Pregnant Brain-Dead Woman

Pregnant Brain-Dead Woman Susan Schwarzkopf SJVC Online Philic D1 Jennifer Rachal August 30, 2015

Pregnant Brain-Dead Woman

Pregnant Brain-Dead Woman

Marlise Munoz Texas United States 2013

A woman was declared brain-dead by her Doctor. Her husband Erick Munoz and family of Marlise Munoz wish to remove life support from Marlise Munoz. The hospital insists on keeping her on the life support because the hospital cannot legally withdraw her from life support because Marlise Munoz is a pregnant patient. The ethical issue or problem with the
Marlise Munoz case was she was brain-dead. According to a professor “ a brain-dead person isn’t no longer living.”(Laurence McCullough,the ethics of being brain dead). Being brain-dead isn’t any different than being dead. The death was determined that Marlise Munoz was brain- dead.That was the cause of her death. There isn’t any ethical issues in the care of Marlise Munoz who was determined brain-dead, because she is now a corpse(Laurence McCollough, the ethics of being brain-dead).

When Marlise Munoz was 14 weeks pregnant, she had suffered from a blood clot in the lungs. Erick Munoz Marlise’s husband was told that Marlise Munoz his wife was declared brain dead. Marlise Munoz told her husband before all this happened if anything were to ever happen to her to not keep her alive and let her die on her own and use no machines to keep her alive. Marlise and her husband Erick are both EMT’s and see this kind of stuff happen all the time and they both knew what the patient goes through, so she had her mind made up and told her husband. Those were her wishes. She wanted to be kept alive on her own and never wated to be hooked up to any machines to keep her alive(Erick Munoz). If you are pregnant in the state of Texas and have to be put on life support machines, the Texas law states a pregnant woman must stay on life support. No one can withdrawl or withhold life sustaining treatment. Since Marlise was brain-dead then the pregnancy is in a cadaver, and the law no longer applies. If a brain-dead patient is pregnant the hospital continues ventilation to save the unborn fetus.

Because of the blood clot, Marlise Munoz suffered a loss of oxygen to her brain. The unborn baby of Marlise Munoz may have suffered grievous harm(Arthur Caplan,head of the division of bioethics at NYU langore Medical Center in New York City). The unborn fetus is probably devastated. The family the wishes of the family of Marlise Munoz should be taken into consideration and honored(Arthur Caplan). At this point the fetus is not able of growing or living, until week 24 of a pregnancy the fetus is not able to survive even with the help of medical support. The Texas legislature needs to rewrite the law which Caplan describes as “overly broad”. The law states you cannot have a living will if you are pregnant, not even one day pregnant.

The attorney’s of Erick Munoz had argued that the baby Marlise Munoz was carrying suffered from oxygen deprivation in January 2014 and couldn’t survive. At 22 weeks, this early on in the pregnancy the lower extremities are deformed and the fetus is distinctly abnormal. Marlise Munoz was then now 22 weeks pregnant and couldn’t even determine the gender of the fetus. The fetus also had some fluid building up in its skull and could have also had a heart problem.

The judge in this case R.H. Wallace, on January 24,2014 ruled that the hospital Marlise
Munoz was at MUST disconnect alllife support on Marlise Munoz by January 27,2014. The judge R.H. Wallace didn’t rule on the constitutionality of the state law but instead found that the law didn’t apply to deceased patients like Marlise Munoz.

She had been disconnected from all life support on January 26,2014, at 11:30am. All remaining respiratory ceased immediately and all cardiac function ended a few minutes later. Marlise