Dead, but pregnant: A Texas family’s anguish

Marlise Munoz’s life is over, said The Dallas Morning Newsin an editorial, but because she is pregnant, the state of Texas won’t let her die. The 33-year-old paramedic was 14 weeks pregnant when she collapsed in late November as a result of a blood clot in her lungs, leaving her brain-dead, with no chance of recovery. Her husband, Erick, and her parents say Marlise said she would not want to be kept alive this way, but under Texas law, the hospital is forbidden from denying “life-sustaining treatment” to terminally ill pregnant women. So over the anguished objections of her family, the hospital is keeping those machines pumping so the pregnancy can continue. Texas is among 31 states with laws that forbid cutting off life support during pregnancy, said Amanda Marcotte in Slate.com. These laws were passed to make a statement—to put “fetal life” on an equal footing with the mother’s. Now we see what such symbolism means in the real world: “Pregnant women are incubators first and humans second.”

Couldn’t the life of Munoz’s unborn child offer some solace to her family? said Gracy Olmstead in TheAmericanConservative.com. The family and doctors think the fetus may have suffered brain damage when her mother’s embolism cut off oxygen for a long time, but “even a damaged baby is beautiful.” The Munoz family’s wish to move on is understandable, said Wesley J. Smith in NationalReview.com, but “there is a second life here,” and it deserves protection. Besides, who knows what Marlise Munoz would have wanted, had she known that turning off life support would also result in the death of her baby?

That’s not the government’s decision to make, said Leonard Pitts Jr. in The Miami Herald. Her family say they’re sure what Marlise would have wanted, and their own feelings are clear and unanimous. “All she is is a host for a fetus,” says her irate father. Of the state legislators who passed Texas’s law, he wonders, “What business did they have delving into these areas?” It’s a good question. As a “very red state,” Texas likes to think of itself as an exemplar of the conservative principle of “small government.” Yet the same state that opposes regulating firearms, the environment, education, and business thinks it can barge into the Munozes’ personal tragedy, and rob them of their right to bury and mourn a woman who is undeniably dead. “Sometimes small government isn’t nearly small enough.”

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