Crobat
#tyrannosaurusREKT
- Joined
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- 2012
'A host for a foetus': Brain dead pregnant woman kept on life support
"The diagnosis was crushing and irrevocable. At 33, Marlise Munoz was brain dead after collapsing on her kitchen floor in November from what appeared to be a blood clot in her lungs.
But as her parents and her husband prepared to say their final goodbyes in the intensive care unit at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, and to honour her wish not to be left on life support, they were stunned when a doctor told them the hospital was not going to comply with their instructions.
Munoz was 14 weeks pregnant, the doctor said, and Texas is one of more than two dozen US states that prohibit, with varying degrees of strictness, medical officials from cutting off life support to a pregnant patient.
More than a month later, Munoz remains connected to life-support machines on the third floor of the ICU, where a medical team monitors the heartbeat of the foetus, now in its 20th week of development.
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Her case has become a strange collision of law, medicine, the ethics of end-of-life care and the issues swirling around abortion - when life begins and how it should be valued.
"It’s not a matter of pro-choice and pro-life," said Munoz’s mother, Lynne Machado, 60. "It’s about a matter of our daughter’s wishes not being honoured by the state of Texas."
Munoz’s father, Ernest Machado, 60, a former police officer and an Air Force veteran, put it even more bluntly.
"All she is, is a host for a foetus," he said on Tuesday. "I get angry with the state. What business did they have delving into these areas? Why are they practicing medicine up in Austin?""
Full Story: 'A host for a foetus': Brain dead pregnant woman kept on life support
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Thoughts?
"The diagnosis was crushing and irrevocable. At 33, Marlise Munoz was brain dead after collapsing on her kitchen floor in November from what appeared to be a blood clot in her lungs.
But as her parents and her husband prepared to say their final goodbyes in the intensive care unit at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, and to honour her wish not to be left on life support, they were stunned when a doctor told them the hospital was not going to comply with their instructions.
Munoz was 14 weeks pregnant, the doctor said, and Texas is one of more than two dozen US states that prohibit, with varying degrees of strictness, medical officials from cutting off life support to a pregnant patient.
More than a month later, Munoz remains connected to life-support machines on the third floor of the ICU, where a medical team monitors the heartbeat of the foetus, now in its 20th week of development.
Advertisement
Her case has become a strange collision of law, medicine, the ethics of end-of-life care and the issues swirling around abortion - when life begins and how it should be valued.
"It’s not a matter of pro-choice and pro-life," said Munoz’s mother, Lynne Machado, 60. "It’s about a matter of our daughter’s wishes not being honoured by the state of Texas."
Munoz’s father, Ernest Machado, 60, a former police officer and an Air Force veteran, put it even more bluntly.
"All she is, is a host for a foetus," he said on Tuesday. "I get angry with the state. What business did they have delving into these areas? Why are they practicing medicine up in Austin?""
Full Story: 'A host for a foetus': Brain dead pregnant woman kept on life support
---------------------
Thoughts?