I think it’s something that can’t be dismissed as impossible. Many women do seek to become pregnant with the intent of producing a child. These women are quite happy to be hatcheries. How do we know this isn’t the case here? I see no reason to assume Munoz was not planning to carry her pregnancy through to birth.
If somebody can show clear evidence that Munoz was planning on having an abortion then I’d agree she had made a decision about her pregnancy. But absent such evidence, then deciding to end Munoz’s pregnancy is just as much somebody else making a decision about her body as continuing her pregnancy is.
IANAL, but usually that clause about “… not under this subchapter” means that whatever law would apply in the absence of that subchapter still applies so the hospital and doctors can’t remove the remove life support over the family’s objections but this law in itself doesn’t determine who makes the choice.
And I think bump’s whole point was that this seemed to be a case of incompetence, not malice, and while that’s certainly pittable, it’s not part of the ongoing state-level assault on women’s reproductive freedoms. If that’s true, it’s a silver lining. And I really don’t want to go around lumping this in with things like mandatory ultrasounds if it wasn’t that sort of thing; I don’t want to weaken an argument with an irrelevant example.
Absolutely, I’d want the choice, and I think women should have the choice. I just would feel better about the whole thing if this sentence in the law was because someone said “Hey, wait, the hospital shouldn’t be allowed to pull the plug on a woman if she’s pregnant, even if she’s dead” rather than “Those hussies think that just cuz they are dead we won’t punish their slutty ways? Haha! Make sure there is a law that no dead sluts can go off life support until the wages of sin have finished making the sins of their life manifest!”
It seems pretty clear to me that that is exactly what the sentence means. I’m not sure why people seem to have such a need to be outraged over something. Some kind of mental illness I guess.
So you would rather the state (and State) make the decision but not her next of kin, not her husband?
I simply cannot conceive how anyone would want the default in such situations to be that the state decides (absent a reasonable suspicion of malice on the part of the substitute decision maker or whatever the term is in Texas and the US). Does Texas not subscribe to the concept that when a person is incapacitated, others* (not necessarily declared in advance) may decide for him/her?
(*in Ontario, this is called Power of Attorney for Personal Care. POAs can be designated in advance or, more commonly, spouses, children, etc (there is a hierarchy) can make decisions for personal care, including health and medical, for their spouse, parent, etc. even in the absence of an official prior designation. To my mind this is infinitely better than having the government step in and decide for you.)
By and large, yes. But, as this case demonstrates, Texas suffers a bit of cognitive dissonance when anything that has the slightest whiff of abortion is involved.
Some of the more conservative Texans are of the belief that even the slightest move to legitimize abortion of any sort (even in this case) is anathema. I can’t say for certain in absolute fact, but I’m personally sure that many conservative Texans agree with keeping the woman on life support even if (and for some, especially if) the fetus will be developmentally compromised.
On the other hand, they also don’t believe in much of the way of state support after such a child is born. So, screw them and their beliefs.
Typical. Fucking conservatives always worried about their “precious snowflake” fetuses, each and every one the most important god damned thing in the universe. Back in the good ol’ days when the world was more sane and librul-like, we left our fetuses to fend for themselves, and they learned how to be men, instead of developing into mamby-pamby “wah, nanny government save me from my brain-dead mother” crybabies.
Of course, once it’s born, and it needs state assistance, well, then fuck that baby and it’s use of the socialist medical system.
IOW, I’m appalled that this is even an issue; that a brain dead (read: dead) person could fall under any law that requires the state to keep her alive because she carries a pwecious wittle baby.
What would include “someone else”? If your husband/SO were in this situation and he didn’t want you to end up as a hatchery, would you respect his wishes? Especially if he were to be stuck with six months of hospital life support bills?
The state is not making the decision. And it is not allowing Erick Muniz to make the decision. The state is saying that it is not yet the time for this decision to be made.
Suppose Marlise Munoz was not in a permanent coma. Suppose rather that she was in a coma but doctors could tell that it was a temporary condition and she would wake up and make a full recovery in about a year.
In those circumstances would you allow Marlise Munoz’s family to decide that a year is a long time and they really don’t want to deal with it so they’d rather pull the plug on her and let her die now rather than wait a year for her recovery? I think it’s obvious nobody would be arguing that her husband or parents have the authority to make that kind of decision for her just because she’s in a coma.
The only time the family is asked to make the decision about withdrawing life support is when the condition is hopeless. Prior to that, neither the family nor the state can pull the plug.
Now here’s another hypothetical scenario. Suppose Marlise Muniz was in a temporary coma that was only going to last a few weeks. And her husband Erick wants her to receive full medical care so she wakes up and recovers.
But when the doctors discover Marlise is pregnant (something nobody had known) Erick decides he doesn’t want to have another kid. So he tells the doctors he wants them to perform an abortion on Marlise while she’s in a coma. His justification is she’s in a coma and he’s making the medical decisions on her behalf so he can authorize the abortion just as she could if she were conscious.
Again, I don’t think may people are going to argue that a family member’s authority extends to making decisions like that.
So what the state appears to be saying in this case is that nobody is in a position to make the decision to end Marlise Muniz’s pregnancy. Marlise Muniz is the only person who could make the decision to end her pregnancy and she is in a coma. So absent her consent, the state will allow the pregnancy to continue to its completion. Then when the baby is born, the family can decide if Marlize Muniz’s life support should be continued. And if it turns out the baby’s condition is hopeless and it also cannot live without life support, the family can decide for the baby as well.
You’ve fallen into a very common trap here, which is interpreting “Power of Attorney for Healthcare” or “Healthcare Decision Maker” as “Person who makes the medical decisions *for *a person.” That’s NOT what it is, legally. A POAfH is legally bound to authorize or decline the tests and treatments that, to the best of their knowledge, the patient would have authorized or declined were they able to understand and communicate.
In either of your hypotheticals (which bear little to no resemblance to the issues of the OP), I as an ethical nurse with a strong advocacy for patient autonomy would sit the husband down and explain that, first. Then I’d like to hear what the husband has to say. Did he have a conversation with his wife where she admitted she wasn’t certain she wanted to continue this pregnancy, and that if their lives got more difficult in some way, she’d seek an abortion? Was she on her way to a doctor to discuss abortion options when her accident happened? Does he have any reason to believe that she would request an abortion now, if she were suddenly able to open her eyes and ask for one?
At that point, he’d probably admit that no, he wasn’t thinking about what *she *would want, but he was scared and overwhelmed and then we’d talk more about that and *his *feelings. I’d probably ask the hospital’s medical social worker to stop by and discuss these issues with him more in depth, and find him community and social service support to deal with his grief, with financial issues, with housing arrangements and the other things he needs to help him through this very difficult time.
If he said yes, his wife would want an abortion and he had no doubts about that, then I would page the hospital ethicist for a consultation. If the husband had me convinced that he was advocating for his wife and *her *wishes, then I’d do everything I can to support him and advocate for her getting an abortion, as well.
No one, husband or not, should be able to request an abortion for someone else because *he *wants one. But if he’s requesting it because he knows *she *wants one, that’s a different situation.
While ordinarily I’d be totally on the side of “let the person affected decide” in regards to continuing life support, once you’re brain dead you are dead. We can cut you up for organ donation or use your corpse for research purposes and so forth. When you’re dead you lose the rights you enjoyed as someone alive.
Normally, I’d prefer to abide by the wishes of the deceased in regards to her body, but not when doing so could harm others. If disconnecting her body’s life support machinery would kill a viable fetus then sorry, the body remains hooked up until the baby can be delivered.
So it comes down to what is the condition of the baby? And it looks like we can’t know that, certainly not we sitting here without all the full details.
I think we’re in general agreement. You’ll note that while I discussed some hypothetical scenarios, I then commented that they wouldn’t occur due to issues like you’ve raised.
I think we’re also in agreement that the decision to end a pregnancy is the sole prerogative of the pregnant woman. It’s not a decision that can be delegated to a family member or the government.
Not if the woman is incapable of making that decision, for reasons not limited to but including being dead. Another example would be when the woman is in a coma, and can’t be woken, and there is a choice between the life of the mother or the child.
In either case, the decision must be made by someone else - or else, no decision is taken and both die - and the state needs to be involved in some way, if only to say who makes that decision.
You missed the distinction mentioned earlier. Assuming that we talking about a coma and not brain death, the “decision maker” should really be called the “decision communicator”. Because what he or she is supposed to do is communicate the decision the patient would have made to the medical staff when the patient cannot do so. Not the decision he or she would make, which may be different. It’s not always possible for a third party to tell the difference, but sometimes it is.
I disagree. I believe the pregnant woman is the only person who can decide to end her pregnancy. If she is unable to make that decision, then nobody can make it.
Why is this situation different from any other medical situation where someone else has to make the decision? You would prefer a woman and foetus to die rather than an abortion be performed, if that would save her life?
Except of course, that no one’s corpse can be used for organ donation or for research purposes without prior consent from the deceased or explicit consent from their next of kin.
IIRC, weren’t you adamantly against presumed or opt-out organ donation anyway?
Except the fetus is not viable. The woman was pronounced brain dead when the fetus was 14 weeks. If the fetus was viable they would have immediately delivered it. Instead, the state of Texas is overriding the wishes of the woman’s next of kin (who are authorized to represent her wishes) and reducing the woman to an involuntary biological incubator until the fetus is viable.
We don’t donate peoples bodies or organs against the wishes of the deceased or their next of kin. And thousands of already born people die everyday because of this. If the state can’t mandate organ donation how they can mandate gestation by a dead person’s body?
At least in organ donation, the next of kin isn’t on the hook for medical bills incurred due to the states appropriation of the woman’s body. Not to mention the mental anguish imposed on the family by prolonging this women’s death/funeral or that the family is now forced to assume responsibility for a potentially profoundly disabled child.
I agree with Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University, that "The Texas law in this case “imposes the view of the state on the adult pregnant woman, as to whether or not the fetus counts as a human being.”