Judge: Remove life support for pregnant woman(At Texas)
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A judge
on Friday ordered a Texas hospital to remove life support for a
pregnant, brain-dead woman whose family had argued that she would not
want to be kept in that condition.
Judge R. H.
Wallace Jr. issued the ruling in the case of Marlise Munoz. John Peter
Smith Hospital in Fort Worth has been keeping Munoz on life support
against her family's wishes. The judge gave the hospital until 5 p.m.
CST Monday to remove life support. The hospital did not say Friday
whether it would appeal.
Munoz
was 14 weeks pregnant when her husband, Erick Munoz, found her
unconscious Nov. 26, possibly due to a blood clot. Both the hospital and
the family agree that she meets the criteria to be considered
brain-dead — which means she is dead both medically and under Texas law —
and that the fetus could not be born alive this early in a pregnancy.
But
the hospital had not pronounced her dead and continues to treat her
over the objections of both Erick Munoz and her parents, who sat
together in court Friday.
"Mrs.
Munoz is dead," Wallace said in issuing his ruling, adding that meant
the hospital was misapplying a state law that prohibits the removal of
life-sustaining treatment from a pregnant patient.
Larry
Thompson, a state's attorney representing the public hospital, had told
the judge the hospital had a legal responsibility to protect the unborn
fetus.
"There is a life involved, and the life is the unborn child," Thompson said.
But
Jessica Hall Janicek and Heather King, Erick Munoz's attorneys, accused
the hospital of conducting a "science experiment" and warned of the
dangerous precedent her case could set, raising the specter of special
ICUs for brain-dead women carrying babies.
"There is an infant, and a dead person serving as a dysfunctional incubator," King said.
Erick
Munoz said he and his wife are paramedics who were clear that they
didn't want life support in this type of situation. Her parents agreed.
He declined to comment as he left the courtroom, and King and Janicek
did not say what they would do next, pending a potential appeal by the
hospital.
The hospital said in
a statement Friday that it "appreciates the potential impact of the
consequences of the order on all parties involved" and was deciding
whether to appeal.
The case has raised
questions about end-of-life care and whether a pregnant woman who is
considered legally and medically dead should be kept on life support for
the sake of a fetus. It also has gripped attention on both sides of the
abortion debate, with anti-abortion groups arguing Munoz's fetus
deserves a chance to be born. Several anti-abortion advocates attended
Friday's hearing.
Hospital
officials have said they were bound by the Texas Advance Directives Act,
which prohibits withdrawal of treatment from a pregnant patient.
Several experts interviewed by The Associated Press, including two who
helped draft the legislation, have said the hospital is misapplying the
law because Marlise Munoz would be considered legally and medically
dead.
"Marlise Munoz is dead,
and she gave clear instructions to her husband and family — Marlise was
not to remain on any type of artificial 'life sustaining treatment',
ventilators or the like," the lawsuit said. "There is no reason JPS
should be allowed to continue treatment on Marlise Munoz's dead body,
and this Court should order JPS to immediately discontinue such."
Earlier
this week, Erick Munoz's attorneys said that the fetus, now believed to
be at about 22 weeks' gestation, is "distinctly abnormal." They
attorneys said they based that statement on medical records they
received from the hospital.
The
hospital argued in a court filing Thursday that there was little
evidence of what state lawmakers and courts thought of this issue, but
recent laws passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature to restrict
abortion made it clear that they wanted to preserve a fetus' rights.
The
Advance Directives Act "must convey legislative intent to protect the
unborn child," the hospital said in its filing. "Otherwise the
Legislature would have simply allowed a pregnant patient to decide to
let her life, and the life of her unborn child, end."
Not
much is known about fetal survival when mothers suffer brain death
during pregnancy. German doctors who searched for such cases found 30 of
them in nearly 30 years, according to an article published in the
journal BMC Medicine in 2010.
Those
mothers were further along in pregnancy — 22 weeks on average — when
brain death occurred than in the Texas case. Birth results were
available for 19 cases. In 12, a viable child was born. Follow-up
results were available for six, all of whom developed normally.
By NOMAAN MERCHANT
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