The Fate of Aborted Fetuses

[Kidlicious]

I'm not sure if sentience is a requirement for happiness either. I'm sure suffering is possible without sentience. Why are you putting so much value on sentience?

[Ban Kenobi]

But dogs and computers are selfs according to you. So what exactly is good about being a self, just being happy and not sufferring?

That's certainly better than being unhappy and miserable. Do you think being a self is good because God says so?

[Kidlicious]

That's certainly better than being unhappy and miserable. Do you think being a self is good because God says so?

I think being an ACTUAL self is good because it means that I'm not just some clump of matter, just a part of the universe.

[Ban Kenobi]

I think being an ACTUAL self is good because it means that I'm not just some clump of matter, just a part of the universe.

So this is an ego trip? You base your metaphysical beliefs on whatever satisfies your pride?

[Kidlicious]

It's self-respect, respect. respect for others who have the courage to be a selff, and respect for God.

[Uncle Sparky]

From Slate -

Marlise Munoz has been brain dead since Nov. 26, and the suffering of her family can only be getting worse. Munoz was found unconscious on her kitchen floor in November, probably because of a blood clot in her lungs. At the time she was 14 weeks pregnant. Ever since, she has been kept “alive” with a ventilator because the hospital where she was taken, John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, believes it must not withdraw “life-sustaining treatment” from a pregnant patient, based on a Texas law that so mandates. And now, lawyers for Erick Munoz, her husband, say that the fetus that his brain-dead wife has been kept on life support to carry is “distinctly abnormal.”

Erick and Marlise’s parents say she would never have wanted this outcome: She was a paramedic who understood end-of-life issues. She and Erick, also a paramedic, have a 15-month-old son. He is seeking a peaceful end for his wife as a parent as well as her husband. Yet somehow, despite her family’s wishes, Marlise’s body is being kept on life support because it is still host to a fetus, now at about 22 weeks, that his lawyers say has fluid building up inside the skull, a possible heart problem, and lower extremities “deformed to the extent that the gender cannot be determined.”

How can the state supersede the wishes of Erick in this scenario? The answer is that it can’t. Hospitals cannot provide “life-sustaining treatment” to a person who is dead, and that’s what brain dead means: death. This is not the same as being in a vegetative state, where you can breathe without a respirator. In all 50 states, brain dead means you are legally dead.

So Marlise remains hooked up because the hospital is misreading Texas law. NYU bioethicist Arthur Caplan laid this out last week, explaining why the hospital is misinterpreting the law (and also why that law must be unconstitutional). “The fact that the fetus apparently has significant abnormalities shows just how awful, misguided and cruel the Texas law is,” he emailed me Thursday morning. “The uncertainties about the pregnancy—damaged fetus, almost no cases of trying to bring a 14-week-old to term in this circumstance, what he the dad is able to cope with, his dead wife’s wishes about wanting to have a child if she cannot parent, the massive costs involved and the impact of a tragic outcome on his other child—they point clearly in the direction of who should be making the decisions and who should have been making them all along. Not the hospital, not the legislature, not pro-life or pro-choicers—the husband.”

Erick is suing the hospital with a hearing scheduled for Friday. There is a precedent in Texas for withdrawing treatment from a brain-dead pregnant woman—Tammy Martin, the subject of a month long court battle in 1999—but in that case, the fetus was also dead. Still, any judge, whatever his politics, should follow that ruling and give Erick the right to respect his wife’s wishes. And the judge should act fast, because the fetus is approaching the point of viability, which will make the situation much more difficult. This family has suffered so much already. No state, and no hospital, should invade this deeply personal sphere of heartbreak.

So, rather than start a new thread, in Texas, even the dead who have a “deformed to the extent that the gender cannot be determined” fetus cannot have abortions... or be allowed to die even if their families want them too. Another reason that 'Christians' in the US are full of sh!t.

Discuss.

[Kidlicious]

Might as well stick it in a troll thread.

[Ban Kenobi]

From Slate -


So, rather than start a new thread, in Texas, even the dead who have a “deformed to the extent that the gender cannot be determined” fetus cannot have abortions... or be allowed to die even if their families want them too. Another reason that 'Christians' in the US are full of sh!t.

Discuss.

She'd be able to get an abortion if she were still conscious. Naturally, letting her braindead body and a horribly deformed fetus die a natural death would be immoral based on objective moral standards not found anywhere in the Bible but which obviously come from God.

[SlowwHand]

This is an example of my being in support of an abortion.

[Ben Kenobi]

So, rather than start a new thread, in Texas, even the dead who have a “deformed to the extent that the gender cannot be determined” fetus cannot have abortions... or be allowed to die even if their families want them too. Another reason that 'Christians' in the US are full of sh!t.

One - it's the attorney that supports abortion and the father trying to kill his child that is making this 'statement of fact'. Where's the evidence for it? Are they showing the ultrasounds to demonstrate that this is in fact the case, or are they peddling scurrilous lies in order to sway public opinion to attempt to eliminate the law protecting this child?

Two - even if the child were deformed (which is something we don't know) - is this going to be the standard that it's ok to kill people with disabilities?

Three - the child is 24 weeks along, a fact that the article (in all the hullabaloo), fails to mention.



There you go. 24 weeks. That's what the child would look like if a proper ultrasound were done. The father says that the child is deformed. Well, then. Prove it. Show us.

http://www.preemiesurvival.org/info/

Right now - the child has a 34 percent chance of survival outside of the womb entirely. Wait a week and it jumps to 50. Wait another and it jumps even higher.

Is this case so urgent that it cannot wait another two weeks to save the life of the child?

Are doctors obliged to kill a patient with more than a one in three chance of survival at present?

[SlowwHand]

I hadn't heard anything about severe abnormalities being present, until here. That's not really the best source.

[Ben Kenobi]

I hadn't heard anything about severe abnormalities being present, until here. That's not really the best source.

Why not wait two weeks? Is there anything absolutely dire that will happen in the meantime? That's my question here. What are the negative consequences of waiting?

[Aeson]

Stunning rebuttal. I am slain!

Yes.

[Ban Kenobi]

Fort Worth, Texas (CNN) -- A Texas judge ordered a Fort Worth hospital to remove a pregnant and brain-dead woman from respirators and ventilators on Friday, perhaps ending a wrenching legal debate about who is alive, who is dead and how the presence of a fetus changes the equation.
Erick Munoz, husband of Marlise Munoz, broke down in tears after Judge R.H. Wallace told John Peter Smith Hospital to act on his order by 5 p.m. Monday.
Munoz and other family members had been fighting to have the body released for burial. Hospital officials resisted, saying they were trying to obey a Texas law that says "you cannot withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment for a pregnant patient," in the words of the hospital spokesman.
Munoz left the courthouse without talking to reporters, but the family's lawyers spoke out. Jessica Janicek argued that the hospital was "utilizing (Marlise Munoz's) body as a science experiment."

A breakthrough came when the hospital and the Munoz family agreed on crucial facts listed in a court document: that Marlise Munoz, 33, has "met the clinical criteria for brain death since November 28" and that "the fetus gestating inside Mrs. Munoz is not viable."
The woman's husband repeatedly made these claims in his efforts to have her removed from the machines.
Mom of pregnant woman: Change the law
The story may have more chapters. The hospital could appeal or decide to remove Marlise Munoz from a ventilator and respirator before that deadline. The judge did not rule on the constitutionality of a state law regarding the treatment of a pregnant patient.
Erick and Marlise Munoz, two trained paramedics, had been awaiting the arrival of their second child when she was found unconscious on her kitchen floor around 2 a.m. November 26. She was rushed to the north-central Texas hospital.
Once there, Erick Munoz said, he was told his wife "was for all purposes brain dead." The family also says the fetus may have been deprived of oxygen. Erick Munoz had contended doctors told him his wife "had lost all activity in her brain stem" and an accompanying chart stated that she was "brain dead."
Husband said wife didn't want to be on ventilator
During Friday's hearing in Fort Worth, representatives of the hospital -- in this case, from the Tarrant County District Attorney's office -- argued that state law was correctly applied.

Erik Munoz and other family members said the hospital should abide by her wishes -- which weren't written down but, they said, relayed verbally to them -- and not have machines keep her organs and blood running.
In an affidavit filed Thursday in court, Erick Munoz said little to him now is recognizable about Marlise. Her bones crack when her stiff limbs move. Her usual scent has been replaced by the "smell of death." And her once lively eyes have become "soulless."
After the Friday hearing, another family lawyer, Jessica King, said, "Pregnant women die every day. They die in car accidents, of heart attacks and other injuries. And when they die, their fetus dies with them.
"It's the way it's always been and the way it should be."
Lawyers: Records back claim that woman is brain dead
In his lawsuit, Munoz claims subsequent measures taken at the hospital -- and, in turn, the state law used to justify them -- amounted "to nothing more than the cruel and obscene mutilation of a deceased body against the expressed will of the deceased and her family."
The hospital and the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office, which defended the medical facility, did not offer the same level of detail as members of the Munoz family.
But earlier this month, hospital spokesman J.R. Labbe told CNN that his hospital believed "the courts are the appropriate venue to provide clarity, direction and resolution in this matter."
Late Friday, the hospital issued this statement: "JPS Health Network appreciates the potential impact of the consequences of the order on all parties involved and will be consulting with the Tarrant County District Attorney's office."
When life support is really 'death support'

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/24/health/pregnant-brain-dead-woman-texas/

It's over.

[snrjefe]

Finally. That was some seriously messed up stuff. One would think a hospital would know better. I hope the forthcoming lawsuit puts a stop to this kind of crap. Since the hospital obviously does not have reasonable morals, perhaps a swift kick in the bottom line will make it clear to their financial senses. I look forward to ignoring the pro-life arguments around this as they are without merit.