I wonder if the government of the state of Texas is prepared to pay a whole hell of a lot of money in a civil suit. I suspect so, given their seemingly intractable belief that women do not own their own bodies when it comes to reproduction, but then I can’t even begin to understand what they’re thinking now. We might as well be talking to aliens from Mars.

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about Marlise Munoz, the woman who is on life support against her own wishes and the wishes of her family, but just in case you haven’t, I’ll fill you in.  In late November of 2013, Marlise collapsed at home and her husband, a paramedic, rushed her to the hospital to discover that her brain had been deprived of oxygen too long. She was officially brain dead.  Marlise, a paramedic herself, had previously expressed her wishes to her family to be taken off of life support should she ever find herself in this position and had even, some reports say, gone so far as to complete a living will to that effect.

Unfortunately for her and her family, Marlise happened to be 14 weeks pregnant at the time of her collapse and happened to live in a part of the world where the government gets to rule your body after you get pregnant.  She remains on life support until such time as the baby can safely be delivered. She remains on life support against her wishes and the wishes of her family. 


There is so much wrong with this case that I am almost uncertain where to begin. Almost. 


First of all, her family is presumably being held responsible for the incredibly expensive cost of keeping her alive. Even though the state is forcing the issue, I suspect they aren’t offering to foot the bill for the machines that are doing her breathing for her and nourishing her brain-dead body to keep the fetus alive and healthy.


Second, there is no guarantee, or even much evidence, that suggests that this baby will be born at term or healthy. Has there been any consideration of what happens if the baby is born with significant deficits in development due to his or her mother’s condition throughout the pregnancy? And if the father, who is currently raising another child now on the salary of one paramedic by himself, is forced to be a single parent to a child with special needs who requires additional care beyond what he is able to provide, is the state of Texas going to pay for that? Not only has this man lost his life partner and the mother of his other child, he is being forced into debt and relieved of making some of the most important life decisions on his own by the state of Texas – decisions that will affect him and his children for the rest of their lives.  


This situation is certainly a tragic one and the child with whom Marlise is pregnant was, by all accounts, wanted. Had her husband tried to go against the wishes expressed in her living will in order to save the fetus, there would certainly be a different ethical question at hand given that the child is his as well. But in this case, he is actively trying to comply with his wife’s wishes and the government has intervened in an area they have no business messing around with. If they continue to push the issue, I see no reason why they ought not to be held financially responsible for any hardship they have created by doing so.