Redux: Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

[Tiassa]

Articles

It's a contextual thing. We tried a U.S. with an exceptionally weak government, and failed; the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union Between the States proved insufficient to meet the challenges facing the nation at advent.

The only problem we Americans generally have with the word confederation is when it refers to the Southern adventure.

 

[Asguard]

How bizarre. In the USA there's a form on the back of our driver's license (the only document that almost every American has with them almost 100% of the time). We check YES or NO to the question about using our organs to save another person's life.

we have that too but it means nothing legally. All it is is an expression of interest (or lack there of), the decision has to be made by the next of kin and can bare no relationship to what the person has said. Hell you could write specifically in your advanced directives that you do not want to be harvested (that's a legal document which MUST be followed) and your next of kin can still donate your organs because the second your dead you have no control over what happens to your body, its an anomaly in the law that I have more control over what happens to my PS3 after I die than I do my actual body

 

[Bells]

Aaah how could such an event happen to a man??? Men can't get pregnant. The closes thing would be posthumous sperm retrieval and in fact men have questionable to their last will and testament been used to sire children after death, I would say having ones body (or what remains of it) used against the will of some/all family/final wishes/etc for human reproduction is in fact a gender neutral ethical quagmire. The idea that this reveals pro-lifers seeing women as only incubators would only make sense if ALL women were pregnant brain-dead vegetables kept alive by machines in hospitals. If she was alive and mentally sound this would be a standard abortion debate of her rights verse the supposed rights of the fetus, but because she is brain-dead the dynamics are very different on account her husk does not have the rights of a women. In this cause we need to ask what rights does a fetus have PERIOD, and do these rights override the rights we grant a brain-dead husk that once was a women?

When the State enacts laws that specifically set women aside and says that if you are pregnant, they will take control of your body and keep you on life support against your wishes, until they can cut the foetus out, you don't see that as seeing women only for their wombs or even remotely sexist? This has become an abortion debate because if they turn off her life support, and allow her to die with dignity, the foetus would die. So because she is unable to exercise her rights, the State deems it acceptable to keep her alive even against her wishes and that of her family's, to not abort the foetus. She could have been 4 weeks pregnant and the result would have been the same.

Did she specify in her will to be terminated even if her brain-dead body was pregnant?

She never had a chance to sign it. Instead, she had told her family of her wishes and they knew what she wanted in such an event in explicit terms.

And even if she had specified it in her will, it would not have mattered. Because the way the law is written, if she is pregnant, then even her living will would be deemed null and void. Her wishes and her will would be disregarded.

I would go further and ask what right do family members have to take my sperm, they can just claim I wanted to give it? What if in this case the husband said keep her alive, sure she wanted to be unplugged if brain dead, but we want the baby, would you still be upset? Of course sperm retrieval for a man only takes a few minutes and then the man can be unplugged, the women has to go through pregnancy before she can be unplugged.

Yes and no. If her express wishes had been to turn off the life support, I don't think anyone should ignore and disregard it. Certainly not to keep her alive for up to 26 weeks because there might be a baby in there. And I say might because the only thing they know is that there is a foetal heartbeat. They do know the foetus was without oxygen for a fairly long time at 14 weeks and they also know she was shocked several times to start her heart and also given numerous drugs in the process. So all of this would have gone straight to the foetus as well and when they realised she was pregnant, and detected the heartbeat, that was it for her. She and her husband and parents lost all of their rights regarding her wishes.

Now the hospital have informed her husband and her parents that not only will they keep her on life support until she reaches the point of viability, which is 24 weeks, which one would have assumed they would perform a c-section, but no. They have also informed the family that this nightmare could go on because they will determine whether they can keep her on life support until she reaches 40 weeks, which means full term. And the family have no say in the matter.

They do not know if the foetus is brain dead or not or what issues there may be, because the hospital is refusing to tell them anything. All the family know is that there is a foetal heartbeat, because that is all the hospital is willing to tell them. And because the mother is on life support, then what is keeping the mother's heart beating is also probably keeping the foetus' heart beating.

So the family have an agonising wait for weeks and weeks, possibly until she reaches full term and quite literally at the whim of the hospital and its use of her body as an incubator, until the hospital decide to take the foetus out and they do not know if the foetus is brain dead or not or whether it will even survive outside of the womb, because it was without oxygen for such a long time, possibly up to an hour.

Without your failing attempts to play devil's advocate, is this acceptable to you? How would you feel if this was your wife?

I pretty sure I would not feel anything if I was brain-dead, so my answer would be that I would feel nothing.

That is not what I meant and you know it.

Again considering Texas does not have any laws against posthumous sperm retrieval, this may in fact be a gender neutral problem. And again what right does one have after they become a brain-dead husk?

Texas does have a specific exclusion in the law that states that if a woman is pregnant, then she is not to be removed from life support and her wishes, living will, power of attorney, her family have no say in the matter. In other words, if a woman is pregnant and becomes brain dead, the hospital, by law, has the right to take custody of her body and her womb for as long as they see fit and until they decide to remove the foetus, from between 24 weeks or until 40 weeks. The hospital decides. And the State specifically allows this.

And this is the problem we come to if we don't decide on the personhood, or lack of, of the fetus and to specific degree. What rights does the fetus have? What rights does a brain dead husk have? Men don't have a womb so this problem is as a matter of biological technicality beyond them, not a legal technicality, just as women don't have sperm and can't be used to sire children long after they are dead.

There is no law stating that you must be kept alive to sire children. There is a law that states that if a woman is pregnant, then she must be kept alive regardless of her wishes and thus, the State and the hospital take over the control of her body and her wishes and living will or that of her family are wholly disregarded and they will keep her alive until they decide to remove the foetus. You, as a man, would be allowed to die with dignity. A woman has a clause that says she can only be allowed to die with dignity if she is not pregnant.

I get that you say 'she's just a dead husk, what does it matter', but all she is wanted for, by the hospital is for her womb.

Erick found Marlise at home Nov. 26. He performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and called for an ambulance, and Marlise was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.

Electric shocks and drugs started her heart again and it continued beating with mechanical support, but her brain waves were completely flat. She had gone without breathing for too long to ever recover.

But when the heartbroken family was ready to say goodbye, hospital officials said they could not legally disconnect Marlise from life support. At the time she collapsed, she was 14 weeks’ pregnant.

And because doctors could still detect a fetal heartbeat, state law says Marlise Munoz’s body -- against her own and her family’s wishes -- must be maintained as an unwilling incubator.

“That poor fetus had the same lack of oxygen, the same electric shocks, the same chemicals that got her heart going again,” Machado said. “For all we know, it’s in the same condition that Marlise is in.”
​

The people who helped draft the law have stated that it was never intended to apply to brain dead patients. Her husband and family have filed a suit, to have her removed off life support. The hospital has responded by hiring a very prominent pro-life and anti-choice lawyer. This has become an abortion issue. The family, for their grief and pain, are now being accused of wanting to murder her and her baby.

Some of the posted comments were vicious, accusing Erick Munoz -- a grief-stricken father and husband -- of wanting to “pull the plug” and “get rid” of his wife and baby.

Others -- strangers who don’t know these people -- claim Marlise “might wake up” or cling to slim odds that the oxygen-deprived fetus might be miraculously healthy.​

A visit to a pro-life site shows how they are already circling the wagons.. And pro-choice groups are petitioning the Government to adhere to the mother's wishes and that of her husband and parents. Pro-life groups are being a bit more aggressive about it.. With many now staying outside the hospital and holding placards:

Meanwhile, pro-life activists held a vigil outside the hospital Sunday in support of the Munozes’ baby.

“We must save this baby. It is a person, guaranteed protection under the constitution,” said Pastor Stephen Broden, who led a prayer vigil outside the hospital Sunday. “There is an alternative for the family. There are families willing to take the baby and provide a safe place for it to grow in a loving environment. If we err, we should err on the side of life.”

“We feel great compassion for the family of Marlise Munoz and her pre-born baby,” Troy Newman of Operation Rescue said in a statement prior to the prayer vigil. “No one ever wants to be in their difficult and tragic situation. Marlise wanted this baby, and as long as there is a chance that he or she can be saved, we support John Peter Smith Hospital in their bid to follow the law and protect this baby's life.”

Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, told LifeSiteNews that the case “highlights the basic principle that while the vast majority of the time, the attending physician and the hospital should follow the wishes of the family in cases when a patient is not responsive, there are cases where the physician and the hospital are not legally or morally obligated to follow the wishes of the family, when it’s not in the best interest of the patient to do that.”

Said Pojman, “Here’s a case where the family apparently wants the hospital and the attending physicians to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment for this woman, and we don’t think that the law should require that the hospital or the physician carry out those wishes, because there is a second patient, the unborn child, whose life should be protected.”
​

Don't you just love the implication that the father does not want the baby but they will happily take it and place it in a good home where it will be loved?

Comments from the peanut gallery is even worse. As icelines1 comments:

After the baby is born, they should definitely assign a guardian. If the dad wants him/her dead now, it wouldn't make sense to allow the child to be in his care. He has let the world know his intentions for the babe.
We wouldn't want to force an "unwanted" (by him) child on the parent.​

No, really.. Really?

The hospital have retained the services of a pro-life lawyer, who worked very hard to end legal abortions in the state. Hmm.. Funny that, eh? And as legal experts and the drafters of the law have stated, the hospital is applying the obscure law incorrectly and it was never intended to apply to brain dead patients.

But here we are. Personhood:

One problem with the use of neomorts is the cost of maintaining each body for long periods of time. The costs 25 years ago were reported to be about $3,500 per day in one pregnancy case. The cost of maintaining the 13-year old brain dead girl from Oakland is reported to be $7,500 per day, and that case did not have the complication of pregnancy. However, after three weeks, the girl’s body is reported to have begun deteriorating as her brain has started liquifying. Without insurance to pay the cost (insurance pays only for medical treatment, not thoughtless state laws), who would pay? Undoubtedly, if the family can’t pay the costs, the health care system and other rate-payers will bear the costs through higher premiums to make up the losses incurred by hospitals and other care facilities.

Maintaining neomorts for whatever purpose – in this case, to bring a fetus to term or near-term – is immensely more complicated than the news articles have suggested, raising ethical, moral, legal, financial, religious, medical, personal, familial, and public policy questions that have no simple answers in spite of our desires to make them simple. Without question, to use a body as a neomort would require the advance consent of the person whose body is used in this way and/or the consent of the next of kin. But this is not the case with the body of Marlise Munoz.

Now, the so-called right-to-life community has joined in to make the Munoz family’s tragedy even worse by holding a rally outside the hospital where the body of Marlise Munoz incubates the fetus. News reports continue to claim, erroneously, that Marlise Munoz is “being kept alive” (see the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 12), while the newspaper reports that signs at the rally refer to the fetus as a baby. The ralliers claim to be praying for “Baby Munoz” apparently based on their religious belief that there is a supernatural God that will save the fetus if they pray to that God. I guess they don’t think that their God, who is supposed to be all-knowing, is already aware of this tragedy.

The Star-Telegram also reports that Pastor Stephen Broden, of Fair Park Bible Fellowship Church in Dallas, said, “We must save this baby. It is a person, guaranteed protection under the Constitution.” He doesn’t say where in the Constitution that fetuses are declared persons and afforded the protection of that document and our laws.

But it is the Roman Catholic Church that has been most responsible for assuring that the Texas Legislature passes laws that follow its church doctrine, rather than medical science. The last major revision of the Directive to Physicians law in Texas was lobbied heavily by the church. In fact, nothing could be passed through the Legislature without the church’s blessing. When public policy is made on the basis of church doctrine, rather than science and reasoning, tragedies such as the one inflicting great grief on the Munoz family will persist.

A recent example of the danger of basing public policy on church doctrine is found in the way a Catholic hospital treated (or failed to treat) a pregnant woman in medical distress. In December 2010, Tamesha Means was rushed to the only hospital in her county in Michigan – a Catholic hospital – when her water broke after 18 weeks of pregnancy. Because of directives written by the United States Conference of Bishops, the hospital sent her home, though she was in excruciating pain and was at risk of serious harm to her health. This happened a second time.

On her third trip to the hospital she was in “extreme distress and with an infection,” according to a lawsuit filed last month on her behalf. The hospital, nevertheless, was preparing to discharge her when she began to deliver the fetus. Only after the miscarriage did the Mercy Health Partners hospital provide appropriate medical care. Hospital personnel told Tamesha Means that she was treated the way she was because of the hospital’s Catholic affiliation and the binding directives issued by the bishops. In a non-Catholic hospital, Means would have been told on her first visit that terminating her pregnancy was the safest medical course of action for someone in her condition.

​

Meanwhile, her family could have opted to donate her organs, which would have saved countless of lives. Instead.... So much for right to life, huh? If "saving baby Munoz" means that 5+ other people get to die, then that is apparently a good thing.

 

[ElectricFetus]

When the State enacts laws that specifically set women aside and says that if you are pregnant, they will take control of your body and keep you on life support against your wishes

Wait a minute is Marlise a women or a corpse? Her family claims she a corpse and thus the state law is invalid as it covers living people. Also we don't know what her wishes are to this specific situation: would she have wanted to be kept alive long enough for the fetus to be determined viable or not, and even born?

until they can cut the foetus out, you don't see that as seeing women only for their wombs or even remotely sexist?

No I don't, because women are ALIVE, thinking beings (except perhaps Sarah Palin). Marlise is not a women, not anymore, so there is leeway for her not to have a right to be terminated immediately, despite what her family claims she wanted (or will and testament) over her fetuses which arguable might be more alive then she is at this point.

This has become an abortion debate because if they turn off her life support, and allow her to die with dignity, the foetus would die. So because she is unable to exercise her rights, the State deems it acceptable to keep her alive even against her wishes and that of her family's, to not abort the foetus. She could have been 4 weeks pregnant and the result would have been the same.

Question: what the difference to her if she is terminated now or say 2 months from now? And again what rights does she have now that she is a corpse? Does a corpse have a right to an abortion? Imagine if say you were her but in a stated not a god fearing conservative bible thumping as Texas, and you really would have wanted your child to survive, but instead other people, get to decide to "abort" your baby? You were saying abortion is a matter of choice, first of all she no longer capable of making choices, and second of all we really don't know what she would have chosen per this case.

She never had a chance to sign it. Instead, she had told her family of her wishes and they knew what she wanted in such an event in explicit terms.

So she said to her family something along the lines of "If I become brain dead, kill me and the baby growing inside me!"?

And even if she had specified it in her will, it would not have mattered. Because the way the law is written, if she is pregnant, then even her living will would be deemed null and void. Her wishes and her will would be disregarded.

Yeah its dickish but the pro-lifers found a legal oddity they could take advantage of: corpses just don't have the rights that living people have.

Yes and no. If her express wishes had been to turn off the life support, I don't think anyone should ignore and disregard it. Certainly not to keep her alive for up to 26 weeks because there might be a baby in there.

But was her express wish to be terminated, even if pregnant?

And I say might because the only thing they know is that there is a foetal heartbeat. They do know the foetus was without oxygen for a fairly long time at 14 weeks and they also know she was shocked several times to start her heart and also given numerous drugs in the process.

I would like to see citations on from a doctor, if her whole body had been hypoxic for an hour it fucking amazing that the fetus is still alive. I'm also wondering if the doctors will have the right at 24 months to determine the fetus's viability and terminate it if it turns out the fetus is brain dead.

So all of this would have gone straight to the foetus as well and when they realised she was pregnant, and detected the heartbeat, that was it for her. She and her husband and parents lost all of their rights regarding her wishes.

Again all we have is heresay on what her wishes were, and again she not a person anymore with the rights of a person.

They do not know if the foetus is brain dead or not or what issues there may be, because the hospital is refusing to tell them anything. All the family know is that there is a foetal heartbeat, because that is all the hospital is willing to tell them. And because the mother is on life support,

Is the family really cut off completely? What is the hospital planning on doing with the fetus if it is born, instant orphan? Wait a minute who is being billed for all this???

then what is keeping the mother's heart beating is also probably keeping the foetus' heart beating.

I really don't think it works like that, can you cite what machine they would have her on that keeps her heart beating as well as that of a fetus? Generally the heart beats regardless if the brain is alive or dead, as long as it has enough oxygen to beat (breathing though is directly controlled by the brain.

Without your failing attempts to play devil's advocate, is this acceptable to you? How would you feel if this was your wife?

Well if that was my wife, first off she dead, that corpse in the hospital is not her, second off I would be asking "Can the baby be saved?" cause if I was married I would probably be a breeder and breeder give a shit about that sort of stuff, I honestly can'tunderstand why the family is so set on terminating her regardless if the fetus turns out viable or not... except if they are being billed daily, then in their shoes I would be absolutely livid!

That is not what I meant and you know it.

Aaah no, what did you mean? because honestly I don't really care what is done with me after I die, you could pee on my corpse for all I give a dam, and that now, while and alive, once I'm dead I'm sure I will care even less!

Texas does have a specific exclusion in the law that states that if a woman is pregnant, then she is not to be removed from life support and her wishes, living will, power of attorney, her family have no say in the matter. In other words, if a woman is pregnant and becomes brain dead, the hospital, by law, has the right to take custody of her body and her womb for as long as they see fit and until they decide to remove the foetus, from between 24 weeks or until 40 weeks. The hospital decides. And the State specifically allows this.

Again I agree that a dick move, but ethically it much more of a grey area then abortions. Again a corpse does not have rights of a person, and it can be argued that a fetus has more rights then a corpse. Likewise if say I was to be brain-dead and they wanted to salvage my organs at an appropriate time for all the recipients (take there time, find compatible recipients, etc, etc) is it wrong of them to terminate me at the best time for donations rather then per my specific wishes of being terminated immediately? I guess its a little but then ~6 people get to live when they would have died, so fuck it.

There is no law stating that you must be kept alive to sire children. There is a law that states that if a woman is pregnant, then she must be kept alive regardless of her wishes and thus, the State and the hospital take over the control of her body and her wishes and living will or that of her family are wholly disregarded and they will keep her alive until they decide to remove the foetus. You, as a man, would be allowed to die with dignity. A woman has a clause that says she can only be allowed to die with dignity if she is not pregnant.

There is always some unfairness in the world: men can't grow babies, sucks doesn't it (a man will never know the joy of gestation or being in labor wishing to die from the mind destroying pain)? If a man could be brain-dead and pregnant I would be fine not terminated him until the baby is born (if not for the baby but to study what the hell is happening!). Also the whole question of dying with dignity bother me though: what is it less dignified to die several months from now, if in both cases of dying now or then, you die as a vegetable?

I get that you say 'she's just a dead husk, what does it matter', but all she is wanted for, by the hospital is for her womb.

More precisely for the fetus, or else hospitals could knock up PVS as surrogate mothers all the time! Remember the fetus might actually have some rights. Not enough to prevent being aborted by a living women, but perhaps enough that family members of the husk the fetus grows in do not have the right to kill it. An another thing I have a suspicion the hospital is making a killing by billing the family for all this intensive care they don't want, so money may actually be a hidden player in all this.

“We must save this baby. It is a person, guaranteed protection under the constitution,” said Pastor Stephen Broden, who led a prayer vigil outside the hospital Sunday. “There is an alternative for the family. There are families willing to take the baby and provide a safe place for it to grow in a loving environment. If we err, we should err on the side of life.”

God what a horrible and misogynistic thing to say, god what hate fills these peoples hearts!

“We feel great compassion for the family of Marlise Munoz and her pre-born baby,”

Ok I laughed at the "pre-born baby" part.

Don't you just love the implication that the father does not want the baby but they will happily take it and place it in a good home where it will be loved?

not really no, what exactly is the implication? All I can conjure up are vindictive-spiteful things.

Now, the so-called right-to-life community has joined in to make the Munoz family’s tragedy even worse by holding a rally outside the hospital where the body of Marlise Munoz incubates the fetus. News reports continue to claim, erroneously, that Marlise Munoz is “being kept alive” (see the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 12), while the newspaper reports that signs at the rally refer to the fetus as a baby. The ralliers claim to be praying for “Baby Munoz” apparently based on their religious belief that there is a supernatural God that will save the fetus if they pray to that God. I guess they don’t think that their God, who is supposed to be all-knowing, is already aware of this tragedy.

Look you know me, I'm only walking the fence on this because to me its right smack in ethical grey: 'Does a fetus have more rights then a corpse?' Now just because a lot of other people really want the fetus saved (and not simply worth considering saving) and that these people happen to be really really stupid, does not change my ethics in the smallest. In short: Hitler was a vegetarianism does not make me want the eat meat.

The Star-Telegram also reports that Pastor Stephen Broden, of Fair Park Bible Fellowship Church in Dallas, said, “We must save this baby. It is a person, guaranteed protection under the Constitution.” He doesn’t say where in the Constitution that fetuses are declared persons and afforded the protection of that document and our laws.

Oh but the constitution does say "The dead shelt not be kept in a state of neither life nor death so that thine baby-likeness that growith inside might be brought to the world whole'

Meanwhile, her family could have opted to donate her organs, which would have saved countless of lives. Instead.... So much for right to life, huh? If "saving baby Munoz" means that 5+ other people get to die, then that is apparently a good thing.

And why can't they donate her organs after growing the baby to term?

 

[Bells]

Wait a minute is Marlise a women or a corpse? Her family claims she a corpse and thus the state law is invalid as it covers living people. Also we don't know what her wishes are to this specific situation: would she have wanted to be kept alive long enough for the fetus to be determined viable or not, and even born?

Well at the moment she is solely an incubator.

And I think her parents and her husband would know what her wishes would have been and not strangers and bureaucrats.

No I don't, because women are ALIVE, thinking beings (except perhaps Sarah Palin). Marlise is not a women, not anymore, so there is leeway for her not to have a right to be terminated immediately, despite what her family claims she wanted (or will and testament) over her fetuses which arguable might be more alive then she is at this point.

As I said, Marlise is merely a uterus at the moment. Kept on life support so the hospital can use her uterus for her then 14 week old foetus which may or may not be brain dead. All they know is that the foetus has a heartbeat, which it could very well have for the same reason she currently has a heartbeat.

Question: what the difference to her if she is terminated now or say 2 months from now? And again what rights does she have now that she is a corpse? Does a corpse have a right to an abortion? Imagine if say you were her but in a stated not a god fearing conservative bible thumping as Texas, and you really would have wanted your child to survive, but instead other people, get to decide to "abort" your baby? You were saying abortion is a matter of choice, first of all she no longer capable of making choices, and second of all we really don't know what she would have chosen per this case.

There is a reason why there are laws which make tampering with a corpse illegal.

Her family have a right to have her body treated with respect and with dignity.

Annas agreed, "Extraordinary means to preserve the life of a nonviable fetus against the wishes of the family should probably never be used, at least not longer than a few days, and then only if a healthy infant is the probable result."

"The issue is much more difficult when the pregnant woman is dead, because the dead have no constitutional rights and no claim to liberty or autonomy. They do, however, have a "right" to have their dead bodies treated with respect, and this, I think, should limit the time that physicians can use their dead body against their likely wishes," Annas said.​

It's why people don't strap their dead grannies to the hood of the car to dump her in a hole dug up at the end of the road.

So she said to her family something along the lines of "If I become brain dead, kill me and the baby growing inside me!"?

Do you claim to know more than her parents and her husband?

Do you think complete strangers in the hospital would know her wishes more than her parents or her husband?

Yeah its dickish but the pro-lifers found a legal oddity they could take advantage of: corpses just don't have the rights that living people have.

Indeed.

Pro-lifers have found a way to forcibly insert themselves into the wombs of corpses. Comforting, isn't it?

Now we know, if you are a woman of child bearing age, get the fuck out of Texas and the 30 or so other states in the US, because the moment you become pregnant, if you fall ill, they will not only not treat you to save the child, but if you lapse into brain death and die, they will keep you going as long as they see fit as an incubator.

But was her express wish to be terminated, even if pregnant?

Do you think her parents and her husband would know the answer to that better than the State?

I would like to see citations on from a doctor, if her whole body had been hypoxic for an hour it fucking amazing that the fetus is still alive. I'm also wondering if the doctors will have the right at 24 months to determine the fetus's viability and terminate it if it turns out the fetus is brain dead.

As long as there is a foetal heartbeat, they will not terminate. Didn't you read the links I provided previously? They (pro-life hospitals) won't treat women who are miscarrying or suffering from an ectopic pregnancy if there is a foetal heartbeat, you really think they are going to terminate it if it is not viable at 24 weeks? They have already informed the family at 14 weeks that they would keep her going for 10 weeks and access whether they need to remove it, and if they do not, then they can keep going until she is at full term or as close to as they can get.

They don't give a shit about viability.

The foetus was not viable at 14 weeks when she died.

All they need is a foetal heartbeat. Viability means diddly squat to pro-lifers.

Again all we have is heresay on what her wishes were, and again she not a person anymore with the rights of a person.

All we have are the only people who should be making this decision being told tough luck, their rights do not matter at all.

Is the family really cut off completely? What is the hospital planning on doing with the fetus if it is born, instant orphan? Wait a minute who is being billed for all this???

The doctors have informed the family that all they know and all they need to keep her on the machine is a foetal heartbeat.

The father had stated that he does not know what will happen when it is born and that he will have to find a way to care for it depending on its needs, if it manages to survive at all.

The bill? Well it depends on her insurance coverage.

Powell suggested that the cost the family will have to shoulder will depend on their coverage. "In the worst case scenario, the family gets hit with the maximum out-of-pocket," he said. It's unclear how much that would be, but it's very unlikely they would face more than a fraction of the total cost. Insurance coverage for a woman that has been declared brain dead is a gray area, Powell said.​

So her insurers can turn around and say that because she is brain dead, then the moment she died is when their medical coverage ended.

I really don't think it works like that, can you cite what machine they would have her on that keeps her heart beating as well as that of a fetus? Generally the heart beats regardless if the brain is alive or dead, as long as it has enough oxygen to beat (breathing though is directly controlled by the brain.

Can you please provide evidence of your medical expertise and experience in dealing with life support machines?

Or is this you just failing at 'devil's advocate' again?

If you wish to know what machine is being used, can I suggest you call the hospital?

What happens if they turn off the machine?

Well if that was my wife, first off she dead, that corpse in the hospital is not her, second off I would be asking "Can the baby be saved?" cause if I was married I would probably be a breeder and breeder give a shit about that sort of stuff, I honestly can'tunderstand why the family is so set on terminating her regardless if the fetus turns out viable or not... except if they are being billed daily, then in their shoes I would be absolutely livid!

You don't think the family considered all of this?

I mean sure, you would never take your wife's wishes into consideration and that is your choice. But Munoz is taking his wife's wishes into consideration and doesn't view her as just a womb or a "breeder". Strange, I know.

Aaah no, what did you mean? because honestly I don't really care what is done with me after I die, you could pee on my corpse for all I give a dam, and that now, while and alive, once I'm dead I'm sure I will care even less!

I am sure you can tell your loved one's that they can pee on your corpse when you die.

She told them she did not want to remain on life support. That was her choice. Just as it is your choice to not care if you are forced to remain on life support because the State wants you to stay there for their religious reasons.

Again I agree that a dick move, but ethically it much more of a grey area then abortions. Again a corpse does not have rights of a person, and it can be argued that a fetus has more rights then a corpse. Likewise if say I was to be brain-dead and they wanted to salvage my organs at an appropriate time for all the recipients (take there time, find compatible recipients, etc, etc) is it wrong of them to terminate me at the best time for donations rather then per my specific wishes of being terminated immediately? I guess its a little but then ~6 people get to live when they would have died, so fuck it.

If you died tomorrow and you had left no instructions, no one would be allowed to remove your organs without your consent or that of your loved one's. It would be deemed illegal.

But if you are a woman in Texas and you happen to be pregnant when your heart stops, then the State takes ownership of your womb and your husband and family no longer have a say, regardless of what your express wishes happened to be.

Humans are strange. We tend to treat our dead with respect. It is why we have such extensive laws to make sure that corpses are not tampered with and also to prevent anyone from defiling a corpse and it is why a man cannot fuck his dead wife because he is horny and she was there.

She could have been 2 weeks pregnant or she could have died at the moment of conception. From that moment of conception, the law states that that fertilised egg has more rights than she or her spouse or family do.

You can say that they have 10 minutes to remove your organs, as a male, and not pregnant, your wishes would be adhered to and if they cannot remove them, then you would be buried with them. No questions asked. If you were a woman and you had a directive, if you are pregnant, your directive would be thrown in the bin or used to wiped the arse of the doctors treating you, because it would be worth that much.

There is always some unfairness in the world: men can't grow babies, sucks doesn't it (a man will never know the joy of gestation or being in labor wishing to die from the mind destroying pain)? If a man could be brain-dead and pregnant I would be fine not terminated him until the baby is born (if not for the baby but to study what the hell is happening!). Also the whole question of dying with dignity bother me though: what is it less dignified to die several months from now, if in both cases of dying now or then, you die as a vegetable?

You tell me, would you like to keep your loved one on a machine against their wishes, as their organs struggle to cope with the vast amounts of drugs and hormones being injected into them to prevent them from decomposing and failing, because their womb has something you might be able to salvage in a few months time?

More precisely for the fetus, or else hospitals could knock up PVS as surrogate mothers all the time! Remember the fetus might actually have some rights. Not enough to prevent being aborted by a living women, but perhaps enough that family members of the husk the fetus grows in do not have the right to kill it. An another thing I have a suspicion the hospital is making a killing by billing the family for all this intensive care they don't want, so money may actually be a hidden player in all this.

Lovely.

You know, it's people like you that make me despair the state of the world and actually make me not want to ever log into this site again.

God what a horrible and misogynistic thing to say, god what hate fills these peoples hearts!

Well think about it. Say your breeder is being kept on life support against your wishes and you are then told that you are nothing but a wannabe murderer and a bad father. I mean sure, you could be counting the dollars, but most people would find that offensive.

Look you know me, I'm only walking the fence on this because to me its right smack in ethical grey: 'Does a fetus have more rights then a corpse?' Now just because a lot of other people really want the fetus saved (and not simply worth considering saving) and that these people happen to be really really stupid, does not change my ethics in the smallest. In short: Hitler was a vegetarianism does not make me want the eat meat.

You're not walking on the fence.

Contrary to what you may believe, we aren't stupid.

You are like a child, saying the most offensive things just to see what reaction you get.

And why can't they donate her organs after growing the baby to term?

Infection. When you are brain dead and on life support, you have numerous tubes going into you. You are also injected with a variety of drugs and hormones to stop your organs from failing, because your brain is no longer producing the chemicals and hormones your body needs to survive. The risk of infection becomes quite high and gets higher the longer you are kept on life support.

Kenneth Goodman, director of the Bioethics Program at the University of Miami, stressed that such functions do not mean the person is alive. "If you're brain-dead, you're dead, but [with technology], we can make the body do some of the things it used to do when you were alive," Goodman said.

Without the brain, the body does not secrete important hormones needed to keep biological processes — including gastric, kidney and immune functions — running for periods longer than about a week. For example, thyroid hormone is important for regulating body metabolism, and vasopressin is needed for the kidneys to retain water.

Normal blood pressure, which is also critical for bodily functions, often cannot be maintained without blood-pressure medications in a brain-dead person, Greene-Chandos said.

A brain-dead person also cannot maintain his or her own body temperature, so the body is kept warm with blankets, a high room temperature and, sometimes, warm IV fluids, Greene-Chandos said.

The body of a brain-dead person is usually not supported for very long, Greene-Chandos said. Doctors sometimes provide support (in the form of a ventilator, hormones, fluids, etc.) for several days if the organs will be used for donation, or if the family needs more time to say good-bye, Greene-Chandos said.

---

Today, with ventilators, blood-pressure augmentation and hormones, the body of a brain-dead person could, in theory, be kept functioning for a long time, perhaps indefinitely, Greene-Chandos said. But with time, Greene-Chandos added, the body of a brain-dead person becomes increasingly difficult to maintain, and the tissue is at high risk for infection.
​

If you want a perfect example of why long term life support for brain dead people means you cannot donate their organs, you only have to look at the case of Jahi McMath:

However, the extent of her body's deterioration was detailed in a court filing last week by Heidi R. Flori, a critical care pediatrician at Children's Hospital. In the filing, Flori wrote that tissues under her skin were losing their elasticity, her muscles were contracting and blankets were needed to keep her at a constant temperature.

"This deterioration became inevitable the moment she died," Flori wrote. "Additional and more dramatic signs of the body's deterioration will continue to manifest over time, regardless of any procedures and regardless of any heroic measures that any facility might attempt." ​

This is about a month after she became brain dead.

 

[Asguard]

There was an ABC radio interview about 6 months ago on the meaning of death and one of the things they discussed was the case of a young brain dead child who was kept alive into his 20s or even latter and who even went through puberty while brain dead. His immune system needed to be supplemented with antibiotics but his organs were alive and so I am sure they were viable. Actually that case was a far bigger waste of resources than this one is because there actually is a chance of a life coming out of THIS case where as that one the only benefit was in for researchers to see what functions don't need the brain but the reason this body was kept "alive" was simply because his parents wouldn't let go. Which is really the more horrific case?

Oh and BTW your jumping up and down about her being "just a uterus". So what? if she was harvested for organ donation she would be "just some skin", "just a couple of corneas", "just a heart", "just some lungs", "just a pair of kidneys", "just a liver", "just some bone" and then the off cuts will be "just some medical waste" and the bits returned to the family will be "just ashes"

 

[Tiassa]

Spirit: Life, Death, America ... Texas

Oh and BTW your jumping up and down about her being "just a uterus". So what? if she was harvested for organ donation she would be "just some skin", "just a couple of corneas", "just a heart", "just some lungs", "just a pair of kidneys", "just a liver", "just some bone" and then the off cuts will be "just some medical waste" and the bits returned to the family will be "just ashes"

Part of it is simply the spirit of the thing. The hospital is reading the law wrong, has hired an attorney prominent for his politics, and put someone else's morals above the law.

If this was Mrs. Munoz's wish, that would be one thing. If this fetus had better odds of emerging in good condition, that might well be another. But a family in crisis finds itself thrust into the political limelight for what seems to be no good reason whatsoever.

You know, as Bells notes, some of the commentary toward the family has gotten pretty harsh. So as an American, I need to make this clear: This is exactly what we expect of Texas. And if the fetus emerges to independent life in fine condition, the whole political world will spend a week hammering Erick Munoz into the ground. But if the result is as expected, this whole thing will be largely forgotten by this time next year, and we'll do it all again in a couple more.

And as a side note, one thing that strikes me is the emerging contrast of how people feel about death. Was a time when this sort of talk was scandalous for devaluing life—just a uterus, &c. To the one, it's healthy to get over certain myths about life and death. To the other, we only seem to undertake those changes when it is politically convenient to do so. The idea of keeping a brain-dead patient alive in order to harvest something generally repulses people; indeed, anencephalic children who survive birth have can't be used for harvest.

Mrs. Munoz right now is less respected in the Texas legal context than an anencephalic fetus in Florida. She is less than human insofar as such widespread perversity would refuse to allowe her body to finish dying. And a hospital in Texas went out of its way to make things so. That last is what really chafes. Someone made the decision to wrongly invoke the law in question. And they're not hiring a medical specialist for an attorney; they're putting a political attorney out front.

For the people doing this, the case has nothing to do with Mrs. Munoz. She is irrelevant to them. And that disrespect is what elevates this otherwise messy consideration to the level of outrage.

If this fetus emerges in fine condition, we will all have much to learn. If this fetus emerges as we generally expect—stillborn or severely damaged—nobody on the pro-life side of this argument will ever have to answer for being wrong. Of course, this never was about being right. Mrs. Munoz is not—and never was—a person in their minds.

Remember: By both quirk and design, women are not people according to the U.S. Constitution. And Americans have spent much in coin and sweat and tears—and, I suppose, a certain amount of blood, too—reiterating this point over and over and over again. The funny thing is that while they will continue to enact the tradition, those Americans would reject the straightforward statement that women aren't people. It's the American Way: Say one thing, do another, and resent anyone who implies there's a difference.

If this was just a family argument about what to do next, that would be one thing. But some bureaucrats in Texas decided to chase their fifteen minutes of fame, and if that should be irrelevant to how we perceive this issue, we're changing the boundaries of the American public discourse.

Oh, right. Women. Abortion. It's a women's issue, so changing the boundaries arbitrarily is not simply acceptable, but also expected. And that's where the sting lies.

There is something to your point. So what if she's just an organ for someone else? But we cannot hold that issue in isolation; at some point we must consider the larger picture. And a hospital going out of its way to wrongly read and enforce the law, hiring a political lawyer, and thrusting this family center stage is one of those really crucial elements in the larger picture.

“It's not a matter of pro-choice and pro-life,” said Mrs. Munoz's mother, Lynne Machado, 60. “It's about a matter of our daughter's wishes not being honored by the state of Texas.”

Mrs. 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 fetus,” 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?”

Mrs. Munoz's parents said they wanted to see the law overturned, but they have not sought any legal action against the hospital, though they have not ruled it out either.

The hospital maintains that it is following the law, although several experts in medical ethics said they believed the hospital was misinterpreting it. A crucial issue is whether the law applies to pregnant patients who are brain-dead as opposed to those in a coma or a vegetative state. The law, first passed by the Texas Legislature in 1989 and amended in 1999, states that a person may not withdraw or withhold “life-sustaining treatment” from a pregnant patient.

Mr. and Mrs. Machado said the hospital had made it clear to them that their daughter was brain-dead, but hospital officials have declined to comment on Mrs. Munoz's care and condition, creating uncertainty over whether the hospital has formally declared her brain-dead.

(Fernandez and Eckholm)​

This isn't really about life.

Munoz's story has sparked a firestorm of legal and ethical wrangling. The hospital, for one, has said it cannot legally let Munoz's body go while a fetus, now more than 20 weeks along, is still inside her. But experts demur, saying the hospital has misinterpreted the law because Munoz is brain-dead with no chance of recovery.

“If they've declared a person dead, the family then has the right to take the body and bury it,” Bill Winslade, a law professor at the University of Houston, told The Dallas Morning News.

Now, Marlise Munoz's husband, Erick Munoz, is taking the issue to court. Throughout the whole ordeal, Erick Munoz has maintained that his wife had told him if she was ever in such a condition, to let her die. Both Erick and Marlise Munoz were paramedics and had witnessed life and death situations up close.

"Marlise Munoz is dead, and she gave clear instructions to her husband and family — Marlise was not to remain on any type of artificial 'life-sustaining treatment,' ventilators or the like," the lawsuit, filed in Tarrant County District Court on Tuesday, read, according to the Associated Press. "There is no reason [John Peter Smith Hospital] should be allowed to continue treatment on Marlise Munoz's dead body, and this court should order [John Peter Smith Hospital] to immediately discontinue such."

(Ross)​

____________________

Notes:

Fernandez, Manny and Erik Eckholm. "Pregnant, and Forced to Stay on Life Support". The New York Times. January 7, 2014. NYTimes.com. January 16, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/us/pregnant-and-forced-to-stay-on-life-support.html

Ross, Phillip. "Erick Munoz, Husband Of Pregnant Wife Marlise Munoz On Life Support, Sues Fort Worth Hospital". International Business Times. January 15, 2014. IBTimes.com. January 16, 2014. http://www.ibtimes.com/erick-munoz-...life-support-sues-fort-worth-hospital-1542096

 

[Tiassa]

Here's a New One (Not Really)

Here's a New One (Not Really)

I am, admittedly, accustomed to talk of the fetus as parasite or vampire, and it's true I've even heard the fetus as tumor argument before, somewhere. But one might think that last especially strange coming from someone arguing against a woman's right to govern her pregnancy.

"I am pro-life," Buck said. "While I understand a woman wants to be in control of her body — it's certainly the feeling that I had when I was a cancer patient, I wanted to be in control of the decisions that were made concerning my body — there is another fundamental issue at stake. And that's the life of the unborn child."

(Isquith)​

A few things stand out.

(1) Yes, Mr. Buck is that Ken Buck, the Colorado GOP's favorite rape advocate.

(2) While not quite as grotesque as Pennsylvania Senate candidate Tom Smith's attempt, Republicans need to learn that even if one sincerely believes a man knows how a woman feels during pregnancy, one still ought to be very, very careful how they say so.

(3) Cancer? A disease? A tumor? Really? I mean, sure, there is the question of the parasite, but that one is sort of accurate despite its distasteful imagery. And, yes, I'm pretty sure I've heard the tumor argument before, though I would think we all know it only goes so far. But empathy? Really? Okay, then. I would posit Mr. Buck does not know how it feels to have prominent sections of society and its government stand up and oppose his right to cancer treatment because the tumor is more important than him. As I noted of Mr. Smith's gaffe:

Really? That's it? That's all? Why don't I tell a woman I know what giving birth is like because I've been constipated. You know, we've both worked hard to expel something from our lower bodies. I mean, sure, it's accurate to a certain degree. But that certain degree is entirely useless.​

And that's just for starters. Mr. Buck is also a unique sort of character, insofar as he would appear to believe men have a right to force themselves upon women, and then said women ought to be obliged to carry those men's offspring to term. Talk about convenience? This guy was a prosecutor. Which is almost as stupidly convenient as the guy running for Congress in VA-10, state Sen. Dick Black, who was a military prosecutor, believes that rape in the military is a predictable part of human nature, and sympathizes with rapists. For the record, Black is also anti-abortion, and during his time in the Virginia Assembly authored the first version of what became the state's law allowing people to purchase anti-abortion licence plates with the funding directed to medically fraudulent anti-abortion fronts called "crisis pregnancy centers". What is it with this particular coincidence? I'm not so much worried about all the anti-abortion people being rape advocates, but why are so many rape advocates also anti-abortion?

Then again, it's a sidebar with high potential to become a distraction. After all, if, as some might insist, there is no misogyny about the LACP platform, that can't possibly be the attraction for the rape advocates. Of course, neither are the rape advocates so bad, either, right? They just really love women[sup]†[/sup].

But these sorts of distractions happen when we plumb such rabbit holes. I mean, really? The tumor argument is what it is, but the one thing I don't think is is would be helpful to the anti-abortion argument.
____________________

Notes:

[sup]†[/sup] They just really love women — TURD: According to the Law of Charity in philosophical discourse, as well as a comparison to myriad prior statements I have made on the subject, it ought not be necessary to disclaim the fact of vicious sarcasm. Yet the bacchinal of pedantry and fiskery that our discourse has become requires this unfortunately requisite disclaimer.

Works Cited:

Isquith, Elias. "Tea Party Senate candidate compares being pregnant to having cancer". Salon. January 15, 2014. Salon.com. January 16, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2014/01/15/tea_party_senate_candidate_compares_being_prengant_to_having_cancer/

 

[billvon]

If this fetus had better odds of emerging in good condition, that might well be another.

How do you know the odds are low?

 

[ElectricFetus]

Well at the moment she is solely an incubator.

So? is that any worse the being a jar of ashes or stuffing in a overprice buried wood box?

And I think her parents and her husband would know what her wishes would have been and not strangers and bureaucrats.

Maybe, maybe not, again the question is: is a corpse (or in this case an incubator, what ever) have more rights than a fetus?

As I said, Marlise is merely a uterus at the moment. Kept on life support so the hospital can use her uterus for her then 14 week old foetus which may or may not be brain dead.

Question: can a corpse own things? "her" uterus for example? Sure we are sort of limited by the english language to describe these things are "hers" in the present tense, but arguably there is no "her" presently. Generally when a person dies everything they own goes to living people, often even in the case of their organs. Of course one need to express permission before be an organ donor, I wonder if Marlise was an organ donor?

All they know is that the foetus has a heartbeat, which it could very well have for the same reason she currently has a heartbeat.

Probably not, unless they did defibrillation across her belly. Then again if she had been allow to die so too would the fetus.

There is a reason why there are laws which make tampering with a corpse illegal.

You mean like how the USA federal goverment does not even have a law against necrophilia? Ok if I strapped my granny to the hood of a car and dump her somewhere, what crimes have I committed? Well there are laws about where bodies can be placed but that more for public sanitation not dignity of the dead, ashes can literally be thrown anywhere. There are also laws about transportation of bodies but again from and public sanitiation perspective, once I convert granny to ashes, I can put her in a cardboard box, strap it to the hood of my car and it would all be perfectly legal.

Annas agreed, "Extraordinary means to preserve the life of a nonviable fetus against the wishes of the family should probably never be used, at least not longer than a few days, and then only if a healthy infant is the probable result."

"The issue is much more difficult when the pregnant woman is dead,because the dead have no constitutional rights and no claim to liberty or autonomy. They do, however, have a "right" to have their dead bodies treated with respect, and this, I think, should limit the time that physicians can use their dead body against their likely wishes," Annas said.​

yep, precisely why this needs to go to a court of law to figure out this ethical quagmire, abortion is settle (at least in developed countries) but the rights of a corpse verse a fetus is legal uncharged space (how exciting!) and we need a court to determine this.

Do you claim to know more than her parents and her husband?

Not at all, I just saying they could be lying or they could be wrong, it would be a much stronger case for them if we had written or documented proof she would wanted to be terminated even if pregnant.

Do you think complete strangers in the hospital would know her wishes more than her parents or her husband?

Again with the "wishes"! Again which has more rights: as corpse or a fetus?

Pro-lifers have found a way to forcibly insert themselves into the wombs of corpses. Comforting, isn't it?

Euuuuuuuwwwwwwwwwwww

Now we know, if you are a woman of child bearing age, get the fuck out of Texas and the 30 or so other states in the US, because the moment you become pregnant, if you fall ill, they will not only not treat you to save the child, but if you lapse into brain death and die, they will keep you going as long as they see fit as an incubator.

I'm pretty sure they will treat you specifically if you fall ill, as for the event of being brain dead and pregnant... how often does that happen? I mean is this something one need to plan for when choosing where to live? "I know that state X has low crime and great educational services for my kids, but I don't know, because if I was to go brain-dead and be pregnant they would use my body to grow my final child to term" Hey that why I don't live in the Dakotas: to many alien abductions, got to have my priorities straight, am I right?

Do you think her parents and her husband would know the answer to that better than the State?

This is tiring, it does not matter what they want. Is the desire of the relatives the end all be all? If I wanted to cut off my children ears then gd dam the state for stopping me? We sometimes grant the state rights over our "freedoms", and in this case, this rare case of the rights of a corpse verse a fetus, I'm really going to leave that up to the state to decide.

As long as there is a foetal heartbeat, they will not terminate. Didn't you read the links I provided previously? They (pro-life hospitals) won't treat women who are miscarrying or suffering from an ectopic pregnancy if there is a foetal heartbeat, you really think they are going to terminate it if it is not viable at 24 weeks? They have already informed the family at 14 weeks that they would keep her going for 10 weeks and access whether they need to remove it, and if they do not, then they can keep going until she is at full term or as close to as they can get.

Well that is a sham, then again it is rather eugenical of us to want them to to kill it just because it will likely be deformed.

All we have are the only people who should be making this decision being told tough luck, their rights do not matter at all.

Does someone other then the mother have the right terminate her pregnancy if she can't make the decision for her self (on account of not having a brain?)? Does a fetus have rights over a corpse? I'm sorry but these question have not been answered, you can't go about pretending like they have! Why should the relatives have the right to kill that fetus?

Can you please provide evidence of your medical expertise and experience in dealing with life support machines?

Wait a minute let me get this straight: I ask for details on what the heck happened to her specifically, and your reply is that I need to be doctor to know? So far all I've seen are assumptions, presumptions that what drugs or machines that keeping her alive are also directly keeping the fetus alive and or altering the fetus is some teratogenic way, now do you have actual evidence that this is so?

You don't think the family considered all of this?

I don't know what the family considered, and I don't think you do either.

I mean sure, you would never take your wife's wishes into consideration and that is your choice. But Munoz is taking his wife's wishes into consideration and doesn't view her as just a womb or a "breeder". Strange, I know.

Oh so your sure you know what he thinking, your a psychic now? I don't know what he is thinking honestly, nor the hospital and I think it highly presumptions for anyone to 'be sure' they know. Let me give you a hypothetical, with several thousand dollars per day being wrung up, is it not possible that he is thinking "unplug her now! god dam it unplug her now this is costing me a fortune!', but I don't know for sure and unlike you I'm not going to judge.

She told them she did not want to remain on life support. That was her choice.

Yes but did she say she did not want to remain on life-support if pregnant?

Just as it is your choice to not care if you are forced to remain on life support because the State wants you to stay there for their religious reasons.

Again the dead do not have the same rights of choices as the living, and so back to the question: what rights does a corpse have over a fetus?

If you died tomorrow and you had left no instructions, no one would be allowed to remove your organs without your consent or that of your loved one's. It would be deemed illegal.

Yes but this case is about a fetus, not an organ, the similarities between organ harvesting and this case break at that point, this case is something else!

But if you are a woman in Texas and you happen to be pregnant when your heart stops, then the State takes ownership of your womb and your husband and family no longer have a say, regardless of what your express wishes happened to be.

Yes, but is it 'your' womb anymore at that point? Your dead, that fetus on the other hand is arguable more alive then you at that point, that the whole ethical quagmire of this case! It is not the rights of a women over a fetus anymore, it is the the rights of a corpse over a fetus. How to a ask the corpse what it wants, a wedgie board? no all we have is the testimony of the relatives, is that worthy of terminating a fetus? Other people now have that right?

Humans are strange. We tend to treat our dead with respect. It is why we have such extensive laws to make sure that corpses are not tampered with and also to prevent anyone from defiling a corpse and it is why a man cannot fuck his dead wife because he is horny and she was there.

Again federal law has no provision for necrophilia, and even state laws do not punish it at the same level as rape, again the question: what rights does a corpse have over a fetus?

She could have been 2 weeks pregnant or she could have died at the moment of conception. From that moment of conception, the law states that that fertilised egg has more rights than she or her spouse or family do.

I'm pretty sure they would not have known she was pregnant if she died at the moment of conception, but how about this, you tell me how they can detect a per-implanted zygote in a dead person body and prove me wrong.

You can say that they have 10 minutes to remove your organs, as a male, and not pregnant, your wishes would be adhered to and if they cannot remove them,

So how often when a person dies do they have their will and testament on hand instantly, and a stop watch? Let say they wait a few days harvest the organs, what going to happen, are my relatives going to sue?, would they win the court case?, I don't know.

then you would be buried with them. No questions asked. If you were a woman and you had a directive, if you are pregnant, your directive would be thrown in the bin or used to wiped the arse of the doctors treating you, because it would be worth that much.

Maybe, again: does a corpse have more rights then a fetus? We are talking about the rights of a former person verse a potential person, its the ultimate metaphysical boxing match! I know you find it sexist that dead women can have their "rights" violated in this instant but hey wives of brain-dead husbands can extract his semen and sire children with it all that is require is a little legal loopholing, technically relatives can even keep a person in PVS even if their will and testimony states otherwise in some states. The legal realm of comatose patients and PVS is still highly uncharted.

You tell me, would you like to keep your loved one on a machine against their wishes,

I once ask my mother this, I would like to be terminated if brain dead and she said should do anything to keep my body alive, against my wishes, fuck her right?

as their organs struggle to cope with the vast amounts of drugs and hormones being injected into them to prevent them from decomposing and failing, because their womb has something you might be able to salvage in a few months time?

Can you provide medical evidence, cited studies on what drugs and hormones are need to keep a PVS alive and what the effects are on the body? Then again if someone dead, what does it really matter???

You know, it's people like you that make me despair the state of the world and actually make me not want to ever log into this site again.

Your going to make this personal?

Well think about it. Say your breeder is being kept on life support against your wishes and you are then told that you are nothing but a wannabe murderer and a bad father. I mean sure, you could be counting the dollars, but most people would find that offensive.

So? what does that have to do with the issue of rights of a corpse verse a fetus?

You're not walking on the fence.

Contrary to what you may believe, we aren't stupid.

You are like a child, saying the most offensive things just to see what reaction you get.

yeah your making this personal. Please lets scale back here for a moment, I would like to go over the ethics of what rights a corpse has over a fetus, its a very interesting ethical quagmire, and honestly if you have a rational argument on why the corpse has more rights (or the relatives of the corpse) I'm completely willing to side with you, but instead your calling me a child and implying I'm a troll. Yep we can't have any intellectual discussions anymore. You know how the pro-lifers are thumping their bibles over this and being laughably, vaguely irrational and hateful... your doing it to, sure your not thumping a bible but your shunning rational intellectual debate with insults and meanness. Just as they start screaming and yelling because they think murder is happening, your screaming and yelling because you think your rights are being trampled. Well is murder happening? Are rights being trampled? I implore you: let us ask these questions and examine in detail the ethics of this issue, and instead I get from you the equivalent of pro-lifers hissing through their teeth and clutching their crucifix.

Infection. When you are brain dead and on life support, you have numerous tubes going into you. You are also injected with a variety of drugs and hormones to stop your organs from failing, because your brain is no longer producing the chemicals and hormones your body needs to survive.

What drugs, what hormones, be specific! Specify how these specific drugs make the organs in-viable.

Here a similar case: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1415860/

So let see what drugs were given to her an their effect on organ donation:
dexamethasone was used, does not effect organ transplant, in fact it can help: http://www.virtualmedicalcentre.com/treatment/immunosuppressants-in-organ-transplantation/108
piperacillin also not going to harm organ-transplate: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17239122
Hydrocortison: Hypothesize to actually help with organ transplates: http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00675272
Thyroxine: also useful for organ transplants from the brain dead: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11735863
vasopressin: also used on organ donors: http://www.ilts.org/uploads/9_fung.pdf
Dopamine: no harm to organ donation: http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articleid=1146871

The baby was extract via c-section at 31 weeks of gestation and developed normally (at least up to 8 months). the report though does not specify if her organs were donated afterwards, her heart stop two days after the c-section do to uncontrolable hypotension (blood pressure to low). The paper even ends with the hypothesis that fetal hormones may have even helped keep the mother's body alive dissipate such extensive damage to the brain that even blood pressure regulation was gone (let alone breathing) although she still seem to have had body temperature regulation.

If you want a perfect example of why long term life support for brain dead people means you cannot donate their organs, you only have to look at the case of Jahi McMath:

However, the extent of her body's deterioration was detailed in a court filing last week by Heidi R. Flori, a critical care pediatrician at Children's Hospital. In the filing, Flori wrote that tissues under her skin were losing their elasticity, her muscles were contracting and blankets were needed to keep her at a constant temperature.

"This deterioration became inevitable the moment she died," Flori wrote. "Additional and more dramatic signs of the body's deterioration will continue to manifest over time, regardless of any procedures and regardless of any heroic measures that any facility might attempt." ​

This is about a month after she became brain dead.

Now this is not proof that brain-dead people can't be organ donors even after weeks of life-support, I dare reason that if their organs can be kept functional enough to grow a baby to term, they should still be functional enough for a transplant, it probaby case by case dependent.

 

[Asguard]

Part of it is simply the spirit of the thing. The hospital is reading the law wrong, has hired an attorney prominent for his politics, and put someone else's morals above the law.

If this was Mrs. Munoz's wish, that would be one thing. If this fetus had better odds of emerging in good condition, that might well be another. But a family in crisis finds itself thrust into the political limelight for what seems to be no good reason whatsoever.

You know, as Bells notes, some of the commentary toward the family has gotten pretty harsh. So as an American, I need to make this clear: This is exactly what we expect of Texas. And if the fetus emerges to independent life in fine condition, the whole political world will spend a week hammering Erick Munoz into the ground. But if the result is as expected, this whole thing will be largely forgotten by this time next year, and we'll do it all again in a couple more.

And as a side note, one thing that strikes me is the emerging contrast of how people feel about death. Was a time when this sort of talk was scandalous for devaluing life—just a uterus, &c. To the one, it's healthy to get over certain myths about life and death. To the other, we only seem to undertake those changes when it is politically convenient to do so. The idea of keeping a brain-dead patient alive in order to harvest something generally repulses people; indeed, anencephalic children who survive birth have can't be used for harvest.

Mrs. Munoz right now is less respected in the Texas legal context than an anencephalic fetus in Florida. She is less than human insofar as such widespread perversity would refuse to allowe her body to finish dying. And a hospital in Texas went out of its way to make things so. That last is what really chafes. Someone made the decision to wrongly invoke the law in question. And they're not hiring a medical specialist for an attorney; they're putting a political attorney out front.

For the people doing this, the case has nothing to do with Mrs. Munoz. She is irrelevant to them. And that disrespect is what elevates this otherwise messy consideration to the level of outrage.

If this fetus emerges in fine condition, we will all have much to learn. If this fetus emerges as we generally expect—stillborn or severely damaged—nobody on the pro-life side of this argument will ever have to answer for being wrong. Of course, this never was about being right. Mrs. Munoz is not—and never was—a person in their minds.

Remember: By both quirk and design, women are not people according to the U.S. Constitution. And Americans have spent much in coin and sweat and tears—and, I suppose, a certain amount of blood, too—reiterating this point over and over and over again. The funny thing is that while they will continue to enact the tradition, those Americans would reject the straightforward statement that women aren't people. It's the American Way: Say one thing, do another, and resent anyone who implies there's a difference.

If this was just a family argument about what to do next, that would be one thing. But some bureaucrats in Texas decided to chase their fifteen minutes of fame, and if that should be irrelevant to how we perceive this issue, we're changing the boundaries of the American public discourse.

Oh, right. Women. Abortion. It's a women's issue, so changing the boundaries arbitrarily is not simply acceptable, but also expected. And that's where the sting lies.

There is something to your point. So what if she's just an organ for someone else? But we cannot hold that issue in isolation; at some point we must consider the larger picture. And a hospital going out of its way to wrongly read and enforce the law, hiring a political lawyer, and thrusting this family center stage is one of those really crucial elements in the larger picture.

“It's not a matter of pro-choice and pro-life,” said Mrs. Munoz's mother, Lynne Machado, 60. “It's about a matter of our daughter's wishes not being honored by the state of Texas.”

Mrs. 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 fetus,” 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?”

Mrs. Munoz's parents said they wanted to see the law overturned, but they have not sought any legal action against the hospital, though they have not ruled it out either.

The hospital maintains that it is following the law, although several experts in medical ethics said they believed the hospital was misinterpreting it. A crucial issue is whether the law applies to pregnant patients who are brain-dead as opposed to those in a coma or a vegetative state. The law, first passed by the Texas Legislature in 1989 and amended in 1999, states that a person may not withdraw or withhold “life-sustaining treatment” from a pregnant patient.

Mr. and Mrs. Machado said the hospital had made it clear to them that their daughter was brain-dead, but hospital officials have declined to comment on Mrs. Munoz's care and condition, creating uncertainty over whether the hospital has formally declared her brain-dead.

(Fernandez and Eckholm)​

This isn't really about life.

Munoz's story has sparked a firestorm of legal and ethical wrangling. The hospital, for one, has said it cannot legally let Munoz's body go while a fetus, now more than 20 weeks along, is still inside her. But experts demur, saying the hospital has misinterpreted the law because Munoz is brain-dead with no chance of recovery.

“If they've declared a person dead, the family then has the right to take the body and bury it,” Bill Winslade, a law professor at the University of Houston, told The Dallas Morning News.

Now, Marlise Munoz's husband, Erick Munoz, is taking the issue to court. Throughout the whole ordeal, Erick Munoz has maintained that his wife had told him if she was ever in such a condition, to let her die. Both Erick and Marlise Munoz were paramedics and had witnessed life and death situations up close.

"Marlise Munoz is dead, and she gave clear instructions to her husband and family — Marlise was not to remain on any type of artificial 'life-sustaining treatment,' ventilators or the like," the lawsuit, filed in Tarrant County District Court on Tuesday, read, according to the Associated Press. "There is no reason [John Peter Smith Hospital] should be allowed to continue treatment on Marlise Munoz's dead body, and this court should order [John Peter Smith Hospital] to immediately discontinue such."

(Ross)​

____________________

Notes:

Fernandez, Manny and Erik Eckholm. "Pregnant, and Forced to Stay on Life Support". The New York Times. January 7, 2014. NYTimes.com. January 16, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/us/pregnant-and-forced-to-stay-on-life-support.html

Ross, Phillip. "Erick Munoz, Husband Of Pregnant Wife Marlise Munoz On Life Support, Sues Fort Worth Hospital". International Business Times. January 15, 2014. IBTimes.com. January 16, 2014. http://www.ibtimes.com/erick-munoz-...life-support-sues-fort-worth-hospital-1542096

See this case brings up only 2 issues for me, 1 should organ donation be mandatory no matter what the corpse or there family says which in my opinion is a YES, the lives that could be saved outweighs the "rights" of a corpse.

The second is around reproductive organ donation, currently you don't donate things like testicles because if you did and the donor had a child then the DNA of that child would actually be yours. That said there are currently lots of examples of men being harvested for there sperm after death so there former partners can use them for IVF. There was one case not that long ago and reading all the comments on the article most people were saying "good luck" to the women. There was no expressed wish by the corpse that his sperm be used after his death, the implication was simply that because they had been trying to get pregnant before he died that it was still ok now he was dead. This is happening more and more frequently, that (to use Bell's terms") male corpses are being used as "just a set of testicles" is this any different really?

 

[ElectricFetus]

See this case brings up only 2 issues for me, 1 should organ donation be mandatory no matter what the corpse or there family says which in my opinion is a YES, the lives that could be saved outweighs the "rights" of a corpse.

One of great flaws of positive utilitarianism is that it lead to the conclusion that murdering bums and simpletons or technically anyone to harvest their organs and save several other lives is worthwhile. Think about it: your happiness is just one person, but you could provide happiness for up to 6-7 other people if you gave away all your organs, consider giving your organs, NOW! To prevent utility run amok we need laws and check and balances, can't kill living people against their will, corpse have to have *some* rights, etc, etc.

 

[Capracus]

Yes, but is it 'your' womb anymore at that point? Your dead, that fetus on the other hand is arguable more alive then you at that point, that the whole ethical quagmire of this case! It is not the rights of a women over a fetus anymore, it is the the rights of a corpse over a fetus.

The corpse/woman/incubator and the non viable fetus are essentially in the same state of existence. Both organisms are non conscious and completely dependent on external life support. The ethical quagmire is generated by the contradictory nature of the advance directive statutes regarding pregnant women. The Supreme Court has already established that state governments have no legitimate right to intervene in fetal preservation prior to viability, yet amazingly a whole host of state laws are in force that allow them to conditionally invalidate this finding. From fetal homicide laws to pregnancy exclusions in advance directives, non viable products of procreation are unjustly granted personhood status.

 

[Tiassa]

Statutory Silly

See this case brings up only 2 issues for me, 1 should organ donation be mandatory no matter what the corpse or there family says which in my opinion is a YES, the lives that could be saved outweighs the "rights" of a corpse.

As to the first, that's a statutory issue that can be legislated. The thing is that this just isn't how we are supposed to treat the dead.

To the other, the case does raise the issues in a context that can (with some intellectual labor) be extended generally, especially as the equality of the human condition is androcentric.

For instance, look at the line ElectricFetus is playing:

"Aaah how could such an event happen to a man??? Men can't get pregnant."​

And that's the thing. Apparently, because men can't get pregnant, a woman's condition must likewise be limited; except she can get pregnant, so if she does she should still be bound to the manly existential condition. It's a comfortable notion, indeed, since one can say it all they want and never risk actually finding out what it's like to be pregnant.

But American law doesn't work that way, no matter what people might say; we would have to mangle our Constitution through amendment in order to create such bizarre outcomes. The juristic reality is that everyone is equal before the law, according to their condition. The mentally retarded defendant doesn't get his equal protection once he stops being mentally retarded. And I, as a defendant, don't get the protection the mentally retarded man's condition demands.

Do I have a problem with this? No.

And that pattern holds.

Should a gay man have to stop being gay in order to get his equal rights? It's a perverse variation, but the question does exist. As I read the law, the gay man does not have to stop being gay in order to get his equal rights. Do I have a problem with this? No.

But woman. All our human principles seem to stop at that barrier.

In order for a pregnant woman to enjoy her promised human rights, she must stop being a pregnant woman.

Which leads us, roundabout, to:

The second is around reproductive organ donation, currently you don't donate things like testicles because if you did and the donor had a child then the DNA of that child would actually be yours. That said there are currently lots of examples of men being harvested for there sperm after death so there former partners can use them for IVF. There was one case not that long ago and reading all the comments on the article most people were saying "good luck" to the women. There was no expressed wish by the corpse that his sperm be used after his death, the implication was simply that because they had been trying to get pregnant before he died that it was still ok now he was dead. This is happening more and more frequently, that (to use Bell's terms") male corpses are being used as "just a set of testicles" is this any different really?

Some definitions are needed here. Harvested how? After all, the first question to mind is what was on the paperwork they signed when they donated. To the other, I don't imagine any hospital keeping a brain-dead man on life support so that doctors could, over the course of months, attempt to impregnate some woman. You leave your hair on my pillow, I have every right to weave it into a blanket. You leave your sperm in the freezer? Well, what all did you sign away when you did so?

The idea that we might unpack a dead man's sperm from storage is one thing. But if you mean they're keeping brain-dead men on life support for months in order to extract sperm until a woman achieves successful IVF and term, I've never heard of such a thing.

Even still, as I can always be wrong, what were the statutes misconstrued in order to allow such a cultivation?

As to a set of testicles, well, you tell me: Ejaculation versus pregnancy—is this any different, really?

 

[Asguard]

In this case not really, you have spoken of in other threads the danger of pregancy, the body is dead, the right to do with your body as you see fit, she's a corpse, she doesn't have those rights anymore. Again if there is a complaint to be made over this it's not really about women's rights, because corpses don't have rights, it maybe about a partners rights but then I have a hard time putting myself in a mindset where any reasonable person would be happy losing both there wife AND the child they were expecting. If there was medical evidence that the fetus was significantly disabled or non viable sure but I don't believe anyone has posted any actual medical evidence of that.

The funny thing about this debate is that more than once people such as FR have posted about the rights of the dying being violated by medical staff refusing to follow correctly filled out advanced directives but it only becomes a horrific issue to you guys when it involves not terminating a fetus? Shouldn't you be arguing about the clear cut cases were people are forced to live in a PVS against there clearly signed paperwork before you worry about the more ethical merky issues like this one?

 

[Bells]

So? is that any worse the being a jar of ashes or stuffing in a overprice buried wood box?

I have a challenge for you.

Ask your mother if she won't mind if you use her womb to grow a child once she is dead and kept on life support.

Maybe, maybe not, again the question is: is a corpse (or in this case an incubator, what ever) have more rights than a fetus?

Should her next of kin have more rights over her corpse than the State or the hospital?

I mean really, keeping someone alive against her own wishes and that of her husband, because the State and the hospital is pro-life and can't let a woman who died remain dead. And why? Because she is carrying a non-viable foetus.

Question: can a corpse own things? "her" uterus for example? Sure we are sort of limited by the english language to describe these things are "hers" in the present tense, but arguably there is no "her" presently. Generally when a person dies everything they own goes to living people, often even in the case of their organs. Of course one need to express permission before be an organ donor, I wonder if Marlise was an organ donor?

Does the State own your balls?

To donate organs, you need consent. Thus far, the hospital and the State does not have consent to use her body in this way. If you take organs without consent, it's a crime. Yet, you can force someone to remain on a ventilator and use their corpse to grow a child without their prior consent and without the consent of her husband or her parents.

Probably not, unless they did defibrillation across her belly. Then again if she had been allow to die so too would the fetus.

14 weeks. Non viable.

Everything they did to her to get her heart started, happened to that foetus. The shocks she was given, the numerous drugs she was given. It all went to the foetus as well and at 14 weeks, the damage just the lack of oxygen would have done. To put it simply, the lack of oxygen she suffered is why she is now brain dead. The foetus also suffered the same lack of oxygen.

You mean like how the USA federal goverment does not even have a law against necrophilia? Ok if I strapped my granny to the hood of a car and dump her somewhere, what crimes have I committed? Well there are laws about where bodies can be placed but that more for public sanitation not dignity of the dead, ashes can literally be thrown anywhere. There are also laws about transportation of bodies but again from and public sanitiation perspective, once I convert granny to ashes, I can put her in a cardboard box, strap it to the hood of my car and it would all be perfectly legal.

The difference here is that they will not allow the family to bury her.

Be like if your granny was brain dead and they told you tough luck, they still plan to use her corpse for something without your consent or her own prior consent.

yep, precisely why this needs to go to a court of law to figure out this ethical quagmire, abortion is settle (at least in developed countries) but the rights of a corpse verse a fetus is legal uncharged space (how exciting!) and we need a court to determine this.

Yes, let the courts determine if hospitals can use the corpses of brain dead people to their liking and their religious beliefs.

Not at all, I just saying they could be lying or they could be wrong, it would be a much stronger case for them if we had written or documented proof she would wanted to be terminated even if pregnant.

Once again, it wouldn't have mattered if she had.

Again with the "wishes"! Again which has more rights: as corpse or a fetus?

Her husband and her parents and her son do.

Thus far, they are denied the right to bury their loved one because the hospital is pro-life.

Euuuuuuuwwwwwwwwwwww

Well, they are treating her corpse as a breeder. Isn't that what you said you would do if you were married? Women = breeders.

I'm pretty sure they will treat you specifically if you fall ill, as for the event of being brain dead and pregnant... how often does that happen? I mean is this something one need to plan for when choosing where to live? "I know that state X has low crime and great educational services for my kids, but I don't know, because if I was to go brain-dead and be pregnant they would use my body to grow my final child to term" Hey that why I don't live in the Dakotas: to many alien abductions, got to have my priorities straight, am I right?

The few times it has happened in the past, it was with the direct consent of the then deceased and her family and spouse/partner.

Can you tell what the difference is in this instance?

What we know is that in many parts of America today, if you fall ill and are pregnant, they not only will not treat you, but they will send you home even if you are miscarrying or have an ectopic pregnancy if there is a foetal hearbeat.

This is what happens when women = breeders.

Is the desire of the relatives the end all be all? If I wanted to cut off my children ears then gd dam the state for stopping me? We sometimes grant the state rights over our "freedoms", and in this case, this rare case of the rights of a corpse verse a fetus, I'm really going to leave that up to the state to decide.

Lets say your loved one dies, say a child. You wish to bury or cremate your child. And the hospital tells you no, you can't have her yet because they want to use her body against her express wishes and yours.

I guess it comes down to whether you should be allowed to bury your loved ones when they are dead or whether the State should have the right to force you to keep them alive because they want to use their body for something for many months and then charge you for the pleasure.

Well that is a sham, then again it is rather eugenical of us to want them to to kill it just because it will likely be deformed.

She isn't deformed.

They want to adhere to her wishes and what she wanted and let her die with dignity and bury her and be allowed to grieve and get on with their lives.

Does someone other then the mother have the right terminate her pregnancy if she can't make the decision for her self (on account of not having a brain?)? Does a fetus have rights over a corpse? I'm sorry but these question have not been answered, you can't go about pretending like they have! Why should the relatives have the right to kill that fetus?

Why shouldn't the relatives have the right to bury her?

You know, she's dead. Why are they being forced, without any form of consent, to keep her alive on a machine, with all the horror that entails, because the hospital wants to use her uterus?

Wait a minute let me get this straight: I ask for details on what the heck happened to her specifically, and your reply is that I need to be doctor to know? So far all I've seen are assumptions, presumptions that what drugs or machines that keeping her alive are also directly keeping the fetus alive and or altering the fetus is some teratogenic way, now do you have actual evidence that this is so?

You know, I have provided you with all the information I have, which you can easily pull your fingers out of your arse and google yourself. Instead, you ask the most stupid questions one could possibly imagine, to try to mask your pro-life stance under the guise of devil's advocate. If you want to know what machines they are using to keep her on life support, ring the hospital and find out.

As even a retard would understand, if they allow her to die with dignity as per her wishes and her family's wishes, then the non-viable foetus will die. It doesn't take a fucking genius to work this out. Now do you wish to acknowledge this medical fact? Or do you want to troll some more?

I don't know what the family considered, and I don't think you do either.

Well considering they made their wishes very clear and public and have said why they want to turn off her life support, I'd say it's pretty fucking clear unless you are the type to think that she will be healed as the retards praying outside her hospital and calling her husband a murderer seem to believe.

Oh so your sure you know what he thinking, your a psychic now? I don't know what he is thinking honestly, nor the hospital and I think it highly presumptions for anyone to 'be sure' they know. Let me give you a hypothetical, with several thousand dollars per day being wrung up, is it not possible that he is thinking "unplug her now! god dam it unplug her now this is costing me a fortune!', but I don't know for sure and unlike you I'm not going to judge.

He has said what he is thinking and why. Perhaps you should stop with the hypothetical "devil's advocate" waste of oxygen you are currently embarking on and read the links provided instead of wasting everyone's time.

He wants to let her die with dignity and bury her. You know, like normal people do.

Is that so hard to understand?

Yes but did she say she did not want to remain on life-support if pregnant?

As has been pointed out numerous times now, her family are relating what she would have wanted as she made it clear to them previously.

Why are you so intent to defy her and their wishes in this?

Again the dead do not have the same rights of choices as the living, and so back to the question: what rights does a corpse have over a fetus?

What rights do her loved ones have over her corpse?

Yes but this case is about a fetus, not an organ, the similarities between organ harvesting and this case break at that point, this case is something else!

It is not viable.

It cannot exist outside of a human body.

Yes, but is it 'your' womb anymore at that point? Your dead, that fetus on the other hand is arguable more alive then you at that point, that the whole ethical quagmire of this case! It is not the rights of a women over a fetus anymore, it is the the rights of a corpse over a fetus. How to a ask the corpse what it wants, a wedgie board? no all we have is the testimony of the relatives, is that worthy of terminating a fetus? Other people now have that right?

I'm sorry, are you claiming the State owns your body and your organs after you die?

Strange, considering they cannot even take your organs without your consent or your loved one's consent.

Yet they can use a person's womb without consent (the previous owner or her next of kin) after they die?

Again federal law has no provision for necrophilia, and even state laws do not punish it at the same level as rape, again the question: what rights does a corpse have over a fetus?

Fuck a corpse and post a video on youtube and you tell me what happens to you. My advice, don't bend over in the shower when you're in jail.

There are State laws.

I'm pretty sure they would not have known she was pregnant if she died at the moment of conception, but how about this, you tell me how they can detect a per-implanted zygote in a dead person body and prove me wrong.

The law applies from the moment of conception.

Withdrawing blood would give them the answer. And they always check.

So how often when a person dies do they have their will and testament on hand instantly, and a stop watch? Let say they wait a few days harvest the organs, what going to happen, are my relatives going to sue?, would they win the court case?, I don't know.

See, this is yet another example of a retarded question.

How do you think hospitals know if there is a DNR for you?

In this case, it was her husband doing the CPR on her when the ambulance arrived. When she was declared brain dead by her doctors, they elected to remove her from the ventilator. The hospital then told them no.

Really, you don't read any links provided?

Maybe, again: does a corpse have more rights then a fetus? We are talking about the rights of a former person verse a potential person, its the ultimate metaphysical boxing match! I know you find it sexist that dead women can have their "rights" violated in this instant but hey wives of brain-dead husbands can extract his semen and sire children with it all that is require is a little legal loopholing, technically relatives can even keep a person in PVS even if their will and testimony states otherwise in some states. The legal realm of comatose patients and PVS is still highly uncharted.

The law is not written to allow doctors to do what they wish with pregnant corpses without consent, which they clearly do not have. I mean fuck dude, how many times does this have to be explained to you and linked to you?

I once ask my mother this, I would like to be terminated if brain dead and she said should do anything to keep my body alive, against my wishes, fuck her right?

Well being male, you can have a living directive and yeah, you do get that final say. But if you were female and pregnant or there is a trace of pregnancy hormones in your blood, then whatever you may have wanted or even what your family wants is disregarded.

Can you provide medical evidence, cited studies on what drugs and hormones are need to keep a PVS alive and what the effects are on the body? Then again if someone dead, what does it really matter???

I would suggest you read the link provided where there are doctors who describe the whole process.

It matters to her family. Or do they not count?

Your going to make this personal?

Nope. I'm just tired of dealing with stupid.

So? what does that have to do with the issue of rights of a corpse verse a fetus?

You tell me what consent has to do with a corpse. Or more to the point, what right does the hospital have to do this to her corpse without anyone's consent.

yeah your making this personal. Please lets scale back here for a moment, I would like to go over the ethics of what rights a corpse has over a fetus, its a very interesting ethical quagmire, and honestly if you have a rational argument on why the corpse has more rights (or the relatives of the corpse) I'm completely willing to side with you, but instead your calling me a child and implying I'm a troll. Yep we can't have any intellectual discussions anymore. You know how the pro-lifers are thumping their bibles over this and being laughably, vaguely irrational and hateful... your doing it to, sure your not thumping a bible but your shunning rational intellectual debate with insults and meanness. Just as they start screaming and yelling because they think murder is happening, your screaming and yelling because you think your rights are being trampled. Well is murder happening? Are rights being trampled? I implore you: let us ask these questions and examine in detail the ethics of this issue, and instead I get from you the equivalent of pro-lifers hissing through their teeth and clutching their crucifix.

See Fetus, we aren't stupid. Perhaps you think we are.

You have been playing this game for how many pages now? Kind of over it. If you are going to act like a child, then do not be surprised if you are treated like one. Links were provided and you either did not read them because you think it's funny to troll and ask questions that even my 6 year old knows the answers to, or you think you are smart enough to think that anyone here with more than 2 active brain cells believes your devil's advocate game. No one does. Instead you have gone out of your way to be as offensive as you can be and then you have the nerve to act surprised when you are called out on it?

Again, you aren't really fooling anyone.

What drugs, what hormones, be specific! Specify how these specific drugs make the organs in-viable.

Read the links provided that explained what would be given to her to keep her body in a state that could support a foetus or even her body for this long.

As one of the links explained, after a while, the organs will start to fail.

Also, the case you cited was only for 10 weeks, when she was 21 weeks pregnant when she fell ill. Also, she stopped breathing in the ambulance, so they were able to manually maintain her oxygen levels. She was not without oxygen for over an hour and neither was the foetus. She was also not shocked back to life and given drugs to get her heart beating again. It never stopped beating. Most importantly, she was brain damaged. Not brain dead. There was still brain activity up to one day before she died, which was 2 days after the c-section.

The kicker and what sets this case apart is that the hospital had the husband's consent to keep her on a ventilator.

Do we need to go over the differences here?

 

[Capracus]

Fuck a corpse and post a video on youtube and you tell me what happens to you.

Isn’t that what the hospital and the state of Texas have done to Mrs. Munoz? Haven’t they essentially assumed the role of her impregnator?

If Mr. Munoz had the necessary financial resources, I wonder if it would be legally permissible for he and his wife to take a vacation to say Louisiana where the legal climate is more conducive to their immediate needs.

 

[ElectricFetus]

I have a challenge for you.

Ask your mother if she won't mind if you use her womb to grow a child once she is dead and kept on life support.

That not the same thing, this case is of a women who was already pregnant before becoming brain-dead, so the question would be "If you were pregnant and became brain-dead would you like to be put on life-support so the fetus can be brought to term?"

Should her next of kin have more rights over her corpse than the State or the hospital?

Should they have a right to 'abort' a fetus you mean? I don't know, should people other than a mother have that right per situations like this? As for in general: remember that who is tying grandma to the top of my car and dumping her where ever, yes the state already forbids me from doing that (just note if I have her converted to ashes) so yes the State should have some rights over 'kin' on what to do with a corpse.

I mean really, keeping someone alive against her own wishes and that of her husband, because the State and the hospital is pro-life and can't let a woman who died remain dead. And why? Because she is carrying a non-viable foetus.

well it seems cut and dry when you say it like that but again we don't know if she really wanted to be taken off life support if pregnant, the question of her rights verse that of her fetus is also still open, regardless if the hospital is ruled by bible-thumpers or not.

Does the State own your balls?

If I was dead there are situations in which yes they could. Do you know how many unidentified-unclaimed corpse have been used for science?

To donate organs, you need consent. Thus far, the hospital and the State does not have consent to use her body in this way. If you take organs without consent, it's a crime. Yet, you can force someone to remain on a ventilator and use their corpse to grow a child without their prior consent and without the consent of her husband or her parents.

Again a fetus is not an organ, we need to resolve exactly what rights a fetus has, because (as in the case of Texas and other states) it could be given more rights then a corpse.

Everything they did to her to get her heart started, happened to that foetus. The shocks she was given, the numerous drugs she was given. It all went to the foetus as well and at 14 weeks, the damage just the lack of oxygen would have done. To put it simply, the lack of oxygen she suffered is why she is now brain dead. The foetus also suffered the same lack of oxygen.

Did you see the case I cited of a 20 week pregnant mother, becoming brain-dead, also suffering hypoxia and all the drugs and shocks used to resuscitate her and then 10 weeks of intensive hormonal-drug controlled life-support with a list of all medications used, followed by c-section and a healthy baby boy up to 8 month (they stop doing medical exams for the report, on the infant at that point)? Clearly it is not impossible that a fetus might not only make it to viable but also to normal healthy personhood even if the mother and her body suffered brain-death, hypoxia and weeks and weeks of synthetic and artificial hormones used to keep the body alive.

The difference here is that they will not allow the family to bury her.

What about afterwards?

Be like if your granny was brain dead and they told you tough luck, they still plan to use her corpse for something without your consent or her own prior consent.

If granny was pregnant... ewwwwww

Yes, let the courts determine if hospitals can use the corpses of brain dead people to their liking and their religious beliefs.

Well unfortunately these religious beliefs have been codified into law, the hospital is just following the law, the courts have to determine if the law is being followed correct: does this clause cover corpses? You and I might think not, but we are not judges, the court needs to make that call.

Once again, it wouldn't have mattered if she had.

The case would have been stronger that all, again if she is dead, a corpse, Texas law might not qualify for her as she might not be a 'patient' anymore.

Her husband and her parents and her son do.

So non-pregnant relatives have the right to kill a fetus?

Well, they are treating her corpse as a breeder. Isn't that what you said you would do if you were married? Women = breeders.

I think your mistranslating "breeder", "breeders" does not equal women. Amongst those us that are LGBTQ, "breeders" are people that, both man and women and usually married that choose to breed, and frankly can't shut up about how great and wonderful and fulfilling it is. Breeders usually act as if their children are everything, fine enough self-sacrifice is a laudable trait usually, but they also act holly-then-thou and pompous to those of us that for many reasons including our sexual persuasions do not to have children or want to. I could go on about the hateful dynamics between breeders and LGBTQ people an I apologize for bring it up as a term.

The few times it has happened in the past, it was with the direct consent of the then deceased and her family and spouse/partner.

Can you tell what the difference is in this instance?

yes I can: who has more rights the fetus or the corpse? Now that there is a conflict between the corpse (or it representatives, aka 'kin') and the fetus, its a questions of ethics which one comes first.

What we know is that in many parts of America today, if you fall ill and are pregnant, they not only will not treat you, but they will send you home even if you are miscarrying or have an ectopic pregnancy if there is a foetal hearbeat.

what does that have to do with this case, of a corpse verse a fetus?

Lets say your loved one dies, say a child. You wish to bury or cremate your child. And the hospital tells you no, you can't have her yet because they want to use her body against her express wishes and yours.

Is the "child" pregnant?

I guess it comes down to whether you should be allowed to bury your loved ones when they are dead or whether the State should have the right to force you to keep them alive because they want to use their body for something for many months and then charge you for the pleasure.

Well if its to bring my child to term I honestly don't know how I would feel, I know the charging me part I would be furious about though.

She isn't deformed.

Wait, the fetus is not deformed? you know this? then why are you implying it going to be due to hypoxia and the "drugs", either that or you somehow think I was talking about the mother? You know one big hurtle for AI is getting over questions like "The ball broke the table, because it was Styrofoam, which was styroform, the ball or the table?" computers do not have heuristic thinking and apparently some people don't either.

They want to adhere to her wishes and what she wanted and let her die with dignity and bury her and be allowed to grieve and get on with their lives.

And what wrong with waiting a few months, seeing if a healthy child can come out of this tragedy and then burring her with "dignity" and grieving and getting on with their lives? Other then of course the unbelievable hospital bill, perhaps hospitals should not be able to bill people for treatment that mandatory by law (even bible-thumper laws)

Why shouldn't the relatives have the right to bury her?

Because the question of what right a fetus has is still in question.

You know, she's dead. Why are they being forced, without any form of consent, to keep her alive on a machine, with all the horror that entails, because the hospital wants to use her uterus?

because again the fetus might have rights, its not not her uterus, for which her ownership of is questionable as she is a corpse, but about what rights the fetus has.

You know, I have provided you with all the information I have, which you can easily pull your fingers out of your arse and google yourself. Instead, you ask the most stupid questions one could possibly imagine, to try to mask your pro-life stance under the guise of devil's advocate.

Your really REALLY per-judging me on this. I'm not pro-life, I think I made that clear, a women has a right to abort, the fetus is not a person, being qualified as "alive" does not grant one a right to remain alive in every circumstance. The problem is that I don't see people that think differently from me as evil, stupid, guaranteedly wrong. First off I always accept the possibility I could be wrong, nothing is assured (other then fundamental mathematics, my own consciousness, little things like that) and nothing impossible, only improbable. Second the way people think is different from mine, why?, what is there reasoning?, I want to understand their perspective and how they can come to such different conclusions, I'm not going to just instantly conclude they are stupid or evil or wrong.

Back to the questions: do you know for sure the fetus is deformed and doomed, that in the utilitarian outlook: its life will be filled with pain therefor all this keeping the mother body alive is futile. I cited the medical peer-review journal report of a similar case, in which the mother was brain-dead, hypoxic, pumped with "drugs" for 10 weeks and the fetus was grown to viability and was healthy. I conclude we cannot use the utilitarian outlook unless we get specific proof from Marlise's case that her fetus is deformed and crippled, and even then we would be entering eugenics philosophy and stating indirectly that healthy fetuses have a right to live while unhealthy ones do not. We need to go back and answer the question: does a corpse have rights over a fetus?

As even a retard would understand, if they allow her to die with dignity as per her wishes and her family's wishes, then the non-viable foetus will die. It doesn't take a fucking genius to work this out. Now do you wish to acknowledge this medical fact? Or do you want to troll some more?

How was I trolling? The very question I keep asking is fundamental to this fact! If the corpse and the fetus was not intrinsically bound to each other there would be no problem with burying the corpse and keeping the fetus alive at the same time. But because the corpse needs to be kept on a ventilator and pumped with "drugs" in order to keep the fetus alive we have this ethical quagmire: does a corpse have rights over a fetus?

Well considering they made their wishes very clear and public and have said why they want to turn off her life support, I'd say it's pretty fucking clear unless you are the type to think that she will be healed as the retards praying outside her hospital and calling her husband a murderer seem to believe.

Do we know what they are thinking, not what they are simply saying? Do we know if they are being billed and how much, do we know if this is affecting their thinking, no we don't know.

He wants to let her die with dignity and bury her. You know, like normal people do.

And what wrong with doing that in a few months?

As has been pointed out numerous times now, her family are relating what she would have wanted as she made it clear to them previously.

Do family member have the right to kill a fetus? Honestly I'm have trouble believing that she verbally told them "if I were to be brain-dead and pregnant, kill me", of course the family has rights over her corpse, but does that include the right to kill a fetus?

Why are you so intent to defy her and their wishes in this?

Because A) We don't know for sure it her wish B) we need to define that relatives have the right to kill fetuses, not just mothers right, in short we are now saying they own her uterus and the right to 'abort'.

What rights do her loved ones have over her corpse?

yes that the question I'm asking, honestly I don't personally know, ethically I'm split on if the relatives have a right to kill a fetus. If we say yes, then where does it end, do we limit it to the brain-dead, PVS, mentally retarded, legal power of attorney, adolescents. If a say 12 year old becomes pregnant do the relatives how the power to make her get an abortion or make her grow it to term? If we say no then we would be granting some rights to a fetus, making a new classifier below people (like animals) again what would be the legal repercussion if we granted fetuses some rights?

It is not viable.

It cannot exist outside of a human body.

yes so? Does being in-viable at presenty mean no rights what so ever?

I'm sorry, are you claiming the State owns your body and your organs after you die?

Yes in some cases they can, if my body is not claimed by relatives, the state can bury/cremate it how it wants, sell it to a medical school for dissection, rot it in a body farm for forensic science, etc, etc. This is why we need to ask what right do your relatives have over your uterus and it contents once your dead?

Yet they can use a person's womb without consent (the previous owner or her next of kin) after they die?

If there is a fetus inside, perhaps yes, does the fetus have rights over a corpse? Do claimants of a corpse have rights over the fetus?

Fuck a corpse and post a video on youtube and you tell me what happens to you. My advice, don't bend over in the shower when you're in jail.

There are State laws.

Yes, but as I stated before they are not as severe as rape, in some states necrophilia is even a mistermeaner.

The law applies from the moment of conception.

Withdrawing blood would give them the answer. And they always check.

Blood test can't detect a per-implanted zygote.

See, this is yet another example of a retarded question.

How do you think hospitals know if there is a DNR for you?

A DNR is a legal form, it can't simply be verbally stated by a relative.

Really, you don't read any links provided?

Do said links claim the husband provided the DNR form and had the hospital read it?

The law is not written to allow doctors to do what they wish with pregnant corpses without consent, which they clearly do not have. I mean fuck dude, how many times does this have to be explained to you and linked to you?

Clearly the hospitals interpretation of the law is different, which means this has to go to a court of law to decide.

Well being male, you can have a living directive and yeah, you do get that final say. But if you were female and pregnant or there is a trace of pregnancy hormones in your blood, then whatever you may have wanted or even what your family wants is disregarded.

First off you need to prove they are going to test for "pregnancy hormones", of which like human chorionic gonadotropin (standard for pregnancy test) can only be detect implanted embryos of 1-2 weeks of age. Second yes the question is once again the rights of a fetus verse a corpse or the claimants of that corpse. I think your seeing this as a degradation to women's rights, but once you die your are not a women anymore, just as a dead man can have his sperm extracted at the wife's leisure, or the wishes of a person on how to be buried can be completely disregarded by the relatives or even the state if no claim is made on the corpse: once dead your rights as a person are void. And now unlike in abortion where we ask what rights does a fetus have against a person, we are asking what rights does a fetus have against a corpse or those responsible for said corpse.

I would suggest you read the link provided where there are doctors who describe the whole process.

I have, I provided a case study of my own from a medical journal describe in exacting details the process of keeping a brain dead women alive for at least 10 weeks to raise a fetus to term and care of that neonate to 8 months infancy as a apparently healthy baby. The only difference was in that case the husband agreed to keep the wife alive to bring the fetus to term, presenting no apparent ethical problem (unless the mother secretly did not want the child or did not want to be kept alive as a vegetable for her child or property of her husband as a incubator/womb/uterus)

It matters to her family. Or do they not count?

You tell me what consent has to do with a corpse. Or more to the point, what right does the hospital have to do this to her corpse without anyone's consent.

And you tell me what right do others have to terminate a pregnancy that not theirs?

See Fetus, we aren't stupid. Perhaps you think we are.

You have been playing this game for how many pages now? Kind of over it. If you are going to act like a child, then do not be surprised if you are treated like one. Links were provided and you either did not read them because you think it's funny to troll and ask questions that even my 6 year old knows the answers to, or you think you are smart enough to think that anyone here with more than 2 active brain cells believes your devil's advocate game. No one does. Instead you have gone out of your way to be as offensive as you can be and then you have the nerve to act surprised when you are called out on it?

I read the links and either I missed something or they did not answer my questions. By all means tell me how I was offensive. I'll tell you how your offensive: you implied I'm stupid, a child, call me a troll, called me a pro-lifer.

Again, you aren't really fooling anyone.

I was not trying to fool anyone. I guess I can add that as another of the offensive things you claiming I'm doing.

Read the links provided that explained what would be given to her to keep her body in a state that could support a foetus or even her body for this long.

I did. There nothing in that that forbids organ donation or would assure harm to the fetus.

As one of the links explained, after a while, the organs will start to fail.

and as I showed in a clinical case study they can be kept operational with the drugs I listed enough to raise a fetus to term as a healthy neonate and presumably also for organ transplant afterwards as those drugs have been used specifically for that purpose on "beating-heart cadavers" in preparing their bodies for appropriately time organ harvesting, please examine some of the links to the drugs specified in my previous post.

Also, the case you cited was only for 10 weeks, when she was 21 weeks pregnant when she fell ill. Also, she stopped breathing in the ambulance, so they were able to manually maintain her oxygen levels. She was not without oxygen for over an hour

Just because we would need to keep Marlise alive for 6 weeks longer, do you have proof this is impossible? Marlise was found unconscious and had been out of bed for at least and hour, there no knowing how long she was without oxygen, likewise in the case cited lack of oxygen was a significant worry on the fetuses health but with the husband approval they carried on with the pregnancy regardless.

and neither was the foetus. She was also not shocked back to life and given drugs to get her heart beating again.

Do you have medical evidence electrical defibrillation harms a fetus? What were these specific drugs used to "get her heart beating again"?

It never stopped beating. Most importantly, she was brain damaged. Not brain dead. There was still brain activity up to one day before she died, which was 2 days after the c-section.

it is important to understand how brain death is determine, electrical activity is not even needed for determination, and activity beyond the brain stem is not counted, if the brain stem is gone brain death is concluded regardless if there is activity in other regions of the brain. If the body can not longer breath on its own, respond to pain/light autonomically in two testings several hours apart they are consider brain dead, that all.

Do we need to go over the differences here?

Again I was explaining the medical possibility, be it improbable, that the fetus in Marlise's case might be grown to term and healthy based on the fact that it has been done before in similar (though not of course identical cases), not on the ethical similarities of these two cases. Now I could say that only stupidity or a intellect less then a 6 year old child could not understand that distinction, but I'm not vindictive, hateful or overloaded with emotion, I'm simply asking for rational intellectual debate on the specific rights of a fetus verse a corpse (or claimants of said corpse, or 'patient' if she is determined to be so by a court of law which would make for even more of an ethical shit-storm) as par the case of Marlise Munoz. I've already explained why the potential of the fetus being deformed is a secondary issue, do deformed fetuses have less rights is another issue altogether if a fetus period does not have rights above a corpse. Ethically who owns Marlise's uterus (or more precisely what in it) the state or the family (it can't be Marlise, on account that she is either legally dead or can't directly specify her wishes without the use of a wedgie board) and if we grant the state or her family ownership of a dead women womb to either grow a fetus to term or kill it with the body, what are the ethical complications, what could it mean for other cases?

 

[Tiassa]

Why Burn Bridges When You Can Live Under Them?

How was I trolling?

It seems inevitable that no matter where a discussion is in its course, there is always one person who wants to take it back beyond square one.

In this case, you're enjoying the ruse to the point that I'm perfectly willing to believe you're pro-life.

Trolling? You continue to insist on the rights of the fetus without establishing what they are, or whence they come. The thing is you're not helping anyone with anything; you're just mocking the anti-abortion crowd by playing the idiot.

As I noted, the lack of valid, reliable, affirmative assertions about this asserted personhood leaves it to be defined by those who would disagree with it.

You have yet to address this point, yet continue to attend fetal personhood without question. You've done your part to show whatever you think it is you need to demonstrate to the anti-abortion team about how to ask questions. Try showing them how to answer a few.

And, of course, it might be to everyone's benefit if you put some effort into acknowledging the actual issue instead of arguing about what was already conceded.

The lack of good faith about the anti-abortion argument is disgusting. You've done an excellent job of demonstrating what that absence of good faith looks like.

To the other, if you're not trying to accomplish something useful in this discussion, you're just trolling.

 

[lightgigantic]

It seems inevitable that no matter where a discussion is in its course, there is always one person who wants to take it back beyond square one.

In this case, you're enjoying the ruse to the point that I'm perfectly willing to believe you're pro-life.

Trolling? You continue to insist on the rights of the fetus without establishing what they are, or whence they come. The thing is you're not helping anyone with anything; you're just mocking the anti-abortion crowd by playing the idiot.

As I noted, the lack of valid, reliable, affirmative assertions about this asserted personhood leaves it to be defined by those who would disagree with it.

You have yet to address this point, yet continue to attend fetal personhood without question. You've done your part to show whatever you think it is you need to demonstrate to the anti-abortion team about how to ask questions. Try showing them how to answer a few.

And, of course, it might be to everyone's benefit if you put some effort into acknowledging the actual issue instead of arguing about what was already conceded.

The lack of good faith about the anti-abortion argument is disgusting. You've done an excellent job of demonstrating what that absence of good faith looks like.

To the other, if you're not trying to accomplish something useful in this discussion, you're just trolling.

I think its you who have missed the ruse bells is playing.
EF is just making the point that there are core issues of the scenario of a brain dead mother that further complicate the ethics of the subject.
Iow if there is contention surrounding personhood and associated rights for a fetus, you are not really heading in to more solid points of discussion if you want to start introducing brain dead people on life support ... and you are even heading further afield with chaff for the mill when you feel a need to generate slander to support a schism
:shrug: