|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Brain-Dead Pregnant Woman Kept Alive Against Her and Her Family's Wishes
|
stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
|
Posted
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/pregnant-brain-dead-texas-woman-alive-21416685
Does the value of a fetus' life allow his/her mother's body to be kept alive on life support - even when the mother in something like a living will and her family oppose this - in order to carry the child to viability?
What is also interesting is the discussion of what healthcare is in this case. Many doctors claim that keeping a braindead body on life support is not healthcare and hospitals should be prohibited from doing it.
I am troubled about this since I am kind of a fence-straddler on abortion. Thoughts?
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
|
Posted
If she really is dead, she is not being 'kept alive in this condition' - so there is some confusion about what everybody really means.
If she is really dead, nothing that is done to her body can harm her. It can distress her family though.
I struggle to understand, on a personal level, why your reaction to the loss of your wife would be to reject the chlid she was carrying.
I wonder if she carried an organ donor card, because that is effectively what the hospital is doing - using her womb as a donated organ to incubate the foetus.
Families in the UK are allowed to refuse to donate their relative's organs - even though someone may die if they do not get the transplant, I suppose the logical extension is that he ought to be able switch off the machine.
I am revolted by the idea of deliberately switching off the machine and allowing a living thing, especially a potential child, to suffocate and die in a corpse though. I also wonder if the husband is in a fit emotional state to be making a decision about the foetus at the moment.
--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
What concerns me is that I saw a quote from him saying that he was certain the child would be disabled from the crisis and therefore ...
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
If she is really dead, nothing that is done to her body can harm her. It can distress her family though.
I don't know. When my mother was brain dead and being kept alive by machines, I had the distinct feeling that keeping her body "alive" was in some sense tethering her soul to this world and trapping it in some sort of limbo. Which may be completely irrational and even if not is something that rests on all sorts of beliefs that not everyone shares, and maybe it is true that it was more distressing to me than to her.
quote:
I struggle to understand, on a personal level, why your reaction to the loss of your wife would be to reject the chlid she was carrying.
AIUI, given that the mother's brain death was caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain, there's some concern that the fetus was also irreparably harmed.
The woman had a living will and was very clear about not wanting to be kept alive in these circumstances, although it is doubtful that she imagined these exact circumstances (being pregnant at the time). Since she is legally defined as dead, I don't think the hospital really has a legal leg to stand on in terms of keeping the machines on.
But the whole situation is horrible.
--------------------
"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anglo Catholic Relict
Shipmate
# 17213
|
Posted
It cannot hurt the woman to keep her viable until the baby is delivered, so I would be in favour of keeping the baby alive, however that is done. I do not think it is likely that the prior agreement covered this eventuality.
I can understand the pain the husband feels, but I think once he holds that baby, he will be grateful for it.
Posts: 585 | Registered: Jul 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
|
Posted
As a man, I can't really know what it is like to be a woman or to be pregnant. But I like to think that if I was a woman I would want to have my body kept on life support even if I was brain dead to allow a fetus inside me to develop and be born. (That is, if any hospital would allow it - and it is unclear whether the hospital in Texas is actually following the law.)
However, for those people who oppose criminalizing abortion - especially in extreme cases like a threat to the mother's life, rape, or incest - because doing so makes the mother's body an unwilling incubator for a life whose gestation (a precious human life, but so is the mother's) might cause her great mental trauma if not greatly threaten her own life. This case takes that further and makes the mother's (essentially) dead body a baby oven against her own will. People who oppose criminalizing abortion would argue that no woman can give future consent to 9 months of gestation by having a sexual act - so her thoughts on the use of her body which she made very clear are to be taken into consideration now that she is brain dead.
As I said, though, I am a fence-straddler on abortion so I am not quite sure what should happen in this case.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
As a man, I can't really know what it is like to be a woman or to be pregnant.
This is true, though as a man, I ended up with morning sickness along with my wife when she was pregnant. Apparently some combination of hormonal changes and psychological synchronicity cause this. Couvade Syndrome they said I had. Which apparently may either be a legit diagnosis or means I am/was/are nuts.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
|
Posted
Could be a legit diagnosis which is actually a polite way of saying your second possibility!
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
leo
Shipmate
# 1458
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglo Catholic Relict:
It cannot hurt the woman to keep her viable until the baby is delivered, so I would be in favour of keeping the baby alive, however that is done. I do not think it is likely that the prior agreement covered this eventuality.
I can understand the pain the husband feels, but I think once he holds that baby, he will be grateful for it.
Might it hurt the baby? Isn't there some sort of socialising/communication going on in the womb between mother and baby of which the baby would be deprived?
--------------------
My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anglo Catholic Relict
Shipmate
# 17213
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Might it hurt the baby? Isn't there some sort of socialising/communication going on in the womb between mother and baby of which the baby would be deprived?
Anyone can talk to the baby, play music, etc. The father can do all of that.
Clearly, this is not a normal pregnancy, but there is the potential for something to be salvaged from a tragic situation. As long as that potential exists, I would do everything possible to maintain it. If the baby does not survive for whatever reason, at least it will not be by choice.
Posts: 585 | Registered: Jul 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
|
Posted
So how about no longer requiring organ donor cards. Switch to a system when you're dead the doctors can harvest anything that might be useful for other patients or research. It might distress the family but it wont bother the dead person and someone else might benefit.
I'm not in favor of this, but I don't see how it's different from what people here are suggesting.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglo Catholic Relict:
Anyone can talk to the baby, play music, etc. The father can do all of that.
Except that the father already has to take care of a 14 month old son who has just lost his mother.
These were people who were not ignorant of medical science and procedures. I would expect they knew what they were doing when they put their paperwork together. From the article linked it would seem that there is as yet no clear consensus that the fetus is undamaged, viable, and would result in a healthy child. She wasn't 8 months pregnant; she was 14 weeks. It seems to me that is a very different proposition.
I'm not "for" abortion, but I'm more comfortable leaving medical decisions in the hands of doctors and patients than in the hands of politicians and theologians. It seems clear that the Texas hospital is doing this only because of an unclear law--and I would trust a great white shark as soon as I would trust the Texas Legislature on just about any subject you might care to name.
So I feel some misgivings about this tragic case because things like this always make me wonder "What would I do, or want done with me, in similar circumstances?" I still don't know, but I would hope whatever decision I made would be respected, especially since I have gone to the expense to have medical powers of attorney and a living will drawn up.
--------------------
How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
|
Posted
I can't help wondering who the hospital plans to bill for the ginormous charges that some 20 weeks of care is going to produce.
It's all very well for hospitals to refuse to turn off life-support to a corpse and her survivors against those parties' unanimous wishes, but if the hospital also plans to recoup the expenses involved from these same people, then they and the victim's family are looking at litigation for many years to come.
A 19-week fetus is unlikely to be viable; substantial prematurity (even absent any accident-related disability incurred by the fetus) poses further threats to the fetus' life-health-safety, so we're looking at roughly 5 more months of hospitalization & services. At going prices, you could probably buy Rhode Island for the "Payment Due" line on the resulting hospital bill.
Perhaps Texans in the hospital catchment area -- since it's their hospital bills which will escalate as a result of the hospital's desired course of action -- should consider a class action suit.
--------------------
Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anglo Catholic Relict
Shipmate
# 17213
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
So how about no longer requiring organ donor cards. Switch to a system when you're dead the doctors can harvest anything that might be useful for other patients or research. It might distress the family but it wont bother the dead person and someone else might benefit.
I'm not in favor of this, but I don't see how it's different from what people here are suggesting.
If you can see no difference between a baby and a transplant organ, then I see no point trying to explain further.
Posts: 585 | Registered: Jul 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
Precisely the thoughts which occurred to me, Porridge.
Not sure about the legal aspects of the ethical dilemma either. I suspect that a living will is "turn off life support if I'm brain dead" rather than "turn off the life machine even if I'm pregnant as well as brain dead". But I don't see clarity on that.
Nor do we know if the foetus has been irreparably damaged by the way the traumatic death occurred. What tests if any have been made/can be made. And if it's a judgment call who gets to make it, if not the father? (And if not him, why not him?) I don't know the details of Roe/Wade type local legislation and whether there has been some detailed modification in Texas law to un-Roe/Wade to some degree, nor whether there is a test in law of state/federal legislation possible conflict.
It looks like a minefield to me. What a nightmare for the father and the rest of the family. My heart goes out to them.
[ 10. January 2014, 21:41: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglo Catholic Relict:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
So how about no longer requiring organ donor cards. Switch to a system when you're dead the doctors can harvest anything that might be useful for other patients or research. It might distress the family but it wont bother the dead person and someone else might benefit.
I'm not in favor of this, but I don't see how it's different from what people here are suggesting.
If you can see no difference between a baby and a transplant organ, then I see no point trying to explain further.
The question is, why can't you see the similarity?
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglo Catholic Relict:
If you can see no difference between a baby and a transplant organ, then I see no point trying to explain further.
The analogy is between the transplant organ and the uterus, not the baby. The baby is getting use of another person's body part, just as a transplant recipient does. The difference is that in this case, the recipient is inside the "donated" organ.
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Amos
Shipmate
# 44
|
Posted
What's the medical precedent for this procedure? I may be wrong, but I cannot recall hearing of a case in which the mother has been kept alive for the sake of the foetus in which the foetus has survived--especially one that young--I read the reference in the article, but am extremely skeptical.
[ 11. January 2014, 07:41: Message edited by: Amos ]
--------------------
At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
leo
Shipmate
# 1458
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglo Catholic Relict:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Might it hurt the baby? Isn't there some sort of socialising/communication going on in the womb between mother and baby of which the baby would be deprived?
Anyone can talk to the baby, play music, etc. The father can do all of that.
Outside the mother's body, these are muffled sounds.
Surely, there is some direct communication in utero of which the foetus is deprived.
It's mentioned here.
and there's a slightly new-agey religious perspective on it here.
--------------------
My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
I suspect it is a complex subject, inevitably under-researched subject, particularly in these circumstances. I remember Frank Lake wrote some stuff about the relationship between maternal unhappiness about carrying the unborn, and some subsequent psychological problems. Perhaps signals are conveyed by noise, perhaps by bodily tension, perhaps chemically through blood circulation? Who can tell?
It would seem wrong to assume inevitable psychological or physical damage to the unborn in these exceptional circumstances.
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
Paint me skeptical that an artifically-kept-alive human incubator produces all the same chemicals the baby needs as a real, living mother.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
It's not like the baby has any other choice of incubator, though. Unless you consider death a choice?
Expanding on what I said earlier--it troubles me that so many people seem to consider possible disability sufficient reason to turn off life support and let the child die inside its mother. Does disability make the difference between life and death, then?
And even if that were granted (which I don't), we're talking possible disability--no certainty.
Nobody is going to keep this woman on life support indefinitely. At most it will last until the baby is delivered. I grant you it's a nightmarish, heartrending situation, but it only needs enduring for a few months more. Yes, it's hellish. But it's a freaking baby. And presumably one that was wanted, born to two parents who presumably loved one another, flesh of their flesh and a remembrance of the mother who is gone. Why throw all of that away--a baby away--to avoid temporary life support?
From another perspective--is there anybody who could bear to pull the plugs him/herself, knowing that a living child will smother inside the woman's body?
I will now prepare for incoming missiles.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Paint me skeptical that an artifically-kept-alive human incubator produces all the same chemicals the baby needs as a real, living mother.
I agree with that. It's not the best. Sometimes the living breathing mother isn't the best for the foetus either. In some medical conditions, it is almost like a fight is going on.
Not just medical conditions. I think Frank Lake had a point about pre-birth alienation as a result of unwanted but endured pregnancies. However whacky some of his therapeutic suggestions may have been.
I suppose the questions "good enough?" and "what are the options?" come into play at this point.
[ 12. January 2014, 06:20: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
|
Posted
American Shipmates - if the baby is born needing life-long care, what assistance is available for the father, who is already the single parent to a young child? If he can't work because the baby needs 24/7 care, will the state support the family financially, keep a roof over their heads etc?
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
|
Posted
I'm assuming that abortion is legal in Texas, and that if the woman were conscious and mentally competent, she would have the right to terminate her pregnancy, or refuse medical care necessary to preserve either her foetus or her life.
If so, the first question is surely whether her reported choice not to be kept alive on life support does genuinely amount to a decision to be switched off if on life support while pregnant. I don't think it does. It seems to me that this is the sort of change of circumstance that can lead to people changing their minds. I don't think there's any way of knowing for sure what she would have decided if her current state had been anticipated.
The next question is whether her husband gets to decide for her. He's almost certain better placed than a stranger to guess at what his wife would have wanted, and to want to respect her wishes, but I wouldn't say he should have absolute authority to make the call. I don't think that power to make all healthcare/end-of-life decisions for a spouse is inherent in the marriage relationship - for a start a husband and wife may well fundamentally disagree about such things. I disagree with most of my family. I still love them, trust them and would want the best for them, but when it's me in the hospital, I want my choices to be upheld against what they think is my best interest. Similarly, I don't think that a husband has authority to terminate his wife's pregnancy if she for any reason cannot be consulted. He may be the best husband in the world, but that's a decision which I think only she can make.
If I'm right about those two questions, the last one is whether keeping the life support on is the default state, and a positive decision by a proper authority is needed to turn it off. I think that is the only safe course. So, if we cannot take the woman's reported views as a definite decision to die despite being pregnant, and her husband's preference, however well-informed and well-intentioned, is not to be regarded as binding on her, the right thing to do is prolong her life for the child to be born.
I'm anti-abortion by instinct and pro-choice by principle, so to check whether my instincts have guided me wrongly, I ask myself whether I'd apply the same principle to the opposite case. If the wife had definitely expressed a choice to refuse life support in these circumstances, and the husband wanted the unborn child saved, would I be happy to overrule his wishes then? Answer - no, I wouldn't be happy. That would be an appalling thing to do. But it would still be right. Ending a pregnancy has to be the woman's choice. It's her body. Only she gets to make that call.
I can see the argument that in this case she has made the call. I'm not convinced. I think (from the limited information in the report) she has said what she would want for herself if terminally ill, but I don't think that it is possible from that alone to infer that she would want the same if terminally ill and pregnant. Maybe she would have done, if she'd had a premonition of these events, but we don't know that. And a guess, even the best guess, of what she would have chosen isn't the same as her actually choosing it. She hasn't made a positive decision to end her pregnancy, and in the absence of that, I don't think that anyone, not her doctor, not her husband, not her government, has the right to make that choice for her.
[ 12. January 2014, 15:34: Message edited by: Eliab ]
--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I'm assuming that abortion is legal in Texas, and that if the woman were conscious and mentally competent, she would have the right to terminate her pregnancy, or refuse medical care necessary to preserve either her foetus or her life.
If so, the first question is surely whether her reported choice not to be kept alive on life support does genuinely amount to a decision to be switched off if on life support while pregnant. I don't think it does. It seems to me that this is the sort of change of circumstance that can lead to people changing their minds. I don't think there's any way of knowing for sure what she would have decided if her current state had been anticipated.
The next question is whether her husband gets to decide for her. He's almost certain better placed than a stranger to guess at what his wife would have wanted, and to want to respect her wishes, but I wouldn't say he should have absolute authority to make the call. I don't think that power to make all healthcare/end-of-life decisions for a spouse is inherent in the marriage relationship - for a start a husband and wife may well fundamentally disagree about such things. I disagree with most of my family. I still love them, trust them and would want the best for them, but when it's me in the hospital, I want my choices to be upheld against what they think is my best interest. Similarly, I don't think that a husband has authority to terminate his wife's pregnancy if she for any reason cannot be consulted. He may be the best husband in the world, but that's a decision which I think only she can make.
The reason she can’t be consulted, though, is that she’s dead. The dead, so far as I know, are deprived of their agency upon shuffling off this mortal coil. They make wills and create powers-of-attorney, etc. while still alive.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
If I'm right about those two questions, the last one is whether keeping the life support on is the default state, and a positive decision by a proper authority is needed to turn it off. I think that is the only safe course.
Safe for whom? In actual practice, these situations often arise out of a hospital’s desire to protect themselves from lawsuits.
The safety of the fetus is already probably compromised by being gestated inside a corpse. I keep wondering what the narrative will sound like when this child, if it survives more-or-less intact, begins to ask the inevitable question children ask about their own origins. “Yes, dear heart; you lived for 5 months in the womb of a dead woman.”
How about the economic safety of the extant family – a now-single father and a toddler, possibly joined by a possibly disabled baby – who are likely to face a lifetime of staggering debt as a result of the hospital’s refusal to honor the dead woman’s wishes?
--------------------
Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I don't think that power to make all healthcare/end-of-life decisions for a spouse is inherent in the marriage relationship
IANAL, but I believe that it is exactly that in the United States. One of the reasons gays have wanted to be allowed to marry is that as non-spouses, a life partner does not have the right to make end-of-life decisions, sometimes even in the presence of durable powers of attorney and so forth. Spouses do.
quote:
I don't think that anyone, not her doctor, not her husband, not her government, has the right to make that choice for her.
But somebody IS making the choice to keep her alive. The question is not whether anybody has that right. SOMEBODY must decide. The question is who should be allowed to. Legally, in the United States, that person is the spouse.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I don't think that power to make all healthcare/end-of-life decisions for a spouse is inherent in the marriage relationship
IANAL, but I believe that it is exactly that in the United States. One of the reasons gays have wanted to be allowed to marry is that as non-spouses, a life partner does not have the right to make end-of-life decisions, sometimes even in the presence of durable powers of attorney and so forth. Spouses do.
quote:
I don't think that anyone, not her doctor, not her husband, not her government, has the right to make that choice for her.
But somebody IS making the choice to keep her alive. The question is not whether anybody has that right. SOMEBODY must decide. The question is who should be allowed to. Legally, in the United States, that person is the spouse.
Well, I am a lawyer, but not an American one and not with any expertise in this particular subject, but I'm pretty sure you're right. Eliab is effectively leaving a gap in the law where no-one is authorised to make decisions, and the law doesn't like those kind of gaps.
There are several ways of looking at it, but I tend to think they all end up reaching the same point, that the husband is going to be in the best position to make decisions. If it's a decision about his wife's medical care (which is questionable if we regard her as dead), then it's his call. If it's a decision about the disposal of his wife's body, then it's his call. If it's a decision about the medical care of his child, then it's still his call.
NB That's on the assumption that she has not already made the call. I can understand Eliab's argument that what she had said previously might be seen as not covering this situation, where turning her machine off would end another life.
But, I don't think I really have to decide conclusively whether I agree with that argument because we're not in a situation where the husband's wishes differ from what we know of the wife's wishes. Either we accept that the wife has made a decision which covers this situation (in which case, go with her wish), or we decide that she failed to address this situation and it's the husband's call - which gets us to the same point.
The proposition that the wife's decision did not cover her being pregnant is not, as a matter of logic, the same as a positive decision on her part not to have the machine turned off if she was pregnant. There is no warrant to imply a positive decision that she wanted to stay on the machine.
[ 13. January 2014, 07:10: Message edited by: orfeo ]
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anglo Catholic Relict
Shipmate
# 17213
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The question is, why can't you see the similarity?
Probably because I am a mother.
Posts: 585 | Registered: Jul 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
The safety of the fetus is already probably compromised by being gestated inside a corpse. I keep wondering what the narrative will sound like when this child, if it survives more-or-less intact, begins to ask the inevitable question children ask about their own origins. “Yes, dear heart; you lived for 5 months in the womb of a dead woman.”
How about the economic safety of the extant family – a now-single father and a toddler, possibly joined by a possibly disabled baby – who are likely to face a lifetime of staggering debt as a result of the hospital’s refusal to honor the dead woman’s wishes?
Suppose the woman had left clear instructions not to be switched off. Suppose she had said that every risk should be taken and no expense spared to bring her child into the world. Would those reasons then seem compelling arguments for discontinuing life support?
If not, then we agree on the fundamental issue that her choice ought to prevail. I can't then see how the issues you raise ought to obscure the question of who should decide if she has not made and cannot make that choice. They are all important considerations for the ultimate decision-maker, but they do not predetermine what the decision should be. Women do sometimes terminate their pregnancies for reasons connected with the origins of the child*, or because of concerns about its health, or because of economic circumstances, but sometimes they continue with pregnancies despite those factors. And we certainly don't compel women to terminate their pregnancies when those reasons for doing so exist. We therefore can't assume that just because there appear to be excellent reasons for termination in this case, this particular woman can be deemed to have chosen a termination if in fact she has not.
The three propositions leading to that conclusion are:
1. This particular woman has not made a choice for these circumstances.
2. No one else should have the right to choose for her.
3. The default in the absence of a properly authorised choice should be to continue life support for the duration of the pregnancy.
(1) is purely factual, and seems to me to be of central importance, even thought the writer of the article in the OP seems to have little interest in it. I could easily be wrong about this one, since the evidence I have is inference from what a secondary source fails to report.
(2) I am least sure of as a principle, and it seems that even if I am morally right about it, US law disagrees with me. That said, I strongly dislike the idea of a husband, or anyone else, having the right to decide whether a woman should or should not have a termination of pregnancy. I don't think that his authority (in the absence of an express delegation of the power to choose) should go that far.
(3) I'm most sure of this. The alternative - that if we don't have a positive choice the default is to allow woman and child to die - seems unconscionable. I can, however, see an argument that therefore we should stretch a point on my issue (2) to avoid being in the position of having to make decisions by default - that a husband's choice, though less than ideal, may be better than a mandated one.
*if I write 'child' or 'baby' to describe the unborn entity, this is not to be taken as implying that I think it is morally speaking a human being. Similarly if I describe it directly as a 'foetus' or obliquely as a 'pregnancy' this is not to be taken as implying that it is without moral worth. My own view is that an unborn child is not a human being in the moral sense, but that it is nonetheless an entity of moral significance - I therefore think abortion to be generally wrong, but not murder. Politically I'm pro-choice because I don't think that my moral views on this difficult subject should be binding on everyone else.
--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
You might be most sure of (3), but it's a fairly fundamental principle of law that medical treatment without consent is assault.
The only reason one gets away temporarily with medical treatment that has not been consented to is a presumption that, in certain situations, a person would consent if they were able to.
That presumption is looking pretty damn shaky. The only reason it's holding up at all is your conviction that in a situation where the inability to obtain direct consent is ongoing, and indeed in this case permanent, you've decided that no-one else obtains responsibility for the decision.
[ 13. January 2014, 08:45: Message edited by: orfeo ]
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
|
Posted
In the ordinary course of similar events here, the position is reversed. A hospital seeks to end life support but the family disagrees. The answer is that the hospital makes an application to the State Supreme Court for an order that life support may - not must - be turned off. The judge then hears evidence to determine if that course is medically justified. A similar case went ahead not so long ago where the hospital wanted to give a blood transfusion to a 17 yr old Jehovah's Witness, where that course was clinically appropriate. The judge had to determine if the treatment could be forced on the boy against not just his parents' wishes, but his also, he being within months of becoming adult. The answer was that the treatment could be forced.
Very hard cases indeed, from conversation with more than one judge who's been required to make such a decision, very draining on the judge - even if the decision is one taken to preserve life.
--------------------
Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
|
Posted
From reading about the case on the web and in print it seems to me that the hospital, whether wittingly or no, are making an already appalling situation worse.
Regardless of the wishes of the woman, her husband or her parents, what about the couple's young child: his mother has died - that will be hard enough to explain: how then do they propose to tell him (if it happens) that his dead mother has been delivered of another baby?
I do not see how any church can support the position of the hospital since what it amounts to is the prevention of legal burial (or cremation) of a body - I think that is an offence in most places?
--------------------
Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
it's a fairly fundamental principle of law that medical treatment without consent is assault.
Is it still assault if the patient no longer has any consent to give or withhold?
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The only reason one gets away temporarily with medical treatment that has not been consented to is a presumption that, in certain situations, a person would consent if they were able to. That presumption is looking pretty damn shaky.
Is it usual that a woman with a wanted pregnancy suddenly wants the child not to be born if she finds out she will not survive to see it? Do we have any reason to believe that this woman would not have wanted to save the child even if she herself could not be saved? Seems to me maternal instincts usually work in the other direction.
As for porridge and l'organist's concerns (spliced here): quote:
I keep wondering what the narrative will sound like when this child, if it survives more-or-less intact, begins to ask the inevitable question children ask about their own origins. “Yes, dear heart; you lived for 5 months in the womb of a dead woman.”
his mother has died - that will be hard enough to explain: how then do they propose to tell him (if it happens) that his dead mother has been delivered of another baby?
Are you actually maintaining that it would be manifestly better (for oneself or one's sibling) to be deprived of the chance to live at all rather than have to face the knowledge that one's mother was clinically brain-dead during the latter part of your (or their) gestation? Why, precisely? It is not so obvious to me, to say the least.
On the other hand, can you see no possible emotional downside to having to find out that after your mother died your father determined that your unborn sibling should also die rather than try to save them?
[ 13. January 2014, 15:54: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]
--------------------
"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
From reading about the case on the web and in print it seems to me that the hospital, whether wittingly or no, are making an already appalling situation worse.
Regardless of the wishes of the woman, her husband or her parents, what about the couple's young child: his mother has died - that will be hard enough to explain: how then do they propose to tell him (if it happens) that his dead mother has been delivered of another baby?
I do not see how any church can support the position of the hospital since what it amounts to is the prevention of legal burial (or cremation) of a body - I think that is an offence in most places?
This.
In addition, since medical bankruptcy continues to be a rising factor (and I'm not aware that ACA will necessarily change this) in the US's current robust increase in our homeless population, the existing family is being forced by the hospital's decision into an extremely precarious financial position. Assuming the hospital plans to bill this woman's survivors for the relevant costs involved in roughly 5 months of care plus obstetrical procedures likely to be complicated by the fact that the mother is dead and unable to assist in any way with the birth, I don't see how it can be legal for the hospital to compromise this family's future by demanding a procedure / series of procedures the family has rejected.
--------------------
Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
it's a fairly fundamental principle of law that medical treatment without consent is assault.
Is it still assault if the patient no longer has any consent to give or withhold?
Is it still rape if the victim is unconscious? What's important in both cases is giving permission, not not denying permission.
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Is it usual that a woman with a wanted pregnancy suddenly wants the child not to be born if she finds out she will not survive to see it?
This isn't that situation. This is a situation where a woman's body has to be kept artificially "alive" even though she's dead, for up to 5 months. Not a matter of a woman dying in childbirth, or having her baby removed by c-section after she's died in a car crash or something. The two are just about as dissimilar as you can get and still be talking about mothers, children, and mothers dying.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
it's a fairly fundamental principle of law that medical treatment without consent is assault.
Is it still assault if the patient no longer has any consent to give or withhold?
Is it still rape if the victim is unconscious? What's important in both cases is giving permission, not not denying permission.
In this case I'm working on the premiss - along with most other posters - that the woman is dead. That makes a difference. There are things which it may be morally licit to do to someone's body which it would not be ethical to do them whilst thay lived. Many people would think it would not necessarily be wrong to use her liver to save another person's life without her previous explicit consent (if not contrary to her explicit veto). I'm pretty sure I've seen you argue in abortion threads that in problem pregnancy cases where it is only possible to save one life one should save the life that can in fact be saved. Why would you not apply this principle in this case, especially since one would not be killing one to save another?
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Is it usual that a woman with a wanted pregnancy suddenly wants the child not to be born if she finds out she will not survive to see it?
This isn't that situation. This is a situation where a woman's body has to be kept artificially "alive" even though she's dead, for up to 5 months. Not a matter of a woman dying in childbirth, or having her baby removed by c-section after she's died in a car crash or something. The two are just about as dissimilar as you can get and still be talking about mothers, children, and mothers dying.
I'm afraid I don't see that. If in principle it would be licit to cut open her abdomen post-mortem to remove the child, why would it not be to keep her alive until the child was viable and then remove it? If this were an actively wanted preganancy - I get the impression it was, but I could be mistaken - it seem quite likely to me that the mother would want the child to survive her death by such means if necessary. Therefore, if your argument is based on repecting the autonomy or wishes of the mother, I'd have thought this would be of some relevance to you. What active harm do you believe is being done to the dead mother by keeping her body functioning long enough to give her child a chance of life?
I'm with Doublethink above: quote:
I am revolted by the idea of deliberately switching off the machine and allowing a living thing, especially a potential child, to suffocate and die in a corpse.
Are you not?
[ 13. January 2014, 19:15: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]
--------------------
"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
|
Posted
There are possible difficulties of using her body as an incubator.
Firstly, how well will the mother's body work as an incubator? Are there things a living body provides that a dead body can't, for example, movement, sounds? How much of that is required for the normal development of a foetus? From a quick Google this has been done before, for a few days, not 5 months.
Secondly, 14 weeks gestation is only just outside the first trimester when women are advised not to inform anyone they are pregnant as the risk of miscarriage is highest. This pregnancy is in the early stages.
Thirdly, there are 10 weeks of keeping the mother alive to 24 weeks gestation when the foetus has a reasonable chance of life in an incubator. The next 10 weeks in an incubator aren't going to come free and the prognosis for babies born at 24 weeks gestation aren't great.
This article considers the costs and suggest that this could be the first million dollar baby - as in it's going to cost more than a million dollars for this baby to be born alive. Those of you who are saying that the family should be forced to keep the mother on life support to allow this child to be born, how many of you are going to help fund that million dollars?
--------------------
Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
|
Posted
To be fair, I am concentrating on the moral pros and cons of the case, not the practicalities - I'm just assuming that it is or might be possible to save the unborn in this way for the sake of the argument. Sometimes that is the only way to get to the moral nub of the problem. But of course this is a real case with real people.
In this case, when it comes to the money, if the hospital is insisting that it is not lawful (or not ethical) for it to abandon the treatment then the money's a moral red herring. Having said that, I would want to see the family helped with the cost so that it would not become oppressive to them and would in principle be prepared to help them out. Perhaps medical insurance should cover such eventualities. In Britain, I'm pretty sure this would be covered by the NHS.
--------------------
"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
There are several ways of looking at it, but I tend to think they all end up reaching the same point, that the husband is going to be in the best position to make decisions. If it's a decision about his wife's medical care (which is questionable if we regard her as dead), then it's his call. If it's a decision about the disposal of his wife's body, then it's his call. If it's a decision about the medical care of his child, then it's still his call.
It's not exactly like any of those decisions, though, and even if it were, a spouse's authority is only good up to certain limits. I recently had heart surgery – had something gone wrong, my wife would certainly have been consulted for her views, but she absolutely did not have the right to rush into the operating theatre once my heart had been opened up and demand that all further treatment cease.
Similarly, I don't have the right to neglect my children's health care. There are certainly circumstances where, if they are dangerously ill, if I refused to take them to a doctor or hospital I would go to jail. If this is a decision about care of a child (and I don't think it is – the foetus is not yet a 'child' in that sense in my view) then it doesn't follow that the sole remaining parent can require the child to die.
Essentially, this is a decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy. The circumstances are unusual, certainly, but ethically what we care about is what happens to the unborn entity, and that's the same thing we care about in the abortion question. The question here is whether a husband can decide that his wife must have an abortion, if her wishes on the subject are unobtainable.
The closest case to that I can think of is whether it would be right to allow a mentally incapable person's next of kin to require them to have an abortion. I'm extremely uncomfortable with that. I don't think anyone gets to have that degree of control over another person's body.
quote:
Either we accept that the wife has made a decision which covers this situation (in which case, go with her wish)
I completely agree with that part.
quote:
or we decide that she failed to address this situation and it's the husband's call
Why? Your post seems to be based on a pragmatic argument – a decision has to be made and no one would appear better placed to make it than the husband. That's a compelling argument, and I'd agree with it, if there had to be a positive decision. However there are some cases where there only needs to be a positive decision one way: a doctor doesn't need to make a positive decision not to perform an abortion. He or she will treat a pregnant patient on the working hypothesis that the pregnancy is to be preserved (that's why you get those warning signs outside of X-ray departments) and vary that only on express instruction.
If I'm right that this principle applies in the absence of the patient's express instruction, what moral right does a husband have to require the pregnancy to be terminated?
quote:
The proposition that the wife's decision did not cover her being pregnant is not, as a matter of logic, the same as a positive decision on her part not to have the machine turned off if she was pregnant. There is no warrant to imply a positive decision that she wanted to stay on the machine.
This is entirely true. We can't assume that we know what the woman would have chosen if she had foreseen this. There hasn't been a positive decision to stay on life support.
However we do know that she was 14 weeks pregnant when she lost mental capacity forever, and therefore at that point probably (though not certainly) knew she was expecting a child. She does not seem to have taken steps to end the pregnancy, and there is no reason to think the child was not wanted. Many (not all) women who are about three months pregnant have begun to think of the child as their baby, and to feel maternal love for it – and would experience a miscarriage as a bereavement.
We also know nothing of her moral and ethical views. I think we can tentatively guess that she was not extremely 'pro-life' in outlook (although those views are not exactly uncommon in Texas) since if she had been her husband would likely have known that, and we should assume he would have wanted to respect her wishes. What she would have wanted is therefore guesswork. However we should not ignore the fact that a decision to abort a wanted pregnancy is a momentous one, of incredible personal and moral significance. In my view, it is too great a decision for anyone else to make for her.
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Regardless of the wishes of the woman, her husband or her parents, what about the couple's young child: his mother has died - that will be hard enough to explain: how then do they propose to tell him (if it happens) that his dead mother has been delivered of another baby?
Do you mean 'regardless of' in the sense: “here's an additional factor to take into account”, or literally, that regardless of the wishes the right thing to do is switch off life support for this reason, even if she would have chosen otherwise?
Because if you mean the first, I don't think that your “what about” is of much assistance in sorting out the question of who has authority to decide. It may, or may not, be a factor that the decision-maker takes into account, and it may be an additional reason to consider the decision to be an important one. If you mean the second (I don't think you do, but I'm not sure) I could not disagree more.
I don't, in fact, think it an especially difficult thing to explain: “Mum died – and that's very sad – but the doctors could keep her body alive for long enough for [you] / [your brother or sister] to be born. She loved you both and would have been proud of you”. It would be a hard thing to hear, certainly, but one thing that is true of every pregnancy in the world is that the child, if it survives long enough, will be badly hurt by something. That in this case we can foresee a hard, but probably bearable, experience is no reason to insist on abortion. We don't routinely advise single mothers to abort so as to avoid the 'Dad left us' conversation, and that's got to be at least as painful to hear.
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Assuming the hospital plans to bill this woman's survivors for the relevant costs involved in roughly 5 months of care plus obstetrical procedures likely to be complicated by the fact that the mother is dead and unable to assist in any way with the birth, I don't see how it can be legal for the hospital to compromise this family's future by demanding a procedure / series of procedures the family has rejected.
Are spouses in Texas generally liable for each other's debts? If not, on what basis could a husband be liable for his wife's medical bills for care he has not agreed to?
Again, though, even if Texas law is so unjust in that particular, I don't see that it changes what the right thing to do is in this case – at worst it makes doing the right thing more costly.
--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
it's a fairly fundamental principle of law that medical treatment without consent is assault.
Is it still assault if the patient no longer has any consent to give or withhold?
Well, you can assault people who have no capacity to consent, like those with limited mental capacity or children, so yes. If what you're really asking is it still assault if a person is dead, then no. And it's not medical treatment and she isn't a patient. I don't know what the laws on interfering with a dead body are.
As I said before, if we treat her as dead then it becomes about medical care of a child. An unborn at that. In which case normal principles would be the parents make the medical decisions. In which case there's one parent alive to make decisions. The father.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Is it usual that a woman with a wanted pregnancy suddenly wants the child not to be born if she finds out she will not survive to see it? Do we have any reason to believe that this woman would not have wanted to save the child even if she herself could not be saved? Seems to me maternal instincts usually work in the other direction.
Seems to me this is an almighty assumption on your part. It also seems to me that by even asking that question, you're making a presumption about what my own opinion on the best thing to do in this situation is, which misses the point. What I would do in this situation is completely irrelevant. It's not happening to me, so it's clearly not my decision make.
Also, what does 'is it usual' even mean in a situation which everyone acknowledges is incredibly rare? There's about 30 cases in the last 30 years, and you want me to comment on trends?
The reason the presumption that she would agree to treatment is shaky has nothing to do with what is 'usual', it is has to do with (1) what is known about HER actual wishes, and (2) if we operate on the basis that she's dead, what is known about her husband's actual wishes. I've already made that pretty clear, I think. A case where the wife hadn't made a living will or where the husband had expressed a different view would be a completely different case. By talking about what is 'usual', you're basically suggesting that it doesn't matter at all what the individual people in the individual case indicate they want.
[ 13. January 2014, 20:55: Message edited by: orfeo ]
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
That's a compelling argument, and I'd agree with it, if there had to be a positive decision.
Mousthief has already addressed you on this, and I agree with him. The distinction you're attempting to make between a 'positive' decision and a decision to keep doing what is currently being done is illusory.
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
In my view, it is too great a decision for anyone else to make for her.
But she is dead.
There's a profound fallacy in suggesting that the principle 'we shouldn't make decisions for other people' applies here. To put it bluntly, she's not a person anymore. Not in legal terms, anyway.
You're right, my viewpoint is pragmatic, but that's for a good reason. The idea that no-one is in a position to make a decision is just so fundamentally problematic in the world of law because of the difficulties it creates if people agree that action is required. You're comfortable with it right now because you don't think any 'action' is required - but that's because you've decided that around-the-clock care and monitoring isn't 'action'.
At the VERY least, you'd have to say that a court is in a position to make a decision to avoid that knot.
It is, I suppose, possible that Texas law is so horrendously drafted that no-one, anywhere, has the slightest authority to do anything regardless of the need to do anything. But I certainly would consider that bad drafting. I'm well-versed in the perils of passive voice, where people pronounce that 'this ought to be done' without identifying who has the right or duty to do it.
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
|
Posted
I am inclined to think that if you are going to abort, you should kill the foetus as quickly and cleanly as possible - not leave it in the corpse after the machine is switched off and hope it's quick.
--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I don't, in fact, think it an especially difficult thing to explain: “Mum died – and that's very sad – but the doctors could keep her body alive for long enough for [you] / [your brother or sister] to be born. She loved you both and would have been proud of you”. It would be a hard thing to hear, certainly, but one thing that is true of every pregnancy in the world is that the child, if it survives long enough, will be badly hurt by something. That in this case we can foresee a hard, but probably bearable, experience is no reason to insist on abortion. We don't routinely advise single mothers to abort so as to avoid the 'Dad left us' conversation, and that's got to be at least as painful to hear.
This.
--------------------
"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The reason the presumption that she would agree to treatment is shaky has nothing to do with what is 'usual', it is has to do with (1) what is known about HER actual wishes, and (2) if we operate on the basis that she's dead, what is known about her husband's actual wishes. I've already made that pretty clear, I think. A case where the wife hadn't made a living will or where the husband had expressed a different view would be a completely different case. By talking about what is 'usual', you're basically suggesting that it doesn't matter at all what the individual people in the individual case indicate they want.
What I'm "basically saying" is that - especially considering uncertainty about what she herself may have wanted (i.e., if it was indeed a wanted pregnancy) - the decision of the father (a grief-striken husband) should not on its own count as constitutive of the right. There is another entity here to whom we owe consideration - and he or she is the weakest person in the whole scenario, the entirety of whose interests hang on this decision.
--------------------
"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The reason the presumption that she would agree to treatment is shaky has nothing to do with what is 'usual', it is has to do with (1) what is known about HER actual wishes, and (2) if we operate on the basis that she's dead, what is known about her husband's actual wishes. I've already made that pretty clear, I think. A case where the wife hadn't made a living will or where the husband had expressed a different view would be a completely different case. By talking about what is 'usual', you're basically suggesting that it doesn't matter at all what the individual people in the individual case indicate they want.
What I'm "basically saying" is that - especially considering uncertainty about what she herself may have wanted (i.e., if it was indeed a wanted pregnancy) - the decision of the father (a grief-striken husband) should not on its own count as constitutive of the right. There is another entity here to whom we owe consideration - and he or she is the weakest person in the whole scenario, the entirety of whose interests hang on this decision.
The law generally doesn't condition decision-making powers on the basis of 'only make decisions that we approve of'. The law has to operate in a vast array of situations, not just weird tragic pockets like this situation.
As to consideration of the fetus - certainly, consider it. Isn't that precisely what everyone's already doing? But it's fairly well established that consideration of the fetus isn't a trump card. Nor is the welfare of others in general. If I know I'm going to die without treatment, I'm not obliged to keep undergoing treatment in order to save my relative because I'm a compatible donor for some operation she needs. It might be NICE if I do so, but I'm not obliged. Nor am I obliged to agree to the donation of my organs in the event of my brain-death.
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
|
Posted
The other likely scenario is that they keep the mother on life support as an incubator and one of the possible things goes wrong, eg kidney failure or infection, meaning that a couple of months down the line the foetus has died anyway and there are still horrendous medical bills to be paid somewhere.
Cynically I wonder if one of the doctors involved in this case wants to research what happens in a situation like this.
--------------------
Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
As to consideration of the fetus - certainly, consider it. Isn't that precisely what everyone's already doing?
I admit to struggling to see how those advocating that the machine should be switched off and the fetus allowed to die simply because that's what the father wants are considering the fetus in any meaningful sense. What kind of genuine consideration of what is in the interests of that fetus - who loses everything by such a decision - is going on in that case? Isn't that rather a dismissal of the interests of the fetus?
--------------------
"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Charlie-in-the-box
Shipmate
# 17954
|
Posted
She is dead. They are keeping her plugged in knowing that she is dead. Her fetus went without oxygen for over an hour (as did she) and was flooded with tons of drugs and injections to try to save the mom. Any other woman, of her gestation, would have died and the baby with her. The child cannot survive (not with our technology) and is mostly likely irreversibly damaged. She had directed that she NOT be on life support and this is in direct violation to her wishes. She is dead, not in a coma, and while this is a horrible tragedy, she should be unplugged from life support, per her wishes. If she had other ideas, she would have verbalized them.
--------------------
Charlie-in-the-box
http://rosarygirl1962.blogspot.com/
Posts: 55 | From: Island of Misfit Heretics | Registered: Jan 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
