Many readers disagree with my stance on the brain-dead pregnant woman in Texas whose family isn’t able to take her off life support:
I have to say I’m surprised – quite bracingly so – by the opinions you expressed in the AC360 Later clip. After all the great testimonials that you facilitated in your It’s So Personal thread, it would appear that you’ve learned nothing from them. One of the points of those stories, it seems to me, is that the decision to end a pregnancy, sometimes under the most unfortunate circumstances, is not one that ought to be second-guessed by outsiders. You have done that exactly that in your comments, and by doing so have placed your value judgments ahead of that of the family members and the brain-dead woman in question. While what you said may be right for you and your family, it is beyond presumptuous to assert that it is right for their family. I hope that after some reflection, you’ll give a little more deference to their expressed wishes in the future. I’m pretty sure you’d demand it for yourself.
The trouble is: there was no expressed wish for the baby to be aborted in this terribly painful situation. The mother did not express – understandably – any course of action if that were to happen. And the answer to the question – does this unborn child have a chance to be born and have a healthy life? – was unknown to me, even as I tried to find it. And to be precise, I did not stake out a position as such. I didn’t know enough to do that. I simply questioned the assumption that an unborn child was obviously dispensable in a very rare and tragic situation like this one.
I remain very sensitive to the wishes of the family, and deeply skeptical about crude laws that cannot take into account very specific circumstances. I should have expressed more sympathy for the horrible plight the family is in. But I cannot acquiesce in arguments that treat unborn human life as if it has no dignity and no relevance. I believe all human life has dignity and deserves to be weighed in a moral balance in exquisitely difficult circumstances such as this one.
Another reader emphasizes the extreme rarity of the case, adding, “While I understand the high emotions involved, this is precisely the sort of situation in which “‘hard cases make bad law.'” Another dissent:
I’m having a very hard time grasping your point of view as anything but a complete anti-abortion stance. If a woman dies and is survived by her husband, assuming no other person was specifically named by the decedent prior to death, it’s handled like this:
- The husband is the default executor of her estate. Handling of insurance, assets, liabilities, subscriptions, service contracts … everything falls on him.
- The husband is the default recipient of any of the wife’s assets unless specifically given to another.
- The husband is in charge of any outstanding legal affairs.
- The husband is given custody of any children he has fathered.
So if the woman had to right to have an abortion and is now deceased, why do you think it’s OK to prevent that right from passing on to the husband, who is responsible for half of the fetus’s DNA? If her supposed “wishes” in every other legal instance don’t matter and all choices are to be made by her surviving husband, what makes this one different?
That a man can make a woman have an abortion when she hasn’t explicitly consented to one as such? Another has more questions:
Who do you expect to pay for this? The family? The state, since it was mandated by the state? Have you given any thought to the idea that as a result of this, the child, if it lives at all, may be profoundly disabled and require 24/7 care – to be paid for by whom? Why do I or my relatives not deserve state mandated medical care at this level of cost? Is my current “living” life any less important that this extremely “potential” life?
That was a question I didn’t get an answer to in an impromptu conversation. And another:
If the possibility that a brain-dead human can be used to save the life of a fetus, why not forced organ transplants to save the lives of several other people. A heart, two kidneys, two lungs, a liver that could save several … why not?!
If that brain-dead person had consented in advance, no problem at all. The issue here is that the woman had not addressed the central question.
The Dish 