brain-dead but forced to stay 'alive'

Lorraine

In Texas, a brain-dead woman is being kept alive, against her wishes, merely to be an incubator for a 20-week old fetus that she will never hold. Marlise Munoz was brain-dead after collapsing on her kitchen floor from what appeared to be a blood clot in her lungs more than a month ago, 14 weeks into her pregnancy. But as her husband and parents prepared to say good-bye, doctors told them that they were not going to comply with their wishes--and apparently the wishes of Malise herself--because of state law that prohibits cutting off medical support to a pregnant woman.

No matter what.


Texas is one of more than a two dozen states that have such punitive and privately invasive laws on the books, and one of the dozen or so with the most restrictive laws. While some states have allowed more leeway in execution, doctors at the at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth decided to apply the law in the strictest fashion. Consequently, though she was apparently brain-dead when she arrived at the hospital, Marlise was hooked up to machines that are keeping the fetus alive. Her father, Enrest Machado, a former police officer and Air Force veteran, is the most outspoken about this intolerable turn of events: "All she is is a host for the fetus."

AN HOUR WITHOUT BREATHING
Mr. Machado has been told that his daughter may have gone an hour or more without breathing before her husband woke and found her, a situation that may have seriously compromised the health of the fetus. Doctors have told the family that they will make a decision about what to do about the fetus when it is at the 22 or 24 week stage, at which time it might be possible for it to live outside the womb. "That's very frustrating to me, especially when we have no input in the decision-making process," Mr. Machado told The New York Times. "They're prolonging our agony."

I cannot imagine it.

Ms. Munoz and her husband, Erick, have a 15-month old child. Her husband has returned to his job as a firefighter, but continues to sit by his wife's side at the hospital.

On medical ethicist, Katharine Taylor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said that the laws were put into place partly to ease the qualms of those who oppose abortion, and she specifically mentioned the Catholic Church. But to me, educated as a Catholic, these laws appear to be more an appeasement to evangelicals and conservatives who insist that basically any action that results in the termination of a pregnancy is wrong and cannot be tolerated, no matter the thinking of the woman carrying the fetus. Yes, some Catholics surely subscribe to this ideology, yet polls of those who identify as Catholic do not indicate overwhelming support for anti-abortion laws. When I learned about abortion in tenth grade biology class at Sacred Heart High School, I learning that the church did not oppose saving a woman's life--even if it meant a fetus might die in the process. That's a policy that is truly "pro-life," much more in keeping with the spirit of the words: pro-life. At the time, people died when they died, and machines were not available to keep "brain-dead" carcasses going in order to be a host for another being.

What is happening here, in Fort Worth, at John Peter Smith Hospital, is a invasive, ridiculous policy carried to it's idiotic extreme. If she were alive, Ms. Munoz would have the constitutional right to an abortion; because she is brain-dead and cannot speak for herself, she is denied one. This is pro-life?

INVASION OF WOMEN'S PRIVACY AND RIGHT TO CHOOSE
Critics of various laws that, say, offer a way for everybody to have health insurance--okay, insist that they do or be subject to a fine--say that the country is going to way of socialism, that the President is insinuating government in areas where it should not be. They don't want to be told to pay for health insurance, and they want everyone to be able to own automatic ammunition clip that can shoot 15 rounds with one trigger pull. Anything short of that is "interfering." But at the same time, conservative religions have pushed and gotten enacted laws that invade women's bodies and erode a woman's right to choose. Talk about the nanny-state! These laws are it. The horrific story of what is happening to Marlise Munoz is a nightmare. This kind of invasion of our privacy and rights must in the end, die out of its own over-reach.

If you are in a state that has such laws, it is never too late to write to your state representatives and send a copy to your elected officials in Washington. If we don't make our voices heard, no one else will.

We usually focus on issues of adoption at FMF, but occasionally stories hit us in the face that cry out

for commentary. When Jane and I gave up our babies in the sixties, abortion was illegal and extremely difficult to obtain, and we faced enormous societal pressure to relinquish our children. Then abortion became legal, birth control became reliable and convenient, mores changed, and it seemed that women would have choices. Today however, in some states those precious choices which our generation fought for are being eroded faster than the beaches out here on Long Island where I live. This story above is only one example--a horrible interpretation of a law, but still, only one. Without change, others will follow.--lorraine
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SOURCE

Pregnant, and Forced to Stay on Life Support

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