re: Judge orders brain-dead pregnant woman removed from ventilator

I just found something else out

texas law states that if a women is pregnant and dying legally you cannot remove life support.

source

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so your telling me you know that the fetus is human person and you ok with giving him/her a death sentence because of some legal code. Mercy means nothing in this situation because you think it is ok for a legal code to kill someone even if innocent

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No, I'm saying in this particular instance the husband/father wanted life support discontinued and it should have been honored.

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or you are saying that the fetus isn't human and that it doesn't matter

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In this instance the only person who matters is the husband/father who has to make this decision.

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or you could be saying that we should kill the fetus due to mercy because if the fetus should be allowed to live than it would have a miserable life so we would be doing it a favor. By that same logic mercy killing can be applied to any living human being who is mentally or physically handicap.

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I'm saying nothing of the sort. I'm saying that in this instance, no one other than the husband/father's ideas decisions should be considered. And they should be honored regardless of any other person's opinion of whether they are moral or should be legal.

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the problem with the first option, IMO, is that even if a patient has a DNR and is pregnant, that DNR should be removed because there is a second life at stake, the second life trumps the DNR, if the fetus is living and will live through the pregnancy you should do what ever you can to keep it alive, even if that means violating a DNR order

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The DNR and the decision of the next of kin should never be trumped. The state has no business interfering in this decision

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the problem with the second one is that a fetus is a human person, the only think you can bring into question is it's personhood does it have rights.

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No, it does not have rights. Certainly not to the point that the husband/father is completely disregarded. That is why there are DNRs and Advanced Care Directives....so that these decisions have already been made and it takes it out of the state's hands.

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the correct course of action (not taking into account the legal system, because legality can't determine morality) is determined in one of three ways

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The correct course of action is to honor the wishes of the husband/father and terminate life support.

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you may disagree but I think I can reason with you to show you one of these two options is the only two. I think every reasonable human being believes that no innocent human should be killed to protect the rights of another human being. If this women has a will that has a DNR it should only be violated if another human being would be killed if that DNR was allowed to stay.

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I absolutely disagree with you and it is not for an emotional reason. No innocent human being has been harmed. The death of the mother was no one's fault; she died of an aneurysm (I think); she had a DNR and her husband wanted life support terminated. There is no reason for any state involvement beyond this point. Life support should be terminated as the husband directed.

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I just found something else out

texas law states that if a women is pregnant and dying legally you cannot remove life support.

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you should read the article in the OP.

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I just found something else out

texas law states that if a women is pregnant and dying legally you cannot remove life support.

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Is this an accidental repost? That is what the controversy was about. The man wanted to take the wife off life support, but the hospital was legally required to refuse that order and keep her on it.

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Sheeesh...I sure hope that no one wants to keep me alive beyond my wishes (and that of Mrs. BHP) just so they can harvest something.


We should have no idea that this was even going on. this is a private tragedy and it should be decided privately.

Their wishes should be honored and that is it

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This.

Outside of quickly removing organs of a cadaver the whole idea of harvesting a fetus inside of a body is macabre.

The people even suggesting that bringing any fetus to term for weeks/months inside the womb of a cadaver are beyond reprehensible.

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sorry I missed that my bad

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This made me All the serious stuff in here, then a "my bad"
I know we have ideological differences, but I do appreciate being able to go back and forth with you without devolving into name calling.

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The person who makes the decision made his decision and it should be honored.

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Not when there's a viable fetus inside of her and that's confirmed by qualified doctors and there's nothing on the DNR regarding her wishes to the pregnancy. That's the grey area I'm talking about.

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The state should never step into this situation. The mother is clearly dead. Any medical intervention beyond that point is up to the next of kin. He did not want the life support.

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Like I said, The grey area is regarding the viability of a potential life inside of her. That's not something I would call plainly "medical intervention".

Once it's confirmed the baby is not viable, it's all in the next of kin's hands IMO.

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This. And if the baby is 22 weeks now and she has been dead since 11/28, that is well before any point of viability.

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This debate isn't just for this case. It's debating this scenario for other cases like this in the future.

Anyway, this is a sad story and this is ending the right way. Prayers sent to the woman's husband and their family.

I usually think it's a really ridiculous straw man when some people say that some pro-lifers think of women as nothing but baby incubators but in this case it's actually pretty clear.

The woman is legally dead and cannot recover from her condition. She left behind explicit instructions not to save her if she were rendered brain dead. But her body's physical life is being sustained, against her wishes, to save a non-viable fetus.

The woman is being left "alive" as literally nothing more than an incubator for the baby, and apparently this complete indignity and appalling violation of her rights is acceptable to some here.

This is disgusting.

Yep. This where the pro-life crowd really shows its bad side here. It would be one thing if it was a viable fetus and had a decent chance of being born healthy but it's entirely another when they're fine with the baby being born completely deformed and guaranteed to live a very short life that's a complete nightmare over some misplaced sense of human dignity.

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I am pro-life. This isn't a pro-life issue to me. This is no different than a miscarriage - when a woman's body alive or dead cannot carry a child to term and the child isn't viable on its own, the natural course is the death of the child. This is horrible but a fact of life throughout history.

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