<p>Remember SCOTUS Justice O.W. Holmes’ statement that “three generations of imbeciles are enough” in rejecting a challenge to a state law allowing for government ordered sterilization?</p>
<p>romanigypsyeyes is correct, I think. As I understand this, there is no “gray area” involved since the denial of removal of the artificial support is viewed as mandated by Texas state law and “trumps” even a clear written directive to the contrary. I understand from the Dallas newspapers that some are arguing that the law is being misapplied. But, hey, that is to be expected when you are dealing with laws.</p>
<p>Roman - She didn’t to my knowledge write a living will. If she had it clearly states that they aren’t going to pay attention to her wishes if she is pregnant. That’s why it would have been helpful if she had written down what her wishes were. Everyone should have a living will.Otherwise you are putting the burden of any decisions on your family.</p>
<p>With all due respect, mom2collegekids, this is the same kind of theorizing that went on in Jahi McMath’s case by people who substituted their own opinions for medical science. “Well, if she is still producing urine, that suggests to me she’s not dead.” It doesn’t matter what you (or I) THINK or how it APPEARS to us. It matters what medical science thinks, and the general judgment of the neurology and obstetrics communities is that there is a significant risk to a fetus whose mother has been oxygen-deprived for a significant amount of time. “But it didn’t die, so therefore it can’t be all that bad!” is your hypothesis, grounded in nothing more than your wishful thinking.</p>
<p>I don’t get why all of sudden pregnancy is a condition in which your previously expressed wishes have to be “asked about again – are you sure?” </p>
<p>My living will states that I do not wish to be on life support if I am diagnosed as being in X, Y or Z conditions. That is pretty much that. There ARE no conditions in which the state gets to second-guess me – “but what if she had just won the lottery the day before? what if her husband would be really devastated? what if their house were also burning down?” It is totally transparent and agenda-driven that all of a sudden you suspect her wishes really weren’t what they were expressed as. No, you just don’t like the idea that there are women who would say - yes, indeed, even if I’m pregnant, I would not wish to be on this kind of support - and so you hope against hope that if they just are forced to be asked the question <em>just one more time</em> their views might change.</p>
<p>“The problem isn’t that nobody includes that type of condition in an advanced directive. The problem is that even if a woman did include that type of condition in an advanced directive, it wouldn’t matter.”</p>
<p>Exactly. </p>
<p>"…wouldn’t want to be on life support. But in her line of work she should have known the law in the state of Texas and she should have had it written down that even if she was pregnant she did not want to be on life support"</p>
<p>Does not matter one bit even if she had ten thousand written directives. According to the law in TX, pregnancy nullifies any written DNR etc. A pregnant woman (and her family) have fewer rights in TX than a non-pregnant woman. A pregnant woman in TX is not entitled to a living will.</p>
<p>It is also disturbing that the wording of the law can be interpreted very broadly. The law does not specify how far into the pregancy one can be to be hooked up to mechanical ventilation as an incubator. For instance, a woman may not be even aware that she is pregnant, her brain dead body is taken off mechanical support, and later it is found that she was several weeks pregnant… Just imagine what a can of worms that can open.</p>
<p>There WERE no wishes if she was brain-dead and pregnant, and I do think it is a huge difference from just being brain dead. I know at least one person who would not want to be kept alive on machines, but I know that would be trumped to her if it was to save the life of her unborn baby.</p>
<p>Why - are you arguing that it would be ok to pull the plug if it were to be proven that the child would be disabled, but not ok to pull the plug if it were to be proven that the child would be fine? Isn’t that just as much of a slippery slope? The child’s potential disability, while certainly not irrelevant to the family, IS irrelevant to the notion of - do grown women of sound mind get their stated end-of-life wishes respected by the state of Texas, or do they not? </p>
<p>Let’s put it another way: Right now, we’re all trusting (and I think rightly so) that the husband and family are indeed expressing her wishes from their lifetime of knowing her. Let’s further say that there actually was a living will, notarized and videotaped, where she explicitly says: “I want life support pulled. Even if I’m pregnant. Got it?”<br>
What you’re not getting is, the state of Texas STILL has a trump card to OVERRIDE that and force her to be hooked up anyway. You don’t find that frightening?? That pregnancy renders your previously expressed judgment about your own body moot?</p>
Would they really? How many women, looking at this situation (fetus at 14 weeks, mother dead, status of fetus uncertain), would say, “Yes, keep the life support going if that happens.”? I’m not at all convinced that most would say that.</p>
<p>That’s irrelevant. This woman’s husband doesn’t believe this is what she wants, and in the absence of anything else, HIS judgment gets to prevail over what I or any other woman who has been pregnant might do, feel, say or want. You have no window into her soul just because you’ve been pregnant. Neither do I. He does.</p>
<p>The fact that there is no conflict between family members says a lot to me about the fact that the greatest likelihood is that the mom did communicate her wishes.</p>
<p>I had a major health crisis while pregnant with D2 and I made my wishes known to my husband, my mother, my doctor and my favorite nurse. My wishes were “if there is a choice to be made, save the baby over me no matter what” and I can completely see the other side of the situation. I am personally bothered by the fact that this has dragged on so long. Not a legal observation, just personally upset by the fact that this baby is now tottering on the edge of viability after this occurred so long ago.</p>
I think a lot would. The women who chose to postpone urgent medical treatment that might put a fetus at risk come to mind. But it doesn’t matter what most would or wouldn’t do, it seems clear what THIS woman wanted and this isn’t it.</p>
<p>My views are colored by personal experience. I was told based on tests that one of my twins had a high chance of being a Down syndrome baby. 21 years later they are in college and completely healthy. </p>
<p>Here, the doctors admit they have no idea what the status of this child is.</p>
And in others, it doesn’t. Like all such cases, this one is about balancing the competing interests. I’m sympathetic to the idea that the unborn do have certain rights, and that they become more compelling the closer the fetus is to viability and then to live birth. But there are other interests, too–the mother’s right to self-determination, and in this case, the husband/father has interests as well. I just think that in this case, the interests weigh in favor of following the family’s wishes.</p>
In the aftermath of my health crisis, I was given counseling by the head of OB, my doctor and the social worker to suggest termination as a possible option because the baby might have been harmed by the crisis and brain damage was a good possibility. I signed off on understanding what I had been told, continued the pregnancy, and she is my only “gifted” child.</p>