Brain dead woman kept alive against her wishes

[Cia]

The Texas lawmakers are backpedaling stating that the law isn't supposed to be applied to a brain dead woman.

My answer is that if they "meant" for the law to only apply to pregnant women who have not been declared brain dead than they should've mentioned it in the law and not come back later and try to save face.

Yes, the hospital was following the law as told to them by their lawyers yet with one phone call to a judge this whole debacle should have been taken care of months ago and the woman's family allowed to bury their daughter/wife/mother and to grieve for the two lives lost.

[Gravekeeper]

A similar thing recently occurred up here in BC. A pregnant woman suffered a brain hemorrhage but is being kept on life support till delivery. The difference is she was further along, did not go an hour without oxygen, the woman did not have a living will and thus the hospital is following the family's wishes without legal interference.

[lordlundar]

To add to that GK the family requested the woman be kept on life support for the duration knowing full well that after the birth the mother will not survive. The father has spoken out saying the child is his wife's legacy and the final gift she could give. It's not some legal asshole with a political angle saying "screw you!" to the family's wishes and treating her like an incubator because he thinks women don't have rights.

[s_stabeler]

where it is at the request of the family, or the recently-deceased ( either thorough a living will, or a specific request before they died) then it is fine. Where the matter is compulsory? it is not fine.

[Panacea]

In many people's eyes, yes, ANY abortion at ANY point in a pregnancy is murder. And I do remember reading (but I honestly can't recall if it was satire or real) that one or two politicians were pushing for legislation that would require any woman who had a miscarriage to report it to officials (presumably so they could verify she hadn't had an abortion).

Yes, the nanny state in action. It's amazing to me the same people who complain of the nanny state in one breath, want to control women' reproductive rights in the next.

the husband is now starting to receive medical bills from the hospital.

Good luck with that.

It was. The hospital was billing them for the expense of keeping her on life support against their wishes.

Here we run into the issue of informed consent. The family did not grant it; in fact they requested repeatedly that all treatment cease. I think the hospital is going to have a hard time convincing a judge the family should pay these bills because "treatment" was effectively forced on the patient against the will of the family.

My answer is that if they "meant" for the law to only apply to pregnant women who have not been declared brain dead than they should've mentioned it in the law and not come back later and try to save face.

Yes, the hospital was following the law as told to them by their lawyers yet with one phone call to a judge this whole debacle should have been taken care of months ago and the woman's family allowed to bury their daughter/wife/mother and to grieve for the two lives lost.

Except there was a conflict on interest on the part of the judge, thus the clear legal ruling that this law did NOT apply was withheld until the judge recused himself.

As for the law itself, no law can be so specifically written to cover every contingency. That's what regulations are for. In this case, you're asking the lawmakers to be prescient and be able to predict that someone would try to abuse the law in this way.

A similar thing recently occurred up here in BC. A pregnant woman suffered a brain hemorrhage but is being kept on life support till delivery. The difference is she was further along, did not go an hour without oxygen, the woman did not have a living will and thus the hospital is following the family's wishes without legal interference.

And that's the fundamental difference: informed consent. The Texas case there was no consent for the "life support" (really death support), in the BC case no only is there informed consent, there is physiological justification to continue treatment to try to save the fetus. The mother's body is capable of sustaining itself for a prolonged time in spite of the brain death. That wasn't true in the Texas case.

The ultimate call should come from the families in consultation with the treating physician, taking into account living wills and POA's for healthcare as well as the medical likelihood of a good outcome (the definition of that varies depending on the goal to be achieved).

The state needs to butt out.