This and That
Billvon said:
However, it may become viable. Thus one potential life is weighed against the rights of a corpse (which, being dead, does not have the rights of a living person.) Not such an easy decision.
Setting aside the politics for a moment, the phrase "rights of a corpse" seems to be overused here. To wit, there are laws about the handling of dead bodies. And, yes, there is a law in Texas about dead bodies that are pregnant. However, in the politics of the moment, people are leaving out the fact that the hospital is behaving inappropriately
under the law.
It is established that legal experts reviewing the law and its application find the hospital has done so incorrectly. Even the legislators who passed the law are surprised at its use here.
Furthermore, the fetus was not viable at the time this began. While part of the ethical question might seem to hinge on the idea that it
might become viable, there is also the question of when the hospital considered her dead. The records delivered to Muñoz's attorneys confirm that the hospital has known she was dead—and therefore the fetal law does not extend to this circumstance—from the outset.
Looking back to the politics, where do these facts fit into the discussion? It would
seem that for the anti-abortion advocates, such considerations are entirely irrelevant.
The hospital broke the law. Perhaps this is a Rosa Parks notion for many anti-abortion activists, that hospitals should break the law in order to force a political discussion.
But those who are unsettled by the idea that a woman "is just a vehicle, an incubator, without autonomy"
(Toobin) are in no way reassured by the prospect that once again, the fact that women can be pregnant is enough of a reason to go out of one's way to break the law in order to create that incubator.
Much like the excess of seven hundred posts spent avoiding the question of what happens to women under LACP, such actions only reiterate the implication that women are not people but subordinate creatures.
• • •
ElectricFetus said:
Do you have proof the health insurer is being charged?
That's actually beside the point. One of three entities, generally speaking, will pay the bills: an insurance company, the family, or the public.
I'm pretty sure the health insurance companies are clear on this one: Once the policyholder is dead, the policyholder is dead. Bells' question is rhetorical, making the obvious point that of those entities, it will
not be the insurance company footing the bill on this one.
Thus, going back to
#726 (should we look earlier for that branch of the discussion?) the answer is that no, we do not yet have proof that the family is being charged, yet, as JPSH has not yet said that it will not be charging the family for this unauthorized, elective medical care.
And I actually doubt they will; they have no standing to do so. In the end, JPSH does not want to say because once the public is acknowledged to be on the hook for these costs, the political dynamic they have crafted changes dramatically.
What wrong with stating it a neutral terms: "Does the state have the right to override the request of a corpse DNR or corpse's claimant to termination of medical intervention in order to keep it in "beating-heart cadaver" condition if it is determined to be pregnant?"
If there was a statutory provision that said yes, the answer would be yes. As it is, however, the answer is no.
What's wrong with stating it in neutral terms? What's wrong with attending the law in neutral terms? JPSH went out of their way to create this situation. They are going to lose, and will thus be lionized in anti-abortion folklore.
And perhaps it
does raise existential questions in the minds of those determined to find existential questions about womanhood, but this maneuver was not intended to actually engage and address those questions. For those of us who disdain those existential questions for the fact that they only remain in order to accommodate those who are hoping for a fundamental paradigm shift, our record is generally clear on the existential questions of woman and fetus. Beyond that, there is a cold, mechanical, statutory issue in play here.
If the law assigned the state "the right to override the request of a corpse DNR or corpse's claimant to termination of medical intervention in order to keep it in 'beating-heart cadaver' condition if it is determined to be pregnant",
then regardless of what we might think of the law, that would be the law. And, oh, the issues such a statute would raise.
How's this for dry and neutral:
Should the state have the right (i.e., duty, as it would become under Amendment XIV) to override DNR and executor determination in order to keep it in 'beating-heart cadaver' condition in order to cultivate a zygote, blastocyst, embryo, or fetus to viability?
The entire well is poisoned by design, here. In a different context there could be no controversy, but the fact is that JPSH went out of its way to establish this context in order to invoke this controversy. At some point, this becomes relevant. There are likely people going to federal prison for this, and one of the lessons of civil disobedience is that doing the time is part of the routine.
And if that comes about, remember what the candlelight vigils outside the prison will be for:
Yes, the state should override women's DNRs and suspend executor determination in order to cultivate zygotes, blastocysts, embryos, and fetuses to viability inside a corpse.
As I said, in a different context, there could be no controversy.
These discussions tend to get subsumed under their paradigm labels. But there are differences. Think back to the Schiavo case. There we had a lack of living will, clear instruction to the husband, and parents that didn't want to give up despite the obvious and empowered by a political movement to extend their anguish over a decade. Of course they appeared in the Jahi McMath case, but as
Jeffrey Toobin reflects, "McMath's family has no apparent politics; they are simply grieving." In that case, really the more interesting question at this point is what went wrong and who will be tacked to the shed for it. The Muñoz consideration? We have a lack of living will, clear instruction to husband and family, a fetus that was not viable at the time of Marlise Muñoz's death, and a hospital behaving in a deliberately deceptive manner in order to create and frame a political argument.
The question in civil court will be whether the hospital intends to fight or, facing possible federal civil rights investigation, will settle in order to not put anything more on the record. One of the interesting questions within that process will be when a death certificate was issued; a commenter to the
Star-Telegram, in sympathy with JPSH, argued on January 10, "Dr. Fine says she is legally dead. That's not true. There is no death certificate. So according to the state, she is legally alive. Brain dead is not the same as legally dead."
(Hensel Demond) We already know that the hospital was aware she was brain dead the whole time, so why no death certificate? It is exactly as the commenter suggests; this is a bureaucratic stunt by the hospital.
All of this unethical behavior to create and frame
this specific political dispute?
And do neutral terms rule out including this willful misbehavior in describing the questions this specific political dispute, as crafted by JPSH, begs?
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Notes:
Toobin, Jeffrey. "Even in Death, Abortion Politics Never Goes Away". The New Yorker. January 21, 2014. NewYorker.com. January 22, 2014. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...-death-abortion-politics-never-goes-away.html
Hensell Demond, Lesley. "Dr. Fine says she is legally dead". Facebook. January 10, 2014. Star-Telegram.com. January 22, 2014. http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/01/09/5474256/marlise-munoz-and-the-politics.html#article_comments
