The hard right is at it again.  This time with a woman who is brain-dead.  Marlise Munoz was  early in her pregnancy when she had a brain embolism that resulted in lack of oxygen to the brain for an estimated hour before she was found unconscious on the floor.  She was a paramedic who along with her husband Erick and mother, Lynne Machado, all agreed against life support.  Apparently she had a living will that stated this desire.  And yet, even though the hospital agrees that she is brain-dead, they put her on life support against both her’s and her family explicit instructions due to Texas’s state law that gives precedence to a fetus and forces her family to use her body as an incubating machine.

This is just like what happened in the Terri Schiavo case when both the Florida legislature and Congress intervened against her  husband’s wishes and kept her on life support.  Terri, just like Marlise too collapsed.  There are, however, four differences in these two cases.

• Terri lived in Florida and Marlise lived in Texas;
• Terri’s brain death was from cardiac arrest while Marlise’s was from a brain embolism;
• Marlise was pregnant at the time of her accident; Terri was not; and
• Congress hasn’t yet inserted itself into Marilise and her family’s case.

Yet both were (are) being treated by the state as objects rather than as human beings with loving families that should have control over end-of-life issues.

What’s wrong with these states?  Why should the state intervene in cases where families who care and love their spouses and children say enough is enough?  Why should a state intervene in contradiction to a person’s living will?  These are matters of privacy.  When a doctor or hospital determines that a person is brain-dead and the family, or the individual through her living will, says enough is enough, then LISTEN to the family and not some legislators down the road.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Here’s the story about Marlise Munoz.

Texas hospital forbids husband of brain-dead, pregnant wife to remove her from life support (via Raw Story )

A Texas man who wants his pregnant wife removed from life-support is being thwarted by hospital officials who insist that Texas law states they must continue to care for her. Under Texas law, “[a] person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining…