A Sad Dilemma; A Stupid Law

From Wednesday's NY Times:

"FORT WORTH — The diagnosis was crushing and irrevocable. At 33, Marlise Munoz was brain-dead after collapsing on her kitchen floor in November from what appeared to be a blood clot in her lungs.

But as her parents and her husband prepared to say their final goodbyes in the intensive care unit at John Peter Smith Hospital here and to honor her wish not to be left on life support, they were stunned when a doctor told them the hospital was not going to comply with their instructions. Mrs. Munoz was 14 weeks pregnant, the doctor said, and Texas is one of more than two dozen states that prohibit, with varying degrees of strictness, medical officials from cutting off life support to a pregnant patient.

More than a month later, Mrs. Munoz remains connected to life-support machines on the third floor of the I.C.U., where a medical team monitors the heartbeat of the fetus, now in its 20th week of development. Her case has become a strange collision of law, medicine, the ethics of end-of-life care and the issues swirling around abortion — when life begins and how it should be valued.

“It’s not a matter of pro-choice and pro-life,” said Mrs. Munoz’s mother, Lynne Machado, 60. “It’s about a matter of our daughter’s wishes not being honored by the state of Texas.”

Mrs. Munoz’s father, Ernest Machado, 60, a former police officer and an Air Force veteran, put it even more bluntly. “All she is is a host for a fetus,” he said on Tuesday. “I get angry with the state. What business did they have delving into these areas? Why are they practicing medicine up in Austin?”

Mrs. Munoz’s parents said they wanted to see the law overturned, but they have not sought any legal action against the hospital, though they have not ruled it out either."

Mrs Machado is right. It really isn't a matter of pro-choice or pro-life. It is about ethical end-of-life decisions. Unlike the Teri Schiavo case, both the parents and the husband are willing to let Marlise pass with dignity. 
And to further the parents' argument, Mr Machado is correct. It's not like Mrs Munoz was 6 or 7 months pregnant. She was 14 weeks pregnant and she is being used as a host for the fetus. Now she is 18 weeks along and the clock is ticking.

This is just not ethical for the brain-dead Marlise. This is treating her in a totally unethical and immoral manner.
Just because the state law takes the choice away from the next of kin to decide to remove life support, doesn't make it right. Ultimately, just like the McMath case, the Schiavo case and the Karen Quinlan, decision as serious as this should be made by the families and not the state.

Both the woman's parents and her husband understand that the fetus will probably die if and when life support is removed. Two sets of parents' children and a grandchild will die at the same time. And these people understand that consequence. But they also understand, better than the medical team apparently, that it is unfair to maintain Marlise in this make-believe, keep her alive state, because of a bad law.

Unfortunately, though, the doctors and others can't be faulted either. They are following the law, even if they believe it is wrong, because if they don't, the state will hammer them every which way possible, just for the sake of enforcement.

And, who knows the condition of the fetus? It is documented that Marlise was unconscious and not breathing for at least an hour. Mr. Machado said he had been told by the hospital’s medical team that his daughter might have gone an hour or longer without breathing before her husband woke and discovered her, a situation he believes has seriously impaired the fetus. 

And although I am not generally a fan of abortion, especially partial birth abortion, in this case, the mother is already dead. Keeping the body alive, trying to get past the the 24 week limit for abortion, is wildly unfair to the mother. If she were alive, she would have had a constitutional choice to chose herself whether to abort the fetus. Since she can't, her health care proxy had the right to choose in her stead. Isn't that the point of health care proxies? To make those difficult decisions in place of the incapable person?

In this case, I believe Marlise's husband and parents legally have that right. Let them make the appropriate choice as Marlise would have had. 

And then repeal and rewrite more clearly this immoral law, so that a ten year old could understand it.