Texas prohibits removing a pregnant woman from life support regardless of the family’s wishes. This week on AC360 Later, I weighed in on the case of Marlise Munoz, who was 14 weeks pregnant when she became brain-dead:
Amanda Marcotte draws a different conclusion:
Marlise Munoz and her husband are just the latest victims caught in the crossfire of abortion politics. Mandating that pregnant women stay on life support regardless of their wishes is a neat and easy way to establish the claim that the state has an interest in fetal life, even at the earliest stages, that overrides a pregnant woman’s basic human rights. After all, brain death during pregnancy is incredibly rare, making these laws more symbolic in nature than pragmatic. If your goal is to legally enshrine the notion that pregnant women are incubators first and humans second, keeping their bodies alive to grow babies long after their minds are gone is a perfect way to do it.
Of course, rare doesn’t mean impossible, as Marlise Munoz’s family is discovering. “All we want is to let her rest, to let her go to sleep,” Munoz’s father, Ernest Machado, told the Dallas Morning News. “What they’re doing serves no purpose.” The family reasonably fears that the loss of oxygen that was enough to destroy Marlise Munoz’s brain probably did serious damage to her fetus. To make it worse, by going public with their story, Munoz’s family is being treated to a heavy dose of vicious anti-choice rhetoric.
Mary Elizabeth Williams feels that the family is being denied their right to grieve:
Munoz’s husband and parents are trying to come to terms with the fact that she’s gone and she’s not returning. That’s a grief that should be respected. That’s a devastating loss for any family, one that’s being viciously prolonged by a state that’s been petulantly dragging it through weeks of torment. Of course Munoz’s family never wanted to lose her or the child they were hoping to welcome in the spring. But true humanity means accepting loss. It means mourning it, not using a dead woman and her fetus as some insane experiment. “It’s not a matter of pro-choice and pro-life,” Munoz’s mother says. “It’s about a matter of our daughter’s wishes not being honored by the state of Texas.”
Tara Culp-Ressler elaborates on the law:
According to a 2012 report from the Center for Women Policy Studies, Texas is one of 12 states that automatically invalidate women’s end-of-life wishes if she is pregnant. Those state laws ensure that “regardless of the progression of the pregnancy, a woman must remain on life-sustaining treatment until she gives birth.” The hospital that is providing care to Munoz has declined to confirm that she’s been pronounced brain dead, saying only that she’s “pregnant and in serious condition” and their employees are fulfilling their legal obligations. “This is not a difficult decision for us. We are following the law,” a spokesperson told the Associated Press.
The Dish 