Redux: Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

[wynn]

If its that far along surly he knew that she was pregnant and if its that far along she had obviously decided she wanted to keep it so why should the state pay for it?

Indeed. Some people who decide to have children don't seem to realize all the costs that may be associated with that.

On principle, the case of the dead pregnant woman is similar as the case when an infant or a small child, or a person at any age, in fact, has a disease that would require very expensive treatment.
Every day, children, young people and adults are left to die from diseases which could on principle be treated, because they cannot afford to pay for the treatment.

So this whole issue of the thread topic seems to come down to costs and who will pay them.

If the father of this child that hasn't been born yet and his advocates would come forward and clearly state that they cannot afford to pay for the pregnant woman to be kept alive artificially until the child is born, and that they therefore ask for the state or other sponsors to help financially, the whole situation would be much clearer and more decidable.

 

[Asguard]

Does the state pay damages for doing an autopsy against the cultural wishes of Muslims? No neither should they in this case. Preserving a life is a far more benifical use of a body than overruling a family just so you can hunt a killer potentially causing more trauma in the process

 

[Bells]

Does the state pay damages for doing an autopsy against the cultural wishes of Muslims?

I'm sorry, what?

You have made this idiotic assertion in this thread before and you are factually incorrect.

Do you know what Maslaha means? It means 'for public benefit' and it was a central basis for a fatwa from H. M. Makhluf about autopsies. Perhaps you can read into it a bit more so you don't sound like, well, someone who is making wild and bizarre claims without any foundation or basis in truth. If you are incapable of looking it up, the Islamic Council of Victoria have a great and nifty little segment on autopsies and death in general:

Permissible when:

• deemed necessary to establish cause of death
• significant public health interest
• required by law (suspicious circumstances, Coroner's case)
• Not accepted for routine documentation / curiosity

​

No neither should they in this case. Preserving a life is a far more benifical use of a body than overruling a family just so you can hunt a killer potentially causing more trauma in the process

Whose life are you preserving in this instance?

The brain dead mother who will never wake up? Or the foetus who is apparently so deformed that its sex cannot be determined, its brain swollen and inflated with fluid and its heart possibly terribly affected?

You are a paramedic. If you respond to a call to someone's house and someone has died and they have a DNR in place. Would you ignore it and perform CPR and transport them to hospital, so they can be put on life support because you believe preserving a life is more beneficial?

 

[wynn]

If its that far along surly he knew that she was pregnant and if its that far along she had obviously decided she wanted to keep it

14 weeks is still early enough to change one's mind

If prior to becoming brain dead, the pregnant woman has made no arrangements for an abortion, the default is to assume that she wanted to keep the child.

but using people's bodies for their utility to somebody else, without consent and by coercion, is one of the standard criteria for evil. Without sliding into the characteristic wingnut identification of person with stance, we can observe that advocacy of evil is dubious argument even on a science forum.

Riiight. Because cases of pregnant dead women are so numerous that they are in fact the norm, it's totally clear and obvious what to do in those cases, no discussion needed whatsoever, ever.

 

[wynn]

Whose life are you preserving in this instance?

The brain dead mother who will never wake up? Or the foetus who is apparently so deformed that its sex cannot be determined, its brain swollen and inflated with fluid and its heart possibly terribly affected?

So in this case, we go by the triage model. Nobody's personhood is diminished by it.

 

[wynn]

There is only one thing that is potentially troubling about the triage model: To use the triage model means to openly acknowledge that resources are limited.


To use the triage model means to openly acknowledge that much in life depends on money.
To use the triage model means to openly acknowledge that much in life depends on money, and that sometimes, people have to be left to die because they don't have enough money.
To use the triage model means to openly acknowledge that much in life depends on the state of available technology.
To use the triage model means to openly acknowledge that much in life depends on the state of available technology, and that sometimes, some people will not have access to suitable tehcnology, and will therefore be left to die.

For some people, acknowledging this is too painful.

 

[Bells]

/Speechless..

You know, sending the individual in question a PM might have saved yourself this.. ermm.. awkward moment..

 

[iceaura]

If prior to becoming brain dead, the pregnant woman has made no arrangements for an abortion, the default is to assume that she wanted to keep the child.

Fortunately we don't have to make harebrained "default" assumptions about what she would want in the new situation, because we have a family and next of kin right at hand.

And she can't "keep the child", because she is braindead.

Because cases of pregnant dead women are so numerous that they are in fact the norm, it's totally clear and obvious what to do in those cases,

Every week in the US there come to be many thousands of dead women, pregnant and otherwise, whose bodies could be used for the utility of other people without their consent and against the wishes of their families. Decent people, or those who wish to avoid doing evil anyway, have always forbidden that.

So in this case, we go by the triage model. Nobody's personhood is diminished by it.

Excellent. We allow the woman a decent death, release the body to her family for burial and memorial, and save the resources for somebody who can be helped.

Does the state pay damages for doing an autopsy against the cultural wishes of Muslims?

There aren't any.

 

[wynn]

/Speechless..

You know, sending the individual in question a PM might have saved yourself this.. ermm.. awkward moment..

It isn't I who is "having an awkward moment."

 

[wynn]

Every week in the US there come to be many thousands of dead women, pregnant and otherwise, whose bodies could be used for the utility of other people without their consent and against the wishes of their families.

Strawman. It's not like the braindead woman whose case we've been discussing recently was impregnated against her will once she was already dead, nor was an alien embryo implanted into her. She was carrying her own child, not some total stranger.

So don't try to make this into some kind of illicit harvesting of organs kind of scenario.

 

[ElectricFetus]

It is difficult to argue the ethics of this debate with someone who would only value their spouse as a breeder.

I explained to you exactly what that word meant and you ignored me completely. There no point in arguing with someone who only sees what they want to see. Just look at your self, every post of yours is filled with slanderd and insults at this point, that no way to win a debate, just relax and focus on the primary issue, just state clearly why marlise should be terminated as her husband request per her wishes or so claimed, acknowledge the fetus and disinvow it personhood or its right to live even in this case. Just stick to the points over and over and do not resort to name calling and insinuation or slander, it only demeans your self.

 

[Bells]

I explained to you exactly what that word meant and you ignored me completely. There no point in arguing with someone who only sees what they want to see. Just look at your self, every post of yours is filled with slanderd and insults at this point, that no way to win a debate, just relax and focus on the primary issue, just state clearly why marlise should be terminated as her husband request per her wishes or so claimed, acknowledge the fetus and disinvow it personhood or its right to live even in this case. Just stick to the points over and over and do not resort to name calling and insinuation or slander, it only demeans your self.

Yes, you did explain it and as I pointed out above, you simply made my point for me.

You know Fetus, there comes a point here where I will take you at the role you wish to portray yourself as here.

Why should Marlise Munoz be terminated and pro-life perverts should stay out of her dead womb? Ah geez, I don't know, where would I begin. The fact that she is dead and on life support might have something to do with it. The fact that she had a living directive arrangement with her spouse and her parents which distinctly advised them to not allow her to remain on life support is another. The fact that the hospital is disregarding her clear wishes and the wishes of her next of kin and putting her on life support, after she became brain dead, because they want to preserve her corpse to grow a foetus in it without the consent of the husband or her consent for that matter might be another huge reason. The fact that the hospital has deliberately misrepresented the law and also misrepresented her condition by not issuing a declaration of death and death certificate, because they know doing so will mean they have to release her body to her family.. The fact that the hospital has deceitfully withheld the condition of the foetus from all involved is also another. Now we know, after he legal team gained access to her medical file, that the foetus is severely deformed, has swelling in the brain and may more than likely have a heart condition which cannot be verified because they cannot move the mother's corpse to get a better look might also be a huge reason.

You know, the very things I have been arguing from the start. But you were too busy claiming to be playing devil's advocate to notice.

 

[ElectricFetus]

Yes, you did explain it and as I pointed out above, you simply made my point for me.

How does it make such a point? how you define breeder is not how I define it, I was not calling women breeders as you define it yet you merely claim that is what we are saying and divert the issue to slander us and call us name, imply we hate or want to oppress women. It does not matter what we are you need to prove what we do is wrong, you can call a 19th century slavery evil all you want, doing that did not stop slavery, rather proving that slavery was wrong in its self did.

Why should Marlise Munoz be terminated and pro-life perverts should stay out of her dead womb?

Typical pro-lifer rhetoric tactic: completely demonize the otherside, present no honest argument.

Ah geez, I don't know, where would I begin. The fact that she is dead and on life support might have something to do with it. The fact that she had a living directive arrangement with her spouse and her parents which distinctly advised them to not allow her to remain on life support is another. The fact that the hospital is disregarding her clear wishes and the wishes of her next of kin and putting her on life support, after she became brain dead, because they want to preserve her corpse to grow a foetus in it without the consent of the husband or her consent for that matter might be another huge reason.

yes, yes, and? You need to state why the rights of the husband of the corpse, or the corpse its self greater then the fetus, that all, it very simple to do in fact.

The fact that the hospital has deliberately misrepresented the law and also misrepresented her condition by not issuing a declaration of death and death certificate, because they know doing so will mean they have to release her body to her family.. The fact that the hospital has deceitfully withheld the condition of the foetus from all involved is also another. Now we know, after he legal team gained access to her medical file, that the foetus is severely deformed, has swelling in the brain and may more than likely have a heart condition which cannot be verified because they cannot move the mother's corpse to get a better look might also be a huge reason.

So, are you implying crippled people should not live now?

You know, the very things I have been arguing from the start. But you were too busy claiming to be playing devil's advocate to notice.

No you failed to argue constructively and to the point, failed to prove that the right of the corpse is above that of the fetus, and resorted to slandering me and others as prolifers, as "perverts", imply repeatedly we are abnormal and stupid, etc, and then you pull up other ethically questionable arguments like that because the fetus appears to be crippled by the claims of the families lawyer that is should be killed. Heck none of this would have started if you did not bring in the exceptional and just proved the norm of abortion is morally just, now we are arguing about corpses verse fetuses! It people like you, not just the pro-lifers that have made this as never ending bickering political war.

 

[wynn]

It people like you, not just the pro-lifers that have made this as never ending bickering political war.

And it is pregnant women and their unborn children who are paying the price.

 

[Bells]

How does it make such a point? how you define breeder is not how I define it, I was not calling women breeders as you define it yet you merely claim that is what we are saying and divert the issue to slander us and call us name, imply we hate or want to oppress women. It does not matter what we are you need to prove what we do is wrong, you can call a 19th century slavery evil all you want, doing that did not stop slavery, rather proving that slavery was wrong in its self did.

When we say that society imposing people's personal and religious and political beliefs on women's bodies, without their consent, what would you call it? Do you think that's wrong?

Typical pro-lifer rhetoric tactic: completely demonize the otherside, present no honest argument.

Pray tell, how else would you describe Marlise Munoz? Or do you expect me to describe the situation politely because you are uncomfortable with what your pro-life buddies are doing with dead women in Texas?

How else would you like me to describe the situation Fetus? Should I say she is somewhat indisposed? The woman is brain dead, by legal definition she is dead. And a hospital, with support of the State, is using her body to incubate a severely damaged and sick foetus without her consent or her next of kin's consent. That is the honest argument. Would you rather I lie and claim she is not dead?

I mean why are you so angry when the reality of what is being done to her is discussed? Why does reality offend you that you prefer to ignore what is actually happening and lie and claim it is demonizing the other side?

yes, yes, and? You need to state why the rights of the husband of the corpse, or the corpse its self greater then the fetus, that all, it very simple to do in fact.

Been stated numerous times.

Not my problem if you are too busy trying to play devil's advocate and failing so spectacularly that you have exposed yourself as pro-life to have read it.

The law is clear. When someone dies, their remains belong to the next of kin and must be released and treated as such. I mean I could write you a whole essay of why the desecration of this woman's corpse is wrong and totally fucked up in every single ethical sense imaginable.

So, are you implying crippled people should not live now?

Why are you deliberately being so thick?

The foetus isn't just crippled. It is so deformed that they cannot even see its sex at 21 weeks gestation. There is fluid building up in its brain. It has heart problems. The worst part? The hospital didn't even tell the family this. They found out after the lawyers got a hold of the medical records during disclosure. Again, this opens up a series of how fucked up this is in every single ethical sense imaginable. So not only are they holding onto a corpse against the directives of the deceased and her husband and parents, but they are deliberately withholding information about the foetus she is carrying from the father of said foetus.

And all you get from this is "are you implying crippled people should not live now?".

Really Foetus? Are you trying to be this thick?

No you failed to argue constructively and to the point, failed to prove that the right of the corpse is above that of the fetus, and resorted to slandering me and others as prolifers, as "perverts", imply repeatedly we are abnormal and stupid, etc, and then you pull up other ethically questionable arguments like that because the fetus appears to be crippled by the claims of the families lawyer that is should be killed. Heck none of this would have started if you did not bring in the exceptional and just proved the norm of abortion is morally just, now we are arguing about corpses verse fetuses! It people like you, not just the pro-lifers that have made this as never ending bickering political war.

Oh it has been proven.

You are too busy demanding that desecrating a dead corpse to grow a foetus is acceptable to notice.

 

[Tiassa]

¿Merely Disabled?

Typical pro-lifer rhetoric tactic: completely demonize the otherside, present no honest argument.

Only in fiskogrophy. After all, it's a rhetorical question that is answered in the subsequent sentences.

Demonizing the other side? In this case, that means holding dishonest behavior in disgust. What don't you like? Pro-life perverts? It's already demonstrable that the anti-abortion crowd is itself obsessed with women's sex lives, and overlaps with other social movements displaying an unnaturally acute focus on other people's sex lives. Is it demonizing the other side to find that leering behavior creepy? I mean, under any other circumstance, that sort of leering behavior is customarily considered creepy. What is the exception here? Or is it that they should stay out of her dead womb? At what point do the facts on record affect, you know, the moral arguments put forward? Is there any affecting value in such considerations that—

—the fetus was not viable when Marlise Muñoz died?

—the hospital willfully misconstrued the law in order to attempt to cultivate that fetus to viability?

—the lack of death certificate as a bureaucratic maneuver to keep Marlise Muñoz's corpse as a patient?

—that all of this dishonesty now fights to inflict tremendous suffering on what will be a short life?

—that we must pretend the law is irrelevant, or ignore a history of laws and customs regarding the dead, in order to build the question of whether the next of kin, fetus, or corpse has more rights?​

What about this issue, which is itself dependent on undemonstrated presuppositions, demands exception from facts?

Frankly, if I was Erick Muñoz, I would include in my tort demand that compensation includes the research data from everything they did to Marlise's corpse being presented open-source. Why wouldn't the hospital want to share its science with the world?

And if the answer is because it was unethical and they knew it from the outset, at what point would that become an issue?

What we now know, and what JPSH has known, is that all of this moral questioning has been purely abstract. The fetus was not viable. It is not viable. It actually required a lawsuit for the hospital to finally release the condition of the lawsuit. One wonders what else they might want kept from the scientific community insofar as, sure, the outcome was easily predictable at the start, but the scientific community can only learn from JPSH's subsequent errors of theory and method. Indeed, the only reason I can think of that JPSH wouldn't want that information released to the public, should Mr. Muñoz consent to or demand such an outcome, would be that it's embarrassing. And I don't mean like Nazi evil embarrassing, but rather the idea that fellow scientific professionals will easily perceive the juvenile games JPSH has been playing in the guise of science.

Faith and politics. We should not be amazed at the spectacle of those swindled defending the confidence man. Indeed, when it happens on any large scale, it's always faith or politics, and usually in such a realm that both are occurring at once.

The underlying questions are fascinating, but we now see the deceptions upon which they were based. This is a deliberately fashioned existential crisis.

Still, though, there is the larger abortion issue, and the fact that forty years on, the anti-abortion argument hasn't gotten any less rude. To wit:

So, are you implying crippled people should not live now?

Lest anyone think you're simply mocking the anti-abortion crowd, let me affirm that this is an expected question. And the simple, rational answer to it is that this isn't about crippled people. This "person" as such, is not merely crippled. If the fetus lives to delivery, it will not remain long in this world.

Of course, this personhood argument also presents a new ethical conundrum.

• If the fetus lives to delivery, then it is unquestionably, by any argument, a person.

• If that person survives birth, then he or she will suffer greatly until dying.

• This is a unique case in which that suffering would be deliberately inflicted by the doctors who undertook such extraordinary measures to establish and maintain viability.

• Will JPSH be responsible for causing that existentially unquestionable person's suffering and death?​

Yes, it's a twist and a half, but this was never a fetus viable to live (ahem!) "merely" disabled.

What an interesting phrase—merely disabled.

Or perhaps the hand of God will reach down and touch this child? And it will live a rich, full life being merely disabled?

At any rate, no, this isn't about people who are merely disabled, though I thank you and the anti-abortion argument for leading me to the term; some blessings, indeed, are morbid. With organs developing incorrectly, fluid on the brain, and a potential heart condition that cannot be appropriately diagnosed for fear of damaging the fetus' decomposing home, y'all are welcome to place your bets.

If this fetus survives to delivery, then ... well, what? It ain't gonna be pretty. Ain't gonna be glorious.

And now the world is watching.

Actually, in the end, JPSH might well be making the pro-choice argument as a result of its actions.

This is, by any applicable measure, a complete disaster.

Over the past forty years, the pro-choice community has becomes somewhat accustomed to the increasingly disrespectful antics of the anti-abortion movement. And, look, when it's arson or even murder, we get it. No, of course they didn't want that to happen. Sure, they knew that kind of violence existed when they created the dead-or-alive flyers. Sure, they wanted widespread outrage about a murderer being on the loose. But, oh, gosh, of course they didn't want murder or terrorism.

At least, that's the decent, charitable presupposition.

This, however, isn't that sort of thing. This is a separate, customized, and frankly breathtaking set of dimensions. Calculated, well-financed, and even backed by the county and therefore the state. And founded entirely in sleights of law, bureaucracy, and fact.

We're already offended. Indeed, on that count the only question is how creative the anti-abortion movement can get in its sustained campaign to elevate the fetus above the mother—the zygote, even.

It people like you, not just the pro-lifers that have made this as never ending bickering political war.

Which is the problem with this sort of prim appeal. To the first, it's a shooting war already. Only one side is shooting, but that fulfills the requirement for a shooting war.

To the second, while people are certainly free to disagree with opinions, it is much harder to appropriately disagree with facts; this is why the anti-abortion movement tends to disregard facts.

To the beeblebrox, as there is no rule three, after forty years of disrespect ranging from the general to the mortal, the pro-choice movement is open to suggestions: How do you communicate with people who refuse to communicate?

To the fourth, look at the things we have to set aside in order to have arguments about the rights of a corpse, because that is apparently more important than answering the fundamental question of the societal impacts of LACP.

To complain that pro-choice frustration only forestalls progress is to pretend that progress is possible. The abortion political issue is now a public relations fight, with each side insisting it is correct, one side using facts to support its opinion, and the other side employing dishonesty, fantasy, and appeals to aesthetics and emotion.

Even JPSH is playing for the gallery, and has been the whole time.

But, hey, it makes sense:

Proposition: If personhood is granted at conception/fertilization, what happens to women under the law?

Response: What has more rights, a corpse or a fetus?​

Believe it or not, that we're down to ignoring our laws and historical customs regarding the dead in order to justify the false juxtaposition of corpse versus fetus actaully makes perfect sense.
____________________

Notes:

Wikipedia. "Fisking". November 6, 2013. En.Wikipedia.org. January 23, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking

 

[ElectricFetus]

When we say that society imposing people's personal and religious and political beliefs on women's bodies, without their consent, what would you call it? Do you think that's wrong?

Well again on this particular issue we are talking about corpses not women. But I don't think going around calling everyone I disagree wtih 'perverts' or 'creppy' or stupid, etc, etc, is a useful response.

Pray tell, how else would you describe Marlise Munoz?

An apparently brain-dead or "beating heart cadavor" that is pregnant.

Or do you expect me to describe the situation politely because you are uncomfortable with what your pro-life buddies are doing with dead women in Texas?

Oh great, I'm buddies with them now.

How else would you like me to describe the situation Fetus? Should I say she is somewhat indisposed? The woman is brain dead, by legal definition she is dead. And a hospital, with support of the State, is using her body to incubate a severely damaged and sick foetus without her consent or her next of kin's consent.

Yes, just like that thank you. No "there in her womb" or "using her uterus" or something to that nature. Now why should the state/hospital not do this? Well yes as you say "because it wrong!" but WHY is it wrong, yes her rights (if she had any) are violate, Ok her husbands right is violated, so the husband should have sole responsibilty over her and the fetus, why? Does the fetus have any rights of its own, no, why not? it not viable, sure, but does a fetus have all rights once its is viable, are 3rd trimester abortions thus violations of a fetuses rights? Is viability the only requirement for rights and are they full rights, why are why not? You see most people, like your self are so sure they are right and anyone else is horrible even evilly wrong, but first if your right then you can answer all these question and provide a detail ethical framework that can deal with odd scenarios consistantly rather then emotionally or impulsively.

That is the honest argument. Would you rather I lie and claim she is not dead?

That another ethical problem: some don't consider brain death, death. But no I'm not asking we look into that just yet, if you would like to provide a detail arguement for why brain death is the same as true death (other then that most states qualify it as) that would be great. I personally would say it is, because the person is the character, personality and consciousness of a person, not their body. And once brain dead all that is gone forever, all that left is their body. Of course PVS are not people by that logic and I personally would not count them as people, the severally mentally handicap would not really be people either and I'm fine with that as well. I'm willing to explore all the ethical consquences of my ethics.

I mean why are you so angry when the reality of what is being done to her is discussed?

Exagerations like "pervert" is not the reality.

Why does reality offend you that you prefer to ignore what is actually happening and lie and claim it is demonizing the other side?

How does calling someone inaccurate and insulting names help in convincing those people of the wrongness of that beleifs and actions? Tell me when a pro-lifers equate you with a murderer does that change your mind? To them it an "accurate" discription.

Been stated numerous times.

Not my problem if you are too busy trying to play devil's advocate and failing so spectacularly that you have exposed yourself as pro-life to have read it.

Yeah I'm not a pro-lifer, you know it, why so spiteful? why do you need to be so slanderous?

The law is clear. When someone dies, their remains belong to the next of kin and must be released and treated as such.

The law once allowed slavery, what your point? I'm talking about ethics, morality: is it morally right for the husband to be able to terminate the corpse AND the fetus, why? Can I ask about the ethical implications of your answer? Would it help you to know that a rational repectful set of answers could sway me on the morality of this case?

The foetus isn't just crippled. It is so deformed that they cannot even see its sex at 21 weeks gestation. There is fluid building up in its brain. It has heart problems. The worst part? The hospital didn't even tell the family this. They found out after the lawyers got a hold of the medical records during disclosure. Again, this opens up a series of how fucked up this is in every single ethical sense imaginable. So not only are they holding onto a corpse against the directives of the deceased and her husband and parents, but they are deliberately withholding information about the foetus she is carrying from the father of said foetus.

I don't know how that answers my ethical question.

And all you get from this is "are you implying crippled people should not live now?".

If your presenting that data as an answer to my question then yes, that the best I can glean from it.

Really Foetus? Are you trying to be this thick?

I'm just trying to get some honest to good abstract ethical answers, that all. Someone raised this case of Marlice Monez and beside Capracus none of the people I thought I could respect after all these years can provide me an answer to this ethical problems I feel it raises. Sure the pro-lifers have cause this nightmare, but that not an ethical problem to me, there actions are wrong to me, rather the case of a corpse verse a fetus I honestly don't know where to side there.

Oh and Tiassa I'm not ignoring you it just that my replies to you keep getting destory by computer errors, seriously, and I don't have enough lack of life to write them again, promise I'll use libraoffice next time, probably would help with all the spelling and grammer errors as well, eh?

 

[billvon]

And a hospital, with support of the State, is using her body to incubate a severely damaged and sick foetus without her consent or her next of kin's consent.

How do you know the fetus is severely damaged? Have you seen the sonograms or the HRM plots?

 

[James R]

How did we get to this?

I guess that the hysterical tirades and refusal to engage in actual communication such as by yourself have contributed to the overall worsening of the situation for pregnant women.

Your camp has shown that you cannot be reasoned with and that you are not willing to actually discuss anything nor cooperate in trying to come up with a workable solution. Your camp simply wants to have its way - yet you refuse to openly state so. Which is one of the main problems here.

It seems to me that each camp wants to have its way.

If you can suggest a suitable middle-ground "workable solution", please do so. It appears to me that one camp will have its way, one way or the other.

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.

The idea of a "potential person" is a common one in the pro-life argument.

I'd like to point out that a potential anything generally does not have the same rights as the thing itself. For example, Prince William is a potential King of England. Does that mean that he - right now - should be treated as if he is already the King? Leonardo di Capprio is a potential Best Actor Oscar winner. Does that mean that we should all - right now - be congratulating him on winning his statuette?

A potential child is not a child, and there's no reason it should - right now - have the same rights as a child merely because of some unrealised potential.

 

[Bells]

How do you know the fetus is severely damaged? Have you seen the sonograms or the HRM plots?

The medical records the hospital sent to the family's lawyers describe the foetal abnormalities and possibly maybe even the state of her body.

Munoz's attorneys, Heather King and Jessica Hall Janicek, issued a statement Wednesday describing the condition of the fetus, now believed to be at about 22 weeks' gestation. King and Janicek based their statement on medical records they received from the hospital.

"According to the medical records we have been provided, the fetus is distinctly abnormal," the attorneys said. "Even at this early stage, the lower extremities are deformed to the extent that the gender cannot be determined."

The attorneys said the fetus also has fluid building up inside the skull and possibly has a heart problem.

"Quite sadly, this information is not surprising due to the fact that the fetus, after being deprived of oxygen for an indeterminate length of time, is gestating within a dead and deteriorating body, as a horrified family looks on in absolute anguish, distress and sadness," the attorneys said.​

Which begs the question, did they tell the father? Or did the poor man find out when the hospital was forced to send the medical records to his lawyers before it goes to court on Friday?

Either way, what this hospital is doing to her husband and her parents and her son is beyond reprehensible.