As a woman who is pro-life and a Christian (using my husband's subscription to comment), I am shocked to read this story. I am grieved to think of what this family went through. And it's also personal, because I miscarried a baby at 12 weeks on the same day Ms. Munoz collapsed over 5 years ago.
What is not clear to me, however, is why the Texas hospital saw pulling the plug on Ms. Munoz as actively killing her unborn baby. If a woman dies at 14 weeks gestation, I can't see any way her baby would be viable. Even at 21-24 weeks, when miracles happen with babies born prematurely, life is tenuous at best. Prolonging the mother's "life" artificially at this point doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than complying with a technicality. This is why we have a judicial system, so that when a law or statute clearly is not making the desired effect, it can be interpreted properly.
In this case, I think you could argue quite convincingly that in allowing Ms. Munoz to die, you would not be causing the baby's death. Her pulmonary embolism caused her death, and therefore, also the baby's.
This story comes across as quite gruesome and does not seem to be consistent with Christian principles of mercy and life-affirming care. I would say-- contrary to many of the scare-mongering comments on this thread-- that this does NOT represent what the world would be like if there were more respect for life in our society.
~Chelsey McNeil, Colorado
1
An excellent argument against sustaining a woman on life support to gestate, written before Ms Muñoz was allowed to die, https://verdict.justia.com/2014/01/22/excluding-pregnant-women-right-terminate-life-support Some excerpts: “For Texas to insist that Marlise Munoz remain on life support—receiving treatment against her will and without her consent—as a means of keeping her fetus alive—effectively converts Munoz into an incubator, one with no agency over what the hospital or the government may do to her body.” And “We also do not require people to donate bone marrow or a kidney, no matter how pressing the need on the part of the potential recipient and no matter how healthy and able the would-be donor might be to safely sustain the costs and risks associated with donation.” And “By refusing to disconnect Marlise Munoz from life support, the hospital accordingly commits an ongoing battery against her, a battery that it almost certainly could not and would not have committed against a man, or against a woman who is not pregnant, notwithstanding the benefits that might result and regardless of whether the man or woman was even alive or dead.”
1
So THIS is what theocracy looks like. The way I see it, the ONLY way a woman can keep her rights fully intact, is to have a tubal ligation so that she is sterile. It would serve all these white supremacist, fundamentalist male pervert legislators right...
3
Your religious freedom co-opted by the state...sadly we have lived to see the Christian Taliban at work.
4
"If men could get pregnant abortion would be a sacrament."
Perhaps wise words from Dorthy Parker.
On the mark anyway
1
I cannot begin to imagine the pain that the Machado family had to endure during the 60+ days that this saga lasted until a sane jurist allowed a corpse, being kept alive via technological advances, to finally die (and of course the baby she was carrying...no doubt that fetus would have suffered ill effects from the mom's collapse, i.e., oxygen deprivation).
Sounds as though these hospital administrators forgot the "do no harm" tenet of the Hippocratic oath.
2
It would be helpful if the editors could identify the states that have these horrid laws. Thank you for this very important editorial series.
The thing I don't get is how our otherwise free nation relies on religious faith which of course was invented for and by the old males who are the only beneficiaries.
That women such as Ms Munoz and her family suffer is of no consequence to the paragons of virtue who dictate the way others should lead their lives.
Religious freedom on full display.
4
None of this should be shocking. This is what happens when the Christian Taliban has taken over. The sad truth is that too many "Godly" men don't see women as fully human, or as human as they are. They seek to control every aspect of lives, and the easiest way to do that is ban birth control and abortion. If women can't control their fertility, can't limit the size the their families, can't space their children, then they have nothing. They won't be able to get an education, to have a career or a job because they'll have a baby every year for the duration of their childbearing years.
The other problem is the Catholic Church taking over hospitals and practicing medicine not according to best evidence or best practices but according to theology. Every Catholic hospital will save the life of the fetus over the life of the mother. I remember being in CCD class as a teenager, and asking the priest why the mother can't be saved as well. He said that the fetus must be saved because it is innocent and women are sinful (back to Eve), that women must be punished for their sins, and if that means dying during childbirth, then that is good. When I asked what if the father/husband wanted to save his wife, what if there were other children at home, the priest replied that not saving the mother means the daddy and children get a new mommy (remarriage) and that would be very exciting for him. I was completely turned off from Catholicism. We're going backwards.
7
All of this encroachment on women's bodies and what women can or cannot to themselves has everything to do with religion. Republicans use religion and government to control people.
Maybe we should start having Republican men castrated every time they "misbehave" and we'll see this obsession with controlling women fade away real quick.
9
I grew up in India and I have seen all the tragic complications of pregnancy. Most, if not all, could have been prevented by a society and a nation which approaches these challenges with maturity and wisdom that science provides. While most problems maybe related to poverty or lack of access to adequate care, there are that many women who suffer because either society or laws created by men stigmatizes them making the whole situation worse. I always thought that after immigrating into US and being a part of most advanced healthcare system in the world I would never see those tragedies again. Unfortunately I am seeing them all - I have seen desperate women take unnecessary risks to travel far to seek obstetric care as the laws of the state in which they live in created unnecessary hassles. I have seen abandoned fetuses, and I have see young women who were raped, forced to continue with their pregnancies. This editorial piece and action is long overdue. As a recent immigrant I shuddered to read Robert Bork's 1996 book "slouching towards Gomorrah". I was worried someday that ideals behind that book would one day attack a women and womanhood. Well his followers have done their job!
3
Curiously there is high overlap between typically conservative political groups that lament a low birth rate and also want to make pregnancy scary and not support family leave and policies to reduce the burden and expense of child care. These ideas seem incongruous unless, through lack of access to birth control, pregnancy is forced on women. Fortunately, at least for the time being, cutting off all access to birth control would be political suicide.
However there may be a resolution to these problems. The application of abortion laws and other restrictions on family planning usually falls most heavily on poor women and women of color. If the birth rates among these women is higher than their better off and whiter peers the political landscape will shift and the conservatives will have shot themselves in the foot -preferably sooner than later.
2
I, too, find this inconsistency pretty baffling.
I fear that most of this legislation is happening without the majority of Americans even being aware of it.. .whether liberal or conservative. I don't understand why this information is buried in the opinion section and not front page news-- seems pretty factual to me.. and an incredibly important perspective that most people, even the more informed, are unaware of. I rarely read the opinion section unless I have time and wouldn't have found this if it wasn't a super slow day.
5
The biggest problem with anti-abortionists is their lack of empathy. If abortion were a factor of some relevance in their own family, they would make the exception they deprive to others.
5
The same group that pushes for policies like this will not guarantee affordable health care to babies born with conditions-----Sorry, new life should not be more important than an established person, or even a dead person.
6
Shortly after Roe v Wade was decided, I read an Op-Ed that advocated women should be charged for endangering the lives of their “unborn babies” if it was deemed that their actions or inactions caused a mortal risk to life of the unborn baby. I responded that women who miscarried due to medical reasons and without any evidence that they didn’t follow best prenatal practices could be charged with involuntary manslaughter. I thought I was being a bit hyperbolic to make a point. Apparently, it really wasn’t hyperbole because it could happen if the trajectory of laws continues down the current road.
1
The fact that there were visible strong deformities to the fetus should have been enough for those protesters (since clearly they have no respect for anyone's privacy), yet even then they tried to force this issue. It went from absurd to completely vulgar. This poor family should have never been put through this by such selfish kooks.
5
Bizarre headline. How can someone "dead" be kept alive? This is an example of relativists trying to move the goalposts and redefine what death and life mean beyond the clinical sense. This same kind of logic is also used to justify aborting unborn children.
I do believe in brain death but I don't believe that brain death equates to corporeal death.
1
It sure does , as the brain controls all the body functions :ie heartbeat , breathing , so brain death = corporeal death . There seems to be some confusion , what some refer to brain death is actually vegetative state . Eventually the brain will die too . Did you not read the part of her body beginning to deteriorate and thru machines they were keeping her body functioning ?
2
No goalposts have been moved. If she is alive, her heart will beat on it's own, without outside assistance.
1
Indeed: the dead woman wasn't being kept alive, nothing was relative, rather the dead woman's body was being kept functioning by machines, prolonging the suffering of those actually living, putting off the literally inevitable (that baby was not going to live), which is a gross disrespect for the living and the dead body. You'd think that would appall you more than a clever headline.
Which headline you seem to have misunderstood.
Anyway, the headline showing for me is "Can a Corpse Give Birth?"
Clever, eh?
Until women have control of their bodies like men do, there will be no equality.
8
Women DO have control of their bodies when it comes to engaging in the sexual act, except in the case of rape. Women cannot freely engage in sexual activity without the possibility of pregnancy as a man can. WE women have great responsibly with our gift of the ability to have babies. I think we should be much more cautious with how we use this gift. If you don't want to have a pregnancy, don't do the deed.
IN the case of rape, however, hunt him down and be surgically precise in your response.
Have you not heard of birth control ??? Rather judgmental statement of "don"t do the deed " in your mind as a woman does the same apply to a man ??? Or does using birth control equate the possibility of killing a might be fetus ??? Rather hackneyed view if so .
1
Yes, I have heard of birth control. The only 100% fool proof way to prevent a pregnancy is to not have sex. Where do you think the unexpected pregnancies come from? Successful birth control?
Also there are side effects such as blood clots, reduced fertility after usage has stopped, damage to the uterus. Yes!! If men, real men, care at all for the women in their lives, if they do not want to have a baby they should not do the deed. It seems to me that personal pleasure for both the man and the woman have taken precedence over the awesome possibility of new life. There was once a time when self control and self respect were more common.
1
This is the reality of women placed in a sub-human class distinction, still classified as chattel and breeding stock. I have no doubt that the majority of those who have written these laws and then voted to enforce them are men. The upstanding elected officials and God-fearing men who carry their male superiority in Biblical scripture while extending the hand of torture, suffering, cruelty and grief. No civil rights or human rights for women. Just heaps of feigned male testosterone to hid their own weakness and inferiority. They are the abomination. They are the cancerous falsehood that continues to harm women and girls while eradicating their unalienable rights.
9
I was very upset to read that this is happening in our country. Who are you to inflict your beliefs onto another person? You are devoid of any feelings to the woman. You are too concerned about the rights of the fetus that you have ignored the rights of the woman.
6
This is an important article, for the Enquirer.
3
No, this is reality. And it matters.
4
It's ok, I doubt they read it.
They were sent here to spam the comments for political reasons.
There should be a "verified reader" star like on amazon "verified purchaser" reviews ;D
1
Every Catholic hospital in the US today will save the child over the mother if it comes down to that choice. This is why many catholics opt not to give birth to their children there. I am sure there are other "health" facilities that do the same. Forcing a brain dead woman to stay "alive" because she happens to be pregnant is disgusting. The doctors and nurses involved here should find other professions.
5
...And then there's always the disturbing case of Jahi McMath.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-jahi-mcmath-dies-20180628-story.html
That is completely mentally sick what the law cauzsed to happen to Marlise Munoz. People should have the ability to control their own death and keep the churches and their laws out. Churches are just out for control.....AND MONEY.
4
Ironic that those who are determined to grant personhood to a fetus are also those who rigidly defend the second amendment tooth and nail . The hypocrisy is overwhelming , mass shootings are ok because you have the right to own a gun and form a militia ; but a woman does not have the right to choose even though Roe vs Wade has been established . A pregnant woman , does not get pregnant with the intent of aborting but mass shooters with an arsenal do set out to shoot and kill other humans . Totally bonkers !
10
While reasonable people debate--as in the variety of comments here, Trump has us outflanked. Through the single-issue voting of the right-to-birth movement, he has turned the big prize of swing voters in swing states from lean Democratic to lean Republican. That prize is Catholics in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, where Catholics form over a quarter of the electorate. Please note that these Catholics are not the Joe and Jane Sixpacks of neo-Marxist fantasy. They are better educated and more wealthy than the US average. Their Church has a well-organized and funded campaign starting in parochial school and continuing in modern media like the EWTN that bombard the nation with what is, in effect, propaganda for the Greedy Old Party. Midwestern Catholics also include members of ethnic groups, such as Poles, who sometimes perceive themselves to be the victims of ridicule that would never make it into these sorts of comments had it been anti-Semitic or directed against people of color.
Yet one reads reams of NYT, WaPo, and NYKr pages analyzing white Evangelicals, who are actually irrelevant because have never been persuadable swing voters.
they always vote Republican Dixiecrat and live mainly in Red states.
2
The term "anti-abortion" doesn't seem accurate any longer when discussing such extreme measures that violate the bodily integrity of human beings and, apparently, the deceased. Anti-woman? The Control of Women Movement? Anti-gestational carrier? Anti-rights-of-the-already-born? I don't know what the term should be, but anti-abortion is too simple, it doesn't encompass the number of rights some people in the movement want to take away from women...It makes me sick.
5
I prefer the term "fetus worshipers." Naturally, such people have little interest in actual children or their mothers, considering the resistance to financial aid for those who need it, but fetuses cost them nothing.
5
"...while others focus on the survival of the fetus, even if a woman is suffering tremendous pain."
This is appalling.
Men are not treated this way. Their bodies are not seen as objects to be monitored and controlled by the government. THeir sexuality is celebrated, not seen as problematic. Women are FULL human beings with equal fundamental rights. I will NEVER vote for any candidate who does not fully support my sovereignty over my own body.
10
Thought experiment: Let's say that it's discovered that a serious common fetal abnormality that results in the death of the fetus can be treated by harvesting brain cells from the biological father and then transplanting those cells into the fetus. The brain cell harvesting process often leaves the father brain damaged and in some cases is fatal. How many men would say, "Yes! Do it! The father's life pales in comparison to the precious little fetus! Therefore it should be legally mandated for him to be compelled to save the life of the fetus." Answer: exactly no man would agree to this or legislate this. But it's ultimately the same thing they do to woman ALL THE TIME.
13
I like your thought experiment.
1
The treatment of Ms. Muñoz and her family was clearly not only cruel but also unconstitutional in my view. Ms. Muñoz had a right to self-determination and it was stolen from her when she was unable to defend herself, precisely what DNR orders are meant to prevent. I am fascinated by the varied and horrifying forms misogyny takes in the world. The radical so-called Christian right in this country is a scourge on our American society and taking the lead in on the war on women. *No one* should be forced to abide by anyone else's religious philosophy, which is precisely what happened in this case. Shame on them.
6
Mr. Weyrich should have said what he actually meant - if you have to choose between a woman's life and a fetus, you should choose to let the woman die. This is the crux of every anti-abortion argument - a woman's life and well-being matters less than fetus.
7
The solution to this problem is for women to run for legislative office in their state legislatures. When they are their to represent their interests such vile statutes will not become law in those states.
3
It's *funny* how men have strong opinions about situations they cannot ever be in themselves, yet like to dictate their views to women. Wonder how Wevrich would feel if HIS LIFE was on the line? Guess women could decide for him, instead of giving him a say in it???
"In 1984, the conservative activist Paul Weyrich, the founding president of the Heritage Foundation, explained: “I believe that if you have to choose between new life and existing life, you should choose new life. The person who has had an opportunity to live at least has been given that gift by God and should make way for new life on earth.”"
2
Yes, a "corpse" can give birth. I was one of the reporters who wrote about the birth of Susan Torres' daughter in 2005 (see article here:https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/brain-dead-virginia-woman-dies-after-giving-birth/) even though the mom was brain-dead.) The family wanted to give the baby girl a chance. (Sadly she too died a few weeks later). But it's not unheard of for women on life support to have babies. You guys could have reported the other side of the story but that would have ruined your narrative, right?
2
The 'other side of the story' you refer to is horrific and unnatural.
4
Not for the babies who get to be born, it isn't. They're not zombies.
Julia Duin,
But you’re willing to turn women into the undead to gestate an embryo or fetus. Why would you deny a woman a dignified death just because she happens to be pregnant?
1
So relieved I am past my childbearing years. Due to a terrible accident when very young I have numerous scars on my belly. I was always told I should not get pregnant. Unfortunately, it happened and was terminated. That was before the Zealots took over. Thanks God.
2
I am not sure why this article showed Marlise Munoz's mother with her grandson. The implication is that the fetus came to full term and the result was a healthy baby boy. Yet the article clearly states that the fetus was non-viable when the "plug" was eventually pulled on the mother (and fetus). The photograph in the article is misleading. Please use photos or figures or tables to further enhance understanding or clarity; not confusion!
Overall, from my perspective, it's best to leave the decision to the family and their doctor.
2
Why do men get off scot-free in this scenario of women and pregnancy? Aren't they also part of the equation? Do they think that women spontaneously generate? If a man impregnates a known addict, isn't he, too, culpable? If a woman is forced to carry a pregnancy to term, shouldn't he also get a term, in jail, perhaps. Work release, of course; he's going to need the money. When are men going to learn that sex has consequences and accept full acknowledged responsibility if a pregnancy occurs? No excuses allowed. Too many of our male legislators love to harass women. How about they harass other men instead. Hold their feet to the fire. We women shouldn't be in this battle alone.
13
Perhaps it should be illegal for men to participate in conception with a woman with a record of risky behavior, substance abuse, alcoholism, smoking or other behaviors that put a fetus at risk. If there are legal penalties for the mothers behavior after conception how about preemptive legal penalties for men who are aware of their partners potential for illegal actions before conception? Seems like a logical extension to me, have unprotected sex with a herion addict, go to jail. Or maybe life starts at ovulation, there is no proof that it does not, and we should be required to attempt conception whenever there is ovulation or be arrested for ovicide.
2
There is no excuse for refusing to honor a woman's wishes about her body. Anyone who is truly "pro life" - by which I mean in favor of life - should realize that the rights of a living, thinking human being should take precedence over the theoretical rights of a potential person who is yet unborn. A woman should have complete dominion over her body, whether or not that body is pregnant. It is barbaric to put the potential life of an unborn person ahead of the actual life of an existing human being. I'm sure that if it were men who got pregnant instead of woman, there would be no debate about the right to abortion or a woman's dominion over her own body. This is just another way to dupe people into oppressing women and keeping them from enjoying their full rights as human beings.
6
It's entirely possible to condemn abortion as murder and yet to realize that no government has the right to force a woman to undergo a pregnancy and delivery she does not want.
It comes down to jurisdiction. Whether or not you believe that all human rights begin at conception, the practical question is not one of morality, it is one of jurisdiction. Does a government have jurisdiction over the fetus, or does the woman who carries it?
Currently we do not consider a fetus to be a citizen; it cannot be counted in any census, it cannot be used as an exemption for income tax purposes; it cannot get a Social Security number; it cannot even legally be given a name--until it is born. It is NOT under the jurisdiction of any city, state or national government--until it is born.
Let me make two analogies. Many, perhaps most, of the people in Canada agree with the last four popes that legal execution is murder. By that doesn't give Canadians the right to invade Texas to prevent an execution!
In a similar way, if a murderer is holed up in an embassy or a consulate, we do not have the right to invade the consulate to extradite and try her; we do not have jurisdiction over that space.
"Jurisdiction" is a dry and boring word. But I believe it can be the solution to an otherwise intractable problem.
4
Almost all of us have a DNR i.e Do Not Resuscitate form signed. And every person signs a proxy form before any procedure or doctor's visit. The person named has proxy rights to make decisions for that person in the event of death or when the patient cannot make informed decisions. And the proxy kicks in even if the proxy form is not signed. A patient can even be taken off the ventilator if there is no hope for a recovery - by two physicians who have come to decision conclused after all medical efforts have been exhausted to bring about recovery. And they have to present all evidence to a court before he signs the order to terminate resuscitation efforts. My question is, why do we have serious medical and court directed protocols? Obviously, they don't mean anything where women are concerned!
7
It seems unlikely that at 14 weeks when the incident first occurred, that the fetus would have survived and been normal and healthy anyway. It seems the hospital was just prolonging her life for no reason. There was no possible good outcome. The child was briefly surviving in a body that was just a shell, that had no humanity ,no spirit to share.
Not to mention the economic resources that could have been spared. I'm curious if the family got a bill for interventions they did not want.
8
The article mentioned that 12 states had laws that applied at even the earliest stages of pregnancy. I don't know if Texas is one of those states, but if it is then the hospital had no choice.
1
If it were for no reason it would be less offensive. The reasons were to make a political statement and to exercise control at every opportunity.
If only it could be truly seen that we are spiritual beings first and physical bodies second, maybe this mess could go away. What first happens in spirit, the soul, is manifested in the physical body and souls withdraw when life is not viable.
4
A fetus is not a person at conception. At the same time, the fetus becomes more and more a person as it develops, as long as the pregnancy proceeds in a healthy fashion. I still support Roe v. Wade since it supports a balance between the right of the pregnant woman and the right of the fetus. It understands that the balance changes throughout the pregnancy, depending on the circumstances. Absolutism in either direction is careless and immoral.
6
I subscribe to your sentiment, Joe. but the moral question remains unanswered...
When does abortion turn to murder?
It is clear that society has a vested interest in matters of homicide; all civilized societies grant that, By extension, society has a vested interest, then, in establishing just when abortion turns to murder.
It is this moral question that has society tied in metaphorical knots and tied in a lot of them.
What distresses me is that we cannot have rational discussions as to when that transformation occurs. More crucially, we cannot even broach the subject without the fringes become unhinged, dragging in every emotional argument ever conceived, and trying to browbeat the others into submission through emotional and moral blackmail.
Is that the way to come to workable solutions? It is to the rabid left and the rabid right, to the secularists and the evangelicals.
We'll never make progress with this sort of approach, and progress is really what is needed...even if the Courts must substitute for legislative action.
5
Owl - From the perspective of the judiciary, Roe lays out when there is a constitutional right to an abortion and when it can be left to legislatures to decide. Across-the-States uniformity should not be what we seek in law. For those who seek clarity, I suggest talking to a priest, preacher, rabbi, etc. for instruction.
2
Every pregnant woman going to the hospital should now start bringing a tiny gun and knife with her to defend her right to make her bodily decisions. I am dead serious.
Can we please stop saying dead people are being kept alive? You cannot be both dead and alive. You can be kept on circulatory support after death, but only for a certain period of time. That keeps organs functioning. That doesn't make someone alive. Really, I expect a bit more from the Times.
5
You should read the article and some of the comments. The point is the obsession with the fetus is causing women to be kept on life support when they are no longer functioning. There is nothing OK with that. It isn't good for the fetus either. Fetuses are just babies and humans in waiting, and in my book they don't have the right to be nurtured in these circumstances.
15
I second the suggestion that you should read the article.
I think you missed the nuance and subtlety of the headline, and reading and understanding the article might clear it up.
If it were in the News or Science section certainly "alive" should have been in quotes or something.
Get it yet?
We have to fight this dire nonsense any way we can.
Perhaps women should sue their fetuses for assault if they don't want to be pregnant. If the fetus is a full person, then is it not responsible for its actions? What right does it have to invade a woman's body uninvited? Perhaps it could also be sued for robbery, for stealing some of her food. Home invasion?
We will need lawyers for the fetuses, then. A whole new legal specialty opens up.
20
Indeed.
Wrongheaded title - a corpse by definition is DEAD. Thus, they can’t be “kept” alive.
5
Well noticed. She was, in fact, dead, the corpse was kept functioning by machines, at great cost, which thanks to modern technology can continue for pretty much ever. The person is still dead. Notice anything else from the article, or have you read it yet?
Hey, ever think maybe they don't mean "alive" literally? Maybe it's a figure of speech? A poignant point?
OMG! This is horrible. After years of infertility, I conceived and lost two girls. I was upper middle class and nobody asked about anything. I pray for those who face this.
6
In this bizarre quest for granting "personhood" to a fetus, I often wonder how far its supporters are willing to push it, and this article suggests how ridiculous and inhumane the process can become if pushed to its logical conclusions. Suppose a mother-to-be becomes fatally ill, a sickness brought on by her own pregnancy and the fetus growing inside her. Heroic measures are taken, and thanks to modern science, the baby is born, but the mother does not survive. Is the baby, as a legal entity--as a “person”--now responsible for the death, indeed, the “murder,” of the mother? How shall it be tried? As a minor, perhaps with a lower charge of manslaughter? Can the father or the baby’s siblings pursue a charge of murder as well? Where do the mother’s rights end and her fetus’ begin? This concept is nonsense, utter nonsense brought on those who seek ultimate control over women. If you do not accept abortion, then by all that’s holy, do not have one, but do not dare think you can legislate your way into a woman’s body to control her life.
22
Will a pregnant woman with cancer be barred from treatment ?
2
The abuses toward women are real, and the false charges of manslaughter, though admittedly rare, must stop. With all that said, however, the idea “that a fetus in the womb has the same rights as a fully formed person” is not, as the author claims, “a relatively new concept.” It’s at least a few thousand years old:
“When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” (Exodus 21:22-25)
As Philosopher Charles Taylor points out in his book, A Secular Age, it’s the notion of the “sovereign self” and radical individual autonomy that is new. It’s the product of Late Modernity, and it is fundamentally flawed, since the interconnected values, thoughts, and motivations that constitute a person’s identity and individuality are often subconscious. Human beings are, by our communal nature, accountable to each other.
2
What I find disturbing about this issue is the fact MEN, NOT Women are deciding what will happen to a woman. This idea that any loss of a pregnancy is a crime under the law is a fallacy of the highest order. There are statistics that show a certain number of pregnancies do not survive for a multitude of reasons, none of which are remotely intentional. Add to that some of these so-called-righteous people who decide what is/is not a crime against a fetus, have absolutely no concern for a child once born, only those not yet born. We are back in the day and age of a woman chained to the stove while barefoot and pregnant whether she wants to be or not. That is the true crime. I am older than dirt by some folks ruler, we women fought this battle, it's a law that women have rights. Only some folks got "religion" and decided women do not have those rights any longer. Well my retort them is a long standing one, if you don't like abortion---don't have one. Until women have equal determination over their bodies and are not subservient to men wet are 2nd class citizens. Don't get me wrong, I could not withstand an abortion but I fully understand how and why some women needs that option & I support them. Those yelling and screaming at women going into clinics would better serve those women by volunteering at daycares, helping out with after school care while mothers work, helping kids learn to read and succeed in school, providing healthy snacks for kids who need them. Nuff said.
15
It’s simple to have a righteous opinion on a complicated issue when you simplify the issue. Here, the simplification of the writers and many commentators is that as long as a baby is still in the womb, it’s not a person (hence the writers’ careless use of the word fetus). Everyone agrees you can’t kill a person, but many here pretend personhood exists only outside the womb. That is not true. If you want a serious discussion about a serious issue, embrace the real compexity of the issue. Only then will you have real solutions. Until then, the discussion is just bar talk.
3
You seem eager to ignore the real complexity, which is the lives of the people who are not fetuses. A fetus is a person in waiting, with lots of developmental stages along the way. The people who care for the baby need to be taken into consideration.
Enough with the absolutism!
10
As long as the fetus (parasite) needs a female (host) to survive it is not a person. It is a mass of cells that feed off a host to enable it to grow. A person can breath and take nourishment not provided by the host. ( a bottle). As a thinker you need to be serious about biology. You are entitled to live your life as you wish but please stay out of my uterus.
1
Of all the pain in the world, the two worst pains are losing a spouse and losing a child. The Machado family —her husband, her son, her parents — have my deepest sympathy! The thought of keeping a person in a state of non-living “life” to sustain a fetus is beyond cruel and inhuman. Why would anyone want to inflict this kind of pain? What twisted minds1. I wonder what the male equivalent of this torture would be. That a brain-dead man be kept “alive” in order that he might actually be a father to his wife’s child? Such is the nonsense of this situation.
9
I thought women stopped being property a long time ago.
8
I wonder if the hospital billed the family for the 62 days Mrs. Munoz was kept on life support against her and her family's wishes?
14
There goes the male child support laws - government can't confiscate part of mans wages because a women chose to keep the baby. The child exist because the mother chose to keep it - she exercise her agency, a human right, nothing to do with him. That will free up allot of court time and jail space. Prisons will have a modest decrease in population as those men and women convicted of manslaughter and other crimes that killed or damaged fetus's will be set free - surely they will have served the time for the assault against the mother. And the best news of all is that crack babies don't and never existed, they we just a racist figment of the media's imagination. Extreme cases make bad argument and worse law.
3
Here you go. "Every sperm is sacred" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk
Eager to let the men off the hook? Any excuse will do?
How's about you try to help the babies once they're born, by supporting proper access to health care, birth control, and a living wage. And don't support family separation at the border either. That would be hypocritical.
Of course, I'm assuming you fall on that side of the spectrum, because far too many people have decided the god in their head prefers the unborn to their families and support systems, and nothing is more evil than a Democrat or somebody who exercises empathy and compassion for the less fortunate (try the Jesus of the Gospels, for example).
If I'm wrong, I apologize, but I still think you have to consider the whole situation in the round, not except the fetus for special privileges and treat the rest as slaves to your anger.
6
@ Susan Anderson - Thank you made my case perfectly, extreme cases make bad law. I was simply describing unintended consequences.
1
How did women end at the bottom of the list?
When did it become OK to ignore their wishes?
Who will make it right?
7
"She remembers once hearing a police officer say that all junkies are worthless, that he’d rather inject an opioid overdose reversal drug into the dirt than use it to save one of them."
What's this officer's name and badge number? Time to be fired from the force. His name should be PRINTED ON BILLBOARDS as a deterrent to any other "social worker" (police serve and protect US, right? oh i forgot, they protect and serve corporate profits especially those of private prisons!) who thinks that killing a member of the public is better than saving them.
Confirmation bias, confirmed: ACAB. It seems that only those who were bullied in school become officers, and then become officers with power trips on the less fortunate. AND they have the highest rates of domestic violence. SHOCKING!
2
"In 1984, the conservative activist Paul Weyrich, the founding president of the Heritage Foundation, explained: “I believe that if you have to choose between new life and existing life, you should choose new life. The person who has had an opportunity to live at least has been given that gift by God and should make way for new life on earth.”"
Even the Catholic Church, theologically the most pro-life organization there is, advises in a healthcare directive I researched, allows for treatment of a seriously ill pregnant woman even when such treatment would result in the death of the unborn child.
This is different from what I was taught in the 50s, that a mother should die to allow her unborn child to live, because "God prefers more souls to be born."
Forcing a brain-dead woman to undergo birth is one of the most lugubrious, horrific actions I've ever hears. I find it nauseating, even though I've never given birth.
These laws aren't based on ethics, but on this crusade to undo Roe vs Wade, under the guise of protecting life. But what these "moralists" are actually doing is outwardly playing God, while inwardly driven by misogyny and views of women as gestation tanks.
Logically, if they truly believe in the sanctity of life, they would protect the fetus, once born, by supporting social assistance programs--which they don't.
18
Even worse; its the "Scarlet Letter" attitude toward women. Men get points for sexual "conquests;" women should "stonily bear up" to Missionary Style sex -but only after a "ring on the finger" gives a man the right to their bodies.
The idea that women are sexual beings, and the autonomy to choose when, whether & with whom to have sex, with or without marriage REALLY drives these self-important would be "Judges" in their "wages of sex is pregnancy" mantra. The push for "personhood" is their way to control women, and if the woman dies, well, that's what she deserves.
The Bible often mentions "the Breath of Life," which occurs at BIRTH, not before; it even has a recipe to cause miscarriage; like all the other inconvenient parts, they ignore them.
They demand everyone look, love and believe the way THEY dictate; desperate for votes, Trump agreed. Worse, Pence, a religious extremist, is determined to turn our Founders' intentionally secular Nation into a theocracy with himself and the "Christian" Taliban ruling the US according to his idea of "Biblical" principles, dictating what we can read, teach, wear, what women can do with our own bodies, and, of course, ending (safe, legal) abortion in the US.
They've betrayed Christ and traded Eternity in Heaven for 30 pieces of Fool's Gold.
Jesus' teachings, "Do unto Others," "The Meek Will Inherit," "Care for the poor, hungry, sick," didn't stand a chance against Earthly Power to discriminate against anyone different from themselves.
2
Pro-birthers think that the have the right to decide a pregnant woman's fate regardless of her wishes. With these folks, once a woman becomes pregnant she has no rights. The fetus has rights and the pro-lifers have rights. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, this will increasingly be the theocratic world in which women will try to survive. Will women decide that having a child is worth the risk of the losing their own lives and rights? If given the power, just how far will these pro-birthers go with their agenda of monitoring every pregnancy in America for the outcome that they desire? I urge all women of child-bearing age to begin thinking now about what the future may bring for them if they decide to try to bear a child and become a mother. There will be perils and they are becoming clearer as we get closer to a decision on Roe.
6
This story really nails down just how far we are from getting human rights sorted out. I think this is the most crucial change we need to make. Understanding the inequity of power in this society. I have not always felt this way and I am sorry to say that I have recently given up being optimistic about the well meaning hearts of men as a group now as I am looking at my age of 64. This series is so important to telling the story of how women are constantly at a disadvantage. Thank you!
3
Roe v. Wade is predicated on a woman's right to privacy. Republicans have always been fans of an individual's right to privacy. tBut as we have seen over and over again in the US a woman's right to privacy is NOT the same thing as a man's. The notion that ANYONE can tell me what to do with MY body is abhorrent to me -- not to mention grossly unfair. Choices about end of life are complicated. This woman, as an EMT, knew what she wanted. Her baby was not viable. That's all we need to know. But the local laws invaded her privacy... Would these laws exist if men carried babies inside their bodies? I wonder.
7
That the right to choose in this day and age still being questioned and fought for is totally absurd.
6
So 34 ears ago, Weyrich pronounces: "I believe that if you have to choose between new life and existing life, you should choose new life." Why not quite the opposite - the fully formed and functional human being over the dependent, unformed fetus? Might it be because Mr. Weyrich will never be the subject in this scenario?
7
@ Everybody’s Auntie,
Yes and if it is only his belief, it shouldn’t be applied to other people. At least, that’s my belief .
2
Why are our legislators demoting women to the status of baby making machines when, at the same time, they refuse to pass and enforce laws that could make being a parent, single and otherwise, easier? And what is it about being pregnant that makes them (especially the males) think that a fetus, which cannot exist for most of the pregnancy outside the woman's body without extensive technological interventions, should take precedence over the woman's life?
This is not rational. It's more like a fetish and it's hurting women, families, and children. Living, independent beings ought to be taking precedence over a fetus that cannot survive without extreme interventions until the 7th or 8th month of pregnancy. It's not ethical or moral and there is nothing in any religion that says it's necessary to save a pregnancy at the cost of a mother's life or if the mother is dead.
We treat animals with more humanity than we do human beings in America.
17
The fundamental question: do men and women have equal rights to bodily autonomy? OR does a woman's biological capacity to bear children limit her right to bodily self-determination? To say the latter (as these laws obviously do), is to radically redefine female personhood as fundamentally LESS THAN male personhood. Do I own my body or do I not? The law does not require male persons to feed and house a stranger, even if that stranger is in mortal danger. The fetus is a stranger, too--not always an invited guest. While kindness to strangers may be a moral virtue, the law of a just society does not require any individual to replace his/her own self-interest with the interest of another. Whether or not we "welcome the stranger" is a personal moral decision, and to legislate otherwise is inconsistent with the truth we would hope to be self-evident: that women are fully human beings.
14
Never mind housing and clothing -- why doesn't the law compel a man to donate kidney, partial liver, bone marrow to his child or any child vaguely related to him? You know, an actual birthed child, (not a fetus)? This would seem to be more equivalent. For the forced-birthers to be consistent, they should demand that the State can compel any man to donate organs and bone marrow.
1
The sooner people come to understand that the "god" that believers like Mr, Weyrich follow does not exist the better off we'll be. Superstition belongs in the past not determining public policy.
10
Government should stay out of women's bodies. It seems as though it's always male politicians who do this (who argue against "big government" in other situations).
9
I find it hard to comprehend how doctors could sanction an attempt to keep a dead body alive long enough to deliver a baby and ignore signs that the body is deteriorating. This is ghoulish in extreme, and it seems as if the family of the deceased would have grounds to sue for torture and mental anguish.
Also, who pays for treatment after someone is dead? Doesn't medical insurance end at death?
12
Could somebody explain perhaps; in these states that pass laws giving fetuses rights do they also give child benefits, tax exemptions etc...whatever the state provides for a child and/or parents?
6
One word, NO. Once the fetus exits the birth canal their interest in the welfare of the birthed ceases to exist. In fact, they do everything possible to deny assistance to families in need. Embryos and fetuses are only sacred if they can be used to control women.
5
There seems to be more laws regulating uteruses than guns. Women need an organization that protects them as vociferously as the NRA protects gun ownership. It is beyond imperative that women get into the legal decision making process in state legislatures. What is happening to women are actions taken from a framework of tacit vitriolic hate and fear utilizing "rights" of fetuses as the vehicle. The motivation of this movement must be named and put out front in public conversation. The individuals who are supporting these increasingly restrictive laws about women must be identified, made to defend their positions in the court of public opinion. It is time for the gloves to come off. Women must do whatever it takes, starting with organizing to have sit ins, demonstrations, at the legislators offices to get the attention of the media in order to get these issues out in the public domain. The newspaper, USAToday, which has a more diverse readership should be publishing these articles. There must be confrontations. Legislators should be made to fear organized groups of women the way they fear the NRA.
-
12
With today's entry, this series continues its theme of ignoring the gray areas of life in the service of proving how awful things are for mothers.
We are life-long liberal Democrats who support Roe V. Wade. But this series has studiously avoided the side of the lives of the children, whether unborn or born. They do not seem to exist in the minds of the writers---their lives swamped under the rights of the mothers involved.
Well, mothers have rights. And so do children. And children are, by definition, much more vulnerable than are adult mothers.
This series reminds me of reading Fox News. It is slanted and biased just like Fox News reporting is. Anecdotes are carefully chosen to represent the a priori views of the writers.
The issues addressed in this series are the tough ones in the gray areas of life. To try to make them one-sided is a conservative mind-set, an either/or one, not a liberal one.
5
You seam not to be able to understand that one article cannot concentrate on all the rights that need to be fought for...one subject at a time...And why does it annoy you that there are articles devoted to illuminating the dark corners of the laws and practices that concern women?
2
The truth of misogyny is not a gray area if you are a woman reading this piece.
4
This series is about women. I agree children are vulnerable and we need to explore the many issues involving children but that is a different series of articles.
2
Not a comment as much as an appreciation. This series is so very important. Thank you to the NYT for publishing it.
14
Heartbreaking. It seems to me that we ought, in asking women to make end of life decisions, i.e., advanced directives, to ask women of reproductive age to specifically consider a situation in which she is pregnant & let her leave specific instructions for such a circumstance. Might this mother have had the same view, if she anticipated carrying a child at the time she needed life support? For some, the answer might still be 'don't keep me alive artificially.' For others, though, the answer might, indeed, be 'do all you can so that my child can have a life.' Only when that possibility is considered can a woman make a truly informed decision.
3
The problem is more and more, advanced directives are being ignored by medical professionals. For example, most Catholic hospitals routinely ignore "Do Not Resuscitate" directives. I recently had surgery in a Catholic hospital and the admitting paperwork asked if I had a medical power of attorney and advanced directive. Then, in smaller print there was a statement that it was hospital policy to deny treatment that might hasten death. In other words, the directive would be ignored. I signed and just hoped I'd come out of the surgery alright, which obviously I did. Knowing that I could be kept alive artificially against my wishes made me rethink whether I'd ever use that hospital again, except that the next nearest hospital is 30 miles away.
7
Ms. Pea, Thank you for this info. I routinely use a Catholic hospital because it’s the best in town. I have an advance directive and medical power of attorney. I must now tell my husband to transfer me to another hospital if my legal directives are ignored. As a student nurse I did part of my OB rotation at a Catholic hospital. I recall a patient who required surgical removal of an ectopic pregnancy. The OB-GYN removed the products of conception and the fallopian tube together, that way the procedure wasn’t considered an abortion. He then cut open the tube so I could see the contents. The woman was left with only one functional fallopian tube thus decreasing her chances of becoming pregnant again if she desired. I think this was in actuality a means of punishing a woman for having an ectopic pregnancy. I became an OR nurse. At the secular hospitals I worked at the surgeons always opened the fallopian tube, removed the POC, and repaired the tube leaving the woman with two functional fallopian tubes. It’s ironic because a histologist I knew back in the day told me the Catholic hospital she worked at did abortions so they could get public funds for treating Medicaid patients. This was prior to the Hyde amendment. Truly hypocritical.
2
Any family who had a very late term pregnancy - one in which the fetus is likely to survive - would consider the potential of the child if the mother were incapacitated, or in this case, brain dead.
When the family doesn't want to try to save a the pregnancy, it is because it is not saveable. Fundamentally, if the pregnancy is not viable, then the death of the mother is the death of the fetus.
And that puts the onus on society to consider the end of life wishes of the deceased and the family and place them over the wishes of some amorphous concept of being called "the State."
I am sure that some can argue that there might be a child here or a child there born to people on respirators and feeding tubes, kept going through fantastic means. But I wouldn't bet the farm that the numbers are large or the benefit real.
Conservative religious have this idea that God doesn't know what He is doing, when a person dies, and it is up to them to correct His error. That's an odd position for a religious person to consider.
14
Well said. Thank you.
1
It is at very least ironic that the conservative movement, which defends the freedom to possess weapons of death, finds it impossible to accord to women the right to live their lives without interference. Women even deserve the right to be less than perfect.
17
Thank you for this series, painful and disturbing as it is to read. I knew things were bad concerning women's reproductive rights, but I didn't know it was this bad! I guess we've been under sneak attack for decades.
What will happen next? Where will this erosion of abortion rights, and the anciliary rights of reproduction choice, lead us?
12
There needs to be a huge push to make women's rights, all of them, front and center in the 2020 election, especially if we're going back to choosing between two older white males.
Congress has a part to play here that is has avoided for a very long time. The last time Congress had an opportunity to make changes, it was during President Obama's first two years in office. I realize they were busy with the Great Recession, but we all know the zealots in the GOP have been even busier for far longer in extending the power they exert over all of us.
With the number of centrists who are being courted and the Democrats' lack of party discipline, it is no wonder that Cherri Bustos isn't interested in dealing with "social issues." She is now the head of the DCCC and in charge of supporting new candidates for Congress.
If Democratic voters want progress, they need to pay attention to who it is that is in charge of the next election. You'd be surprised where some of these people are taking the party while voters aren't looking.
The Democratic party has strayed way too far to the right. Women have lost a lot and will lose even more for as long as voters are kept in the dark.
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking [2019]
https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-3h2
8
It is the judiciary, not the legislative branch where all eyes must be turned. I recognize you are on the left wing of the party and you (from the electoral safety of California) want everyone in the party to walk in lockstep with you. Great way to put a different Californian named McCarthy, not Pelosi right back in power in 2 years. The Senate controls the Federal courts and the Senate is not going away.
Those centrists and mainstream Democrat and independent voters you disdain are absolutely the key to winning back the Senate and then the judiciary. States cannot be written off anywhere by Democrats, and those older white men you disdain are votes I and others want.
2
You've said it very well. Thank you.
Thank you for researching, writing and publishing this series. It is equally excruciating and enlightening to read.
There are so many attacks from so many directions on women's rights, even as we continue to fight valiantly against such daunting odds.
But I wonder if some of the problem lies in cultural norms that insist that we think childbirth is the greatest achievement to which we can aspire, and to which many women themselves demonstrate unwavering dedication. Do we psychologically and culturally cling to an outdated "madonna" persona that perhaps served as a measure of protection in the past but that insidiously remains the basis of laws that treat us as mere vessels? Can we celebrate motherhood without making it the central component of womanhood? Yes, by continuing to urge women to see themselves and their physical, mental and emotional capabilities in much broader terms.
Can we stop viewing women who are deliberately childless as emotionally deficient, or selfish, or in some way "wrong"? Can we stop viewing women who can't have children naturally as tragic?
Viewing childbirth as an inevitability in a woman's life robs it of its value. When women are truly - really truly - free to choose the life they want and to be respected for that choice, including motherhood, they will have a chance to have the same rights as men.
19
The American public has repeatedly signaled the need to maximize the number of children born. To fulfill national desires, the GOP may may consider introducing a guardianship system for women. The government is friendly with Saudi Arabia, so the guardianship system of moslem women may serve as a model.
Upon reaching fertile age, all women may be put under the care of a guardian, who will be held responsible for any fetuses lost. These may be post-menopausal women as well as men; clergymen and others may serve in this role. A husband may be a guardian, only iif others attest to his competency.
The guardians will make sure that any pregnancy is carried to term, with the child's interests served first. If it takes jailing women, stopping them from travel, or putting them through whatever medical procedures necessary, this will be a necessary step in the service of the national interest.
Like the US, many countries have decided that they need more population;Turkey and Saudi Arabia, for example. The US needs soldiers who will serve with few recruitment efforts and for low salaries. It needs to staff the lower rungs of the US corporations, where undocumented aliens find jobs. To achieve its national interests, the US must ensure that women who are most likely to reject pregnancies get to serve the country by carrying to term and then caring for the future soldiers and employees.
Women's rights and freedom have meaning only for for the national interests.
5
Thank you for the political joke of he month. I have been watching the news pretty closely since the McGovern campaign for the White House and not ONCE have I heard of a guardianship system for women.
When progressives make up lies like this you have to assume that everything ELSE they say - sorry, ''Inveterate'' - is also completely a political fantasy.
I hope to god this is satire.
2
I hope this is meant satirically.
Men, women -- we all know, viscerally somewhere, that women need to be in power, in such numbers that true representation of half the populace is possible.
This disregard for women's autonomy is Saudi-ish. It's terrifying and wrong.
What equal (not "better" but equal) representation will ultimately mean is a more humane, more safe and more just world for men and women. Men -- you need to trust this. Your own life, as a man, a father, a spouse ... will be less stressed, less difficult and more hopeful, too. Mom said so.
7
Over a lifetime, the average man produces 525 billion sperm cells. Each sperm is briefly alive and each carries a unique genetic code that could create a unique human being. No one suggests that a man be charged for murder for any of those 525 billion sperm that never make a son or daughter. Or that the death of a fertile man is equivalent to the murder of 525 billion human beings.
But we are already at the point where it is possible to select and to modify sperm/eggs to create a desired child.
What if we create the ability to scan sperm and eggs to look for “genius” potential? How would any of us like to be hooked up to a monitoring device to make sure that we don’t lose a potential Albert Einstein or Marie Curie?
We may someday create a world of genetic screening and artificial wombs that would make it possible for a single individual to have hundreds of designer kids.
If we don’t talk about the ramifications now, we will regret it down the line as reproductive laws (like George W. Bush’s Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004) start pushing us into a system that takes away individual human rights
12
It shocked me that even when the medical condition of this fetus was revealed (deformities so severe that its sex couldn't be identified; problems with the brain and heart...) the 'pro-lifers' didn't back off from their very disturbing insistence that this science experiment continue.
40
This story reveals astonishing disrespect for this woman - in death.
5
There must be something wrong with American culture if this horrifying story does not elicit an immediate feeling of revulsion. A child born of a corpse? This is a stuff of dark fairy tales. In any culture that honors the deep roots of human history such a child would be seen as a monster and not allowed to live. And here we are, debating the pros and cons of gestating an embryo inside a decaying carcass! Forget about the ethical aspect of treating a woman as an incubator. How about the normal human disgust toward something so utterly unnatural? Some comments here actually suggest that it would be OK if the fetus was closer to viability. No, it would not be OK. It is the defilement of a corpse and violation of the sanctity of a human person. I can’t even imagine the anguish of the mother of that unfortunate pregnant woman, watching the fetus grow inside her daughter’s corpse like a maggot. People who think such laws are a good idea need urgent psychiatric help. I suspect this applies to most proponents of forced birth who have the temerity to call their necrophilia “pro-life”.
41
I would like to see which Paul Weyrich would choose to live if he had to choose the unborn fetus or his 23 year old grand daughter.
19
Independent,
It might depend upon the gender of the fetus. In my opinion, for some of these evangelicals like Weyrich, the possibility the embryo or fetus is male is the driving force behind their actions. Females are expendable.
5
He would choose the fetus, hands down.
1
We should take it all the way. I think any man who gives or a woman who drinks alcohol when the woman ispregnant should be tried for attempted murder and abuse if the unborn fetus. Fetus should not be forced to consume any poison without its permission.
4
What happened to the First Amendment? Since when do religious extremists control American lives?
31
Ironically, if extremists complained that such laws interfered with their "religious freedom", I'm sure that legislators would be falling all over themselves to grant exemptions.
2
Once again it's clear the pro-choice activists want all of the rights and none of the responsibilities. This may come as a shock to some people, but being pregnant means you're responsible for something more than just yourself. If I as a male get a woman pregnant "unwantedly," well, tough. Does anyone believe for one second I could just say "I don't want the baby," and my responsibility in the eyes of the pro-choice crowd as the man who got the woman pregnant would end? Of course not. I got her pregnant, I'm responsible. If I didn't want to get her pregnant, my only fool-proof method for avoiding that would not to have sex with her. So why is that any different for the woman?
In this particular case, did the woman have a living will? It doesn't seem that way. If she did, did it say she didn't want to be kept on life support even if she were pregnant and the baby was still alive? Pretty welll unlikely.
Anyway, people just want all of the "rights" to do as they please and none of the responsibilities for the outcomes of their actions. This isn't limited to pro-choice vs. pro-life.
4
As I understood the article, the law in Texas and some other states overrides a living will, DNR instructions, etc. One more reason on the already long list of risks and downsides of getting pregnant.
5
Mike, your argument regarding wanting or not wanting a baby as a man who impregnates a woman, is not equivalent because you are not carrying the child inside your body. Stop trying to impose your ideas of responsibility on someone else's body. The same way you have the right to eat or drink what you want, to exercise or sleep when you want, to go to the bathroom when you want, women have the right to choose when they want an embryo/fetus/child to grow inside themselves. The child develops rights too. But, as the Supreme Court determined in Roe v. Wade and subsequent decisions, those rights are not the same as fully alive and independent humans. A woman has the right to control what goes on inside her own body (and she should).
20
The woman was an EMT and wore a DNR sticker on her EMT necklace. That might be a lax way of communicating such instructives but it wasn't as if she had no documentation of a DNR. And like others in this thread have said, Texas has laws that override the DNR. So it is a right to life vs right to one's individual freedom thing.
2
Soon enough, everyone up to and including God will be serving time in prison, if the imposition of religion on society keeps up with the logical trail that's started with persecuting mothers-to-be.
Recent research again highlights that many miscarriages are due to faulty sperm, especially as men age. So, time to start invasive tests on the fathers, and put them in prison for their misdeeds.
Some of that damage might be inherited. Clearly the parents of the affected couple would need to face their own invasive testing, shaming and imprisonment.
Stress can increase risk to the fetus, so groups trying to impose draconian penalties on mothers are, themselves, contributing to some of these events. So, the radical anti-abortion crowd should be rounded up and thrown in prison.
Manufacturers and their pollution? Lock 'em up! Marketers of unhealthy junk food? Lock 'em up! Righteous Republicans who are opposed to providing healthcare outside of employment? Lock 'em up!
But ultimately, there's also the culpability of God. All of this comes down to creation of an imperfect world, which allows tragedy to afflict the blameless. So, how does a civil society try, convict and imprison a deity?
11
Sacrifice the life of the mother--who is "old life"--for the "new Life" of a baby? What about this mother's *other* children? Who will care for their *new* lives?
30
Frankly, the extremists don't care about the other children. That's why they are more accurately described as "pro-birth" instead of "pro-life."
2
@cflanmac: Why, the new wife, as a Catholic priest told me when I was a teenager asking that very question. The mother had sinned, the fetus was innocent (women pass along their sin to the baby during childbirth, which has to be washed away at baptism), and that the father would find it very exciting to get a new wife once the old one died in childbirth.
1
I have met many so called evangelicals throughout my life, not only Christian evangelicals, but Muslim and Jewish evangelicals, but their label may have been something different. They were all hypocrites and corrupt, with many skeletons in their closets. The idea that these people can dictate what a woman can and cannot do with her body, and make decision about her unborn fetus is preposterous. No doubt, some women have made wrong decisions about their unborn fetus, due to poverty, lack of education, too many children to feed, and a whole host of other reasons. But most of us, put the life and the well-being of our unborn child before ourselves. No pregnant woman just decide to get rid of her unborn baby just because she doesn’t want to be pregnant. Evangelicals of all religions, those who demonstrate outside a hospital or a clinic where a woman whose been dead for 2 months or weeks, but her body is kept going , invasively and artificially, need to go home and do something good for mankind. Go and feed a shut in, help a homeless person, teach an illiterate adult to read, volunteer to be with a person in hospice, and give a helping hand to their family, and many other worthwhile things. No one can love an unborn child more than its mother. To keep a corpse going artificially, While carrying a fetus, while her body is decaying, is going against god and any religious doctrine. That is called desecration of a corpse.
18
Extremists of all faiths are more alike than they are different. They all share the belief that that they, and only they, are right. Further, they believe that they have an inherent right to tell others how to live. Their methods are different, but their goals are the same.
1
What would happen if men were to get pregnant? And their lives were in jeopardy over carrying a pregnancy to full term? What if the baby was severely deformed and would die anyway after being born? Should the man give up his life to save a deformed fetus? Just thinking here. If men and women are equal, then what would men do?
IMHO I believe that if men got pregnant, male birth control would be readily available at every gas station and convenience store.... Just saying..
Third point... Separation of church and state. That is what America was founded on since 1776. Im sticking with the Constitution. State cant make decisions based on religious beliefs.
11
My fear is that the status quo will continue. Until both sides of the issue start behaving reasonably and rationally, women and their children will continue to suffer needlessly. The position of the Editorial Board is symptomatic of a culture that refuses to use evidence-based research (i.e., science) to illuminate what is actually at stake in this issue. Instead it embraces the ludicrous assertion that a fetus is not a human being until it emerges from the womb. Nonsense - there is no scientific evidence to support that position. Summarily dismissing the rights of a human being to continue to grow and emerge from its mother while treating women as victims in order to advance a political agenda is disgraceful.
3
Until anti abortion zealots stop denigrating a woman’s right to life and bodily autonomy, there can be no solution. To say that women should be compelled to give up their rights in favor of a fetus (“the person who has had an opportunity to live......should make way for new life on earth”) is outrageous. Pregnancy does not void a woman’s human rights. Scientifically, a woman of childbearing age is unarguably a person. Not so a fetus. Science cannot answer the question of when a fetus becomes a person. A woman can choose to submerge her rights for the sake of her unborn child. This is a noble, selfless act - and the state absolutely cannot compell such an act. Period.
33
What they really won't admit is the bottom line: A fetus isn't a human being unless the mother wants it to be. When women want to be pregnant, they openly call it a "baby". When they don't, it's a "fetus." Her choice whether it's a baby or fetus and whether it lives or dies. The rights of the unborn simply don't exist in this calculation.
The problem, of course, is that humanity and life are not usually based on the discretion of an individual that can change at any one moment. There are usually morals and principles that guide a set of beliefs like this. In the case of abortion it's purely the wishes of the mother, which is totally incongruent with every other concept of such import.
1
This is such a zombie cliche - appropriate for people who want to gestate fetuses in corpses. Science has nothing to say on the subject of personhood because it is not a scientific issue but a moral, ethical and legal one. A fetus has human DNA. It is not a human person. Human beings share 96 percent of our DNA with chimps. This does not make a chimp 96 percent of a person. There is no legal or moral right to be born, just as there is no legal or moral right to be conceived. But of course, all this talk about “science” is a fig leaf to cover irrational religious belief, misogyny and sadism.
9
I'm still convinced that if men were forced to share the burden of all difficult reproductive decisions that face women this would not be an issue. Does anyone else see the sick irony of men making the laws that dictate what women can and cannot do to their bodies?
17
Most women see the irony of men making laws to control women's bodies and experiences quite clearly. Glad you've caught on.
Loss of perhaps the most fundamental right - agency.
11
"The Muñoz case illustrates what’s at stake when the distilled ideology of the anti-abortion movement makes its way into the laws of the land. "
"distilled ideology" indeed- a surgically accurate description of the so-called "pro-life" movement. And it has absolutely no place enshrined in the law. None whatsoever.
13
Homo sapiens have been around far longer than Christianity. Hundreds of thousands of years of human history is typified by women having control over their bodies. In part, that is what makes us today. In simpler societies, survival depended on women assessing their social, economic, and environmental circumstances and assessing their physical capacity to birth and raises a child. Their decisions were respected. This changed with the rise of agriculture and the investment of labor in the land for deferred returns. The need for labor and the need to control the inheritance of land fostered patriarchies. This is embodied in Christian beliefs. It made sense when we were farmers and goat herders. Now, in the post-industrial era, educated and economically successful couples are not reproducing themselves. Large families are not essential to economic survival and the lifestyles available in the modern world. As we transition to robotics and artificial intelligence, the need for babies will likely decline further. Though distasteful to some in Europe and America, immigration is the solution to today’s labor shortages. Those who advocate controlling women’s bodies are out of step with history, economic realities, and respect for women.
10
I cannot think of many things that could bring financial ruin upon a woman, or her family, than being forced to continue a pregnancy where the child is known to have very serious problems requiring surgeries and/or lifetime custodial care. Most of these conditions can't be identified until after 20 - 22 weeks. It is terribly cruel to prevent abortion in these cases.
12
This is squarely due to an outsize influence of evangelicals, who make up about 30% of the US population. Luckily, evangelicals under 30 are shrinking, so there's hope for future.
And then laws can be passed that prohibit giving evangelicals any medical care, because it's all in the hands of God. Let's see how they like it.
19
Actually we could forbid the sale of erectile dysfunction drugs for all men, because isn't impotence just God’s message that a man’s reproductive period is over? Why overrule God?
4
Elevating fetal cells to the level of "personhood" could easily demote the woman carrying the fetal cells to "less than personhood". It could relegate her to incubator status, with less rights than the fetus she is carrying. On every human level, this is terrifying. If such laws are implemented, we can imagine a woman being strapped down to a hospital bed being forced to give birth against her will. We can imagine a woman who is in danger of dying due to her pregnancy being forced to sacrifice her life for the fetus. There is simply no humane justification for these extremist positions. It's The Handmaid's Tale on steroids.
85
The rights of men who are not rich went away a long time ago. It is only natural that this decay would eventually effect women's rights as well.
could not agree more! well said.
I think this pro-life determination to save fetuses at all costs is ridiculous in the darkest way. First of all, I am pro-choice, not because I am pro-abortion, but because a pregnant woman is a crisis pregnancy needs support. The very political party that is determined that she cannot have an abortion is also willing to cut welfare, deprive the child of medical care, refuses to secure adequate education, requires the mother to work, but won't provide decently priced childcare, won't work to end systemic racism, etc. Now this. The party that is anti-abortion is willing to play God in places no sane, just person would go. This argument is getting downright ghoulish.
71
As a woman I find it appalling that my right to self-determination is considered secondary to the rights of embryonic and fetal cells.
Ever since women gained the right to vote, an element of society has sought to legislate and control how we live our lives. Under the guise of protecting “the unborn” this deplorable element of society once again seeks to reduce women to chattel. I am deeply frightened that our right to control not only our reproductive health but our lives in general will cease to exist.
Women are more than broodmares and incubators.
30
Women need to start taking a very small gun or knife with them when entering a hospital.
2
@BMUS: I listened to a male caller on C-Span advocate for taking away women's right to vote, stating that all of the problems in this country began as soon as women got the right to vote. This was only last month, and I'm sure that this man had a lot of company in his beliefs. If we're having a baby every year for 30 years, we'll be too tired, too busy, and too dependent on our husbands to vote, work, go to school, or think of or do anything for ourselves. We'll be chattel again.
2
Marybeth, I wish I could say I’m surprised by your comment but I’m not. This is a dangerous time for women. All the rights we have fought for — and some suffragettes died for — are at stake. The man you mentioned is the type who believes women are worthless. If one wife dies get a younger one. And yet it is difficult to get some young women to understand this. I came of age in 1978. It was only 1972 that women regardless of marital status or age were legally allowed to buy and use birth control. Prior to that only married women with their husband’s consent could do so. Yet a man could have a vasectomy without his wife’s consent or knowledge. In 1978 I had to lie about menstrual problems to get a birth control pill prescription. It was insane, and now we find ourselves headed in that direction again. I’ll keep fighting, I hope everyone who believes in bodily autonomy and self-determination does as well. I hope young women realize they could be the next woman kept alive artificially so their bodies can be used as incubators.
How can we claim to be a democratic republic when over half our population is denied the simple yet indispensable right of autonomy over their body. True freedom is the ability for the complete, unconstrained expression of our natural rights and for the government to continue to operate in opposition to those natural rights is just a disgusting injustice and betrayal of us.
17
There is no way the anti-abortion crazies can disguise their contempt for women; the very point of, "the torturous extremes to which some opponents of abortion will go to deprive even dying women of the right to control their bodies," is to demonstrate, as publicly as possible, that women are inferior beings, incapable and unqualified to make responsible judgments about their own humanity. The trauma and tragedy of the Munoz family is but an insight into their malign world view, one worthy of zero legitimacy.
21
In Arizona a woman who has been in a vegetative-state coma, on life support for ten years, was raped, became pregnant and gave birth. The "Health Care" center where she is being kept claims to have been unaware of the pregnancy.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/05/phoenix-police-woman-coma-decade-gives-birth-boy
I'm sure there are people who would find this story heartwarming m- the same people who have pushed for fetal personhood laws. I find it appalling in all its dimensions and I want to see these laws taken off the books.
43
Of course Arizonia is the Joe Arpao state, and that sadistic octogenarian (whose malice and evil has only congealed with age) was pardoned by our septuagenerian sexual assault "President") and they are also the state (Chandler, AZ) whose citizens attack driver-less cars, so nothing about Arizona surprises me.
7
I can image large institutions filled with beds containing thousands of women in a vegetative state. Those who are having trouble conceiving can drop in and pick out a suitable mother and have a child delivered nine months later. Those that just want bigger religious families could also patronize such an institution. It could be paid for by public funds or supported by many types of religious institutions. And the drugs needed to induce such a vegetative state are cheap and easily available. In fact this might become the primary system of reproduction in the God fearing Republican controlled land we are becoming. And lets see how many women complain when they are in a coma.
8
Why don't we just force everyone to have a child. Republicans already think that women are just vessels for the next generation. I for one will leave the US if that happens. The decision on how to take care of yourself if you are pregnant is yours - fine - there are somethings inherently not good. But I see my European friends drinking while pregnant and nursing. Their children are fine.
We are over jealous. If I cease to be a full human being in the eyes of the law, I'm not sure the US will be a place for women to exist.
9
The article partially addresses this situation, reported in the NYTimes on January 4, 2018.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/us/woman-pregnant-vegatative-state-birth.html
2
Its hard to take absolute positions on things like this. Two principles should be not be debated.
1. The mother and father who sired the child should have absolute rights on the wellbeing prior to birth. Giving the unborn "rights" when they do not correspond to the rights of the parents leads to all sorts of unnecessary suffering.
2. If one has a braindead mother capable of bearing her child and the father wants the child the child should be delivered and the mother allowed to die. I this case the mother has no rights because she is decesased in all but name already and rights should devolve to the family.
Crimes against the fetus i.e. manslaughter ..... if a pregnant woman is attacked should be crimes against the women.
2
Interesting point, very unfortunate name. You are the only person I would break my not being anonymous rule on--maybe you could make your case for the government to pay for your legal name change?
Michael Cohen — Even the deceased have rights. It is unlawful to desecrate a dead body. Organs cannot be harvested if the decedent did not sign an organ donor consent, though some states allow next of kin to decide. It is difficult to maintain a body on life support. It takes a plethora of drugs to maintain homeostasis. Drugs that not only circulate through a woman’s body but pass through the placental barrier to the fetus. Religious extremists in the GOP are making law to supersede the rights of women. I must question whether a man who chooses to artificially maintain the body of his wife to gestate ever truly loved her. Same goes for her parents. It was difficult for me as an OR nurse to participate in organ harvests. I can’t imagine how hard it was on the ICU nurses tasked with maintaining a patient for days in order to establish brain death. How a husband, family, or the government could do this to women for weeks or months is unconscionable. I would refuse to participate in these cases. If a fetus has reached viability an argument can be made to deliver it and allow the woman to die. If a fetus has not reached viability allow both to die. Anything else is reducing women to chattel status. Didn’t Robin Cook write one of his medical thrillers about this very subject?
4
There is no guarantee that a brain dead human incubator can successfully nurture a growing fetus; in fact, it seems highly unlikely. Forcing a dead woman to incubate a fetus is unnatural and deeply disturbing. We do not allow organs to be harvested from a dead person unless there is expressed consent. Why would we deny that dignity to a woman who has died? It is a tragedy that the woman died and a tragedy that the child died with her, but that is biology. It is a great sorrow for the father, but he has no more right to force a woman to donate her uterus to the fetus than he does to donate her heart or liver against her will.
5
Each day more is revealed about the moral depravity of the religious fundamentalists in this country. Must a woman take the chance of losing all power over her own existence when she decides to bring new life into the world? As the fundamentalists have gained in political power the United States has become more primitive and less free.
45
Some Native American dogma believe the baby is not fully alive until the mother stands. This is a perversion of "giving life". It is "taking life".
3
Rumors, rumors, rumors. Show us what you're talking about. WHICH Native American cultures are you referring to? What's the actual wording of the lore? Links, please, to direct info from them.
2
The moral of the story is: If you are a woman, don't get sick, be deathly ill, have a horrible accident, or get pregnant in Texas. Better yet, just don't try to live as a human being with full human rights in Texas. Of course, the poor, Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, and LGBT people of all genders already know that.
27
Blame the theocrats who are certain that they have all the answers, even when it harms the mother.
Why the gibberish, with so little wisdom, is respected about the bible?
9
In the case of Mrs. Munoz, the answer to the question is "Obviously a corpse cannot give birth". It was excessive medical malpractice to subject a 14-week old fetus at the time of Mrs. Munoz's death to the poisonous degradation products of a decaying body for two months after its mother's death. That's torture of an unborn, and a medical experiment that could have been thought of by Mengele. If the mother was near term at the time of death, an emergency ceasarean would be the obvious procedure, but for non-viable fetuses a dead body is a hostile environment and their further development simply ends with the death of their host.
18
I don't really think I can really judge/No. I don't think I can know enough about this situation (as in, living through it) to fairly judge them. I will only speak for myself. I have had more than one family member taken off life support. Once, a sibling, simply because she wanted to be taken off, because she couldn't bear it any more. My sister was (and still is) the bravest, strongest person I have known, and my mother had numerous cancerous tumors removed going back to the 1930's. This included partial and finally radical mastectomies. Fortunately, none were malignant. She watched her two first born children die (something no one should ever have to go through), and they were both younger than me. My mother died in 2010 at the age of 96, and was still completely lucid up until the last month or so. That is all I want to write, except I wish anyone the best, living through difficult decisions such as described here.
5
I remember this case so well and all I could think of at the time was the smell. There is a particular smell that accumulates around people who are gravely ill, as their organs begin to break down. Once someone has died, even the refrigeration of the best-equipped morgue can't stop the smell of decay.
What did it do psychologically to the family members who came to visit, see and smell a body that was breaking down, even as oxygen and nutrients was pumped into it and blood was still circulating? What did it do to the staff who had to keep up the charade of treating a body that was given the facsimile of life?
And I remember the protests and the many pro-lifers begging to adopt a foetus that couldn't possibly be viable, trapped in a body that was breaking down.
So much for "life". It was a ghastly parade of death.
63
This article demonstrates how horrifying it is to be a woman in the United States in 2018. How utterly degrading and cruel to the whole family to have this experience forced upon them by people who have no right to any say in the decision-making. Women have been sent back to the dark ages. We are not even allowed to have our wishes about our death carried out. I had such hope for equal rights, as a young woman in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Now, I believe that many young women look at such consequences of marriage and child-bearing and decide to opt out entirely, thereby regaining some measure of control over their bodies, their lives, and their deaths.
14
This article brought to my mind the ordeal of Terri Schiavo and her husband. The interventions of the GOP was horrifying. I have read that Catholic hospitals will override a patient's living will and insert tubes to feed and hydrate them, thereby prolonging the dying process and running up costs. My mother's cousin was bankrupted by having to support his wife, who had Alzheimer's, for 10 years in basically a locked ward...
8
Women are, more and more, becoming less individuals than vessels of procreation. And neither mother nor child has a choice in the matter. I can only assume that had this infant survived, all expenses would be on the family, not on those who forced this calamity on them.
9
The answer is more women in Washington (with the obvious corollary of fewer men being there) and then we (happy to help) can make men the oppressed sex--but only for the next few hundred years.
2
This is not necessarily the answer. The extreme pro-life movement has female members, too.
4
Handmaid’s Tale writ large. Very frightening trends.
20
Well a "dead woman" and a "corpse" are two different things. So, no, a corpse cannot "give birth". But you already knew that. Nor can it give anything. Somethings can be taken- and here, like many medical decisions we have a balancing of risks, benefits, harms, rights, ethics and overt regulations. Not to mention, the law states "not cause the death of a fetus" rather than "not prevent the natural death" of a pre-viability fetus reliant on a clinically dead mother with a directive for no life support. The hospital's interpretation of the statute caused harm to the family and fetus and prolonged tragic events.
11
I really don't see your distinction between a "dead woman" and a "female corpse." They are both the same thing in my world.
4
I meant to write *clinically* dead woman- like Marlise Muñoz, featured in this article.
A corpse is a dead body. The person in question was not a corpse, she was a brain dead patient on life support. There is a profound and scientific distinction which matters greatly to the question.
3
Honestly, are we that far from the day when dead women of childbearing age will be automatically put on life-support so that they can be impregnated for this and that wealthy patron/customer who wants a baby...? They will be not women, but just functional wombs for sale. Surely only the fact that we are not quite technologically advanced enough is the only reason this is not happening right now. We will stop the mouths of the families with pious homilies about "new life on earth" and threatened legal punishments. Women are not livestock. We are not mere collections of body parts.
9
Especially with this Supreme Court I have zero expectations about Roe v/s Wade. After all, this is the Court which made Corporations people! So of course a fertilized egg or a cluster of cells will gain personhood! Which means that a real person, a woman who is really exists, commits murders if she is dead, addicted, disabled, has an accident or who does not want the baby because she cannot afford it. Yes, a baby costs lots of money, lots of money and time. Why do the fathers get away with these so called baby murders? But before the last question is answered Roe v/s will be history!
Yes, the Supreme Court is just one step away from granting fertilized eggs and fetuses citizenship!
6
I swear, there are people in Texas who would support requiring every female who is in a terminal state be tested for pregnancy before allowing life support to be stopped, even if the woman is post-hysterectomy or over 60 years of age, just to be sure it's OK with God to allow her to die.
11
The answer to the question, Can a corpse give birth, is no. A dead body has no agency; hence, this brain-dead body cannot give anything, including her consent. Put plainly, the theocratic rule of the state wanted to harvest her body against her will--not too different from harvesting a kidney or a lung against one's wishes.
13
As I began reading this particular article in this series, I just knew that my state of residence was in the forefront of those enFORCING this disgusting philosophy and attitude, not just on women, but on the men who love them, be they husbands, fathers, brothers, sons or "merely" friends. We all are harmed by this process.
14
As an atheist, I am horrified that someone could invoke God to take away my autonomy.
30
According to our constitution we are a secular country. How is it then that a religious belief holds sway over an individual's wishes as to the disposition of her body? AWWWW!!!
20
This says it all: "these women are collateral damage in the fight over abortion." Collateral damage. Because a woman is less of a person than a fertilized, microscopic egg, in the eyes of the anti-abortion forces. Because their will to control the sex lives and reproduction of women who have no relationship with them is so ruthless that it will mow down suffering families in its path, including the young children such a mother may be forced to leave.
I'm so sick of the vile hypocrisy of these people, who claim to care so much about an egg yet care so little for actual children, let alone women. Who claim to want to reduce abortion but fight tooth and nail to restrict birth control. Whose religious institutions assert moral control over other people's sexuality yet are rife with sexual abuse by religious "leaders." This is why sectarian religious beliefs cannot be given the force of law and why church and state must remain separate, and I say that as a devout churchgoer.
54
Its not about the religious but about those who vote. We are all doomed by the structure of our republic to live our lives in service to those who vote. If the religious and the right wing have chosen to take on that leadership challenge then who are we, the non voters, to complain?
3
We're collateral damage because we have less rights than a bunch of cells that can't survive without the host. What kind of an upside down, Twilight Zone world are we in?
I'm pro-choice, which just that. I detest pro-choice being painted as pro-abortion. Pro-choice means just that--the pregnant woman makes the decision that is best for her. If you're against abortion, don't have one. This isn't China; there is no one forcing you to have an abortion if you don't want one, so why are you so gung-ho about forcing women who don't want to be pregnant to give birth? What if the fetus is dead? What if there's a problem with the fetus that makes it impossible for it to develop normally or even to reach full term? What if the fetus poses a risk to the health and/or life of the mother? I don't know any woman who has had an abortion who didn't know what it meant and who didn't give it a lot of thought beforehand. I hope that I am never in that kind of predicament, but if I am, I want the decision to be mine, not some politician's and not some trumped-up, holier than thou hypocrite who sees me as chattel and nothing more than an incubator, and thinks that my husband will so happy to get a new wife.
In 1984, the conservative activist Paul Weyrich, the founding president of the Heritage Foundation, explained:
“I believe that if you have to choose between new life and existing life, you should choose new life. The person who has had an opportunity to live at least has been given that gift by God and should make way for new life on earth.”
Drop dead, American women.....unwanted male sperm takes precedence.
Christian Shariah Law is alive and well.
So much for female sovereignty.
State control of the nation's uteruses is the American way.
Half the population has been reduced to birthing vessels for the sake of male cruelty.
Nice GOPeople.
Remember in 2020.
101
I have never understood how evangelicals, who seem to yak about God's will all the time, and bring God into every conversation, are unable to see the contradiction in their many of their positions.
When they intervene in a woman's pregnancy without her consent they are in fact playing God.
6
“I believe that if you have to choose between new life and existing life, you should choose new life."
Yes, because so many men are lining up to be single dads to the baby if the woman they impregnated is allowed to die to save the fetus.
2
In answer to your direct question, "Can a corpse give birth?", which I assume you mean someone who is "legally dead", there is no direct answer other than, "It all depends on the circumstances.", for example:
There was no evidence that Ms. Munoz didn't want the child she was carrying. This is one factor bearing on the application of her wish that “Under no circumstance do I ever want to be on life-support,” as her mother recalled her saying. If she made that request while she was pregnant then it would have bearing, but if not, then her stated wish only bears on her, not a child she might subsequent to that statement be carrying, unless she said something to the effect, "regardless of if I'm pregnant or not"
The phrase "Under no circumstances" is further problematic. What if the circumstances had been that she was shortly due for delivery but in the interim would have to be kept on life support for a short term time. Would the doctors have been obliged to allow her and her otherwise healthy child to die together or would they have been correct in the view that Ms. Munoz would have likely wanted the child she was carrying to survive before life support was removed?
Basically, I don't believe that the D.N.R. sticker Ms. Munoz wore on her name badge was meant to be seen as a death pact if she was pregnant from what was described of her circumstances.
1
this idea that she didn't know and therefore would have changed her mind is silly. What is more weird is not understanding that a corpse cannot gestate a child. Keeping a body alive the few weeks required to make a child full term, that is one thing, actually gestating a baby in dead woman's body that's another but y'all so don't care about women and their preferences you'll pretend its the same and that she must not have meant "under no circumstances".
11
GerardM,
As a nurse I can tell you DNR means only one thing...
Do Not Resuscitate
There is no asterisk* or footnote. Furthermore, Ms Muñoz made her wishes known to both her husband and her mother, “Under no circumstance do I ever want to be on life-support”. That is very clear. She didn’t add, except if I’m pregnant. You don’t get to interpret her meaning.
I find it morally reprehensible that doctors, nurses, and their patients are being used as pawns by anti-women pro-birth extremists to further their agenda.
13
That is why I always included language regarding pregnancy in the living wills for women. That is, if she wished to be maintained on life support IF she was found to be pregnant at the time. All of my clients chose to have life support withdrawn even if found to be pregnant at the time. Thus it was clear what their intentions were in the above circumstances.
8
This entire series uses extremely rare circumstances (as acknowledged in the first part of the series) to argue that women's rights are being attacked. Each of these cases is heartbreaking and raises issues that aren't simply black and white. Ms. Munoz may have said she never wanted to be on life support, but would she have said the same thing if she had been carrying a viable fetus? What if, unlike in this case, her husband wanted to keep and raise the child?
Perhaps the standard living will needs to be modified for a woman to expressly define how she wants medical care to be handled in the case where she is incapacitated while pregnant. And those wishes should be followed except in the circumstance where the fetus is already viable and could be delivered without extensive life support to the mother.
4
Excellent and thoughtful comment.
1
You would still need to change the law in 22 states because they expressly deny the pregnant woman the choice you describe. However, in the case of Ms. Munoz, she was not carrying a viable fetus. Her pregnancy was only 14 weeks along, so the fetus would have had to live inside its dead mother for a minimum of 10 more weeks. Unfortunately, a decaying body is a toxic environment for a fetus for that length of time, so the effects on the fetus were horrific. This appears to have been state-sponsored torture of both fetus and mother out of medical ignorance.
10
The "State" represents the will of the people of the state. If it is deemed that the interests of the state override the interests of the individual or the family in personal medical decisions, then the state should be held accountable for all financial costs involved consequent to that decision--not the family, hospital or insurance company. That would truly make it the "will of the people."
20
In conservoland the state never pays. They don't want a big government after all. And if any individual can't pay their forced medical bills, the hospital will just take their house and sell it. In the Republican system there is always a way to get the money.
6
This is an excellent series of editorials. I can't believe 2 things. First, that these sorts of appalling violations of women's rights occur regularly in an advanced democracy like the US. Many of these cases sound more like something the Taliban would initiate in an oppressive theocracy. Second, I read this whole series a week ago and am stunned to see there are still only 15 comments from readers today. I hope this is because people are too shocked to write about what they have read, rather than people not bothering to read about these travesties at all. Women's rights are being eroded in many states and, with the composition of the courts changing under Trump, the risk is growing greater by the day. Evangelical Christians want a theocracy and control over women's bodies has been top of their list for decades. Women need to wake up to the danger. It is much bigger than just Roe v. Wade.
46
Reading these articles and feeling absolute horror, fury, and shock initially drained me of the will to comment, so I think your hypothesis about the small number of comments is correct. However, after the shock wears off, women must comment and stand up for equal rights.
6
I would imagine that there would be significant impacts on the fetus of a mother who has "died" in a legal and biological sense. The fetus lives in an extremely intimate and symbiotic relationship to the mother and if the mother is suddenly no longer moving and responding to the fetus, I would think the sudden change would leave a lasting impact on the fetus' personality. If a mother dies near term then I imagine delivering the child through C-section is a good outcome but I can't imagine how a body on life support could really substitute for a living mother. There are many ethical issues around this subject and one should be the resulting trauma on the development--psychologically as well as physically--of the fetus.
8
The relationship between a fetus and a mother is not symbiotic. It is parasitic.
Symbiosis is when two beings rely upon each other for life.
This is not the case of a fetus in the womb.
10
I'm surprised that so many women are still willing to become pregnant. I'd think that more women would consider that they may lose their rights by doing so. As more states enact laws to criminalize women, it seems obvious that the nation's birth rate should drop. Why take the chance? Pregnancy has always been dangerous to a woman's health. Now it can threaten her freedom, as well. I hope that knowing pregnancy could end in incarceration would make women think twice before giving up birth control.
41
I've thought the same thing. Having a child in the US entails a MINIMUM $ 250 K cost to age 18. Add any kind of risk - special needs, learning problems, health issues - and the costs and disruption to the family would go up.
Children with Down syndrome require care for their entire lives - a large percentage will acquire early onset Alzheimer's. On top of these risks, there are serious potential health risks to the woman in any pregnancy. And having children can derail education, career, flexibility and mobility.
I wouldn't be surprised if fewer women want to roll the dice.
5
The GOP is working hard to make birth control more difficult to access with courts saying an employer can take birth control methods out of the company health care plan if it offends the owner's beliefs. That plus the war on Planned parenthood by Trump and the Republicans is also putting birth control out of reach. This is happening bit by bit, drop by drop and the accumulative effect is the erosion of women's reproductive rights - the right to have a say over their own bodies.
Part of this series is the information that in states that now charge women for having a miscarriage, some pregnant women aren't going for pre-natal check ups because hiding their pregnancy lowers their chance of being charged if they miscarry. That might have something to do with why the US has the highest rate of maternal deaths of all the top 29 developed countries.
And yet, some women (mostly white women) still vote for Trump and the GOP.
4
As a lifelong supporter of the right to live, I object strenuously to the kind of medical and legal malpractice that extended Marlise Munoz's pain and suffering unnaturally and unnecessarily for more than two months. That objection extends to the unborn child carried by her, but only because the child was clearly not able to survive outside the womb. However, if the child had been viable, or close to being viable, I am reasonably sure a conscious Marlise would have asked for a surgical birth -- if she thought she would not survive her medical condition much longer. In this sort of case the legal community should defer to the medical one. That would take legal and political wrongheadedness out of the equation and the fundamental motivation of "do no harm" would prevail.
4
"However, if the child had been viable, or close to being viable, I am reasonably sure a conscious Marlise would have asked for a surgical birth -- if she thought she would not survive her medical condition much longer."
No, sir, you can not be "reasonably sure" of anything because you are not the person involved. This is what infuriates me when people insert their own conscious into something that they have no right to do. These decisions should be left to the women and their families.
Until women are considered to be human beings other than for gestation and incubators, this will plague our world.
85
But that is an entirely different case and not what happened here so those ideas have no place here. This is the logical end to your "right to life". It ignores the woman's life and even ignores viability (something ignored repeatedly by right to lifers)
10
Interesting that people (pro-lifers) who purport to believe in a higher power are so against even a natural death, in opposition to what you would assume to be the natural order. This case is an extreme one in which the woman's rights are suspended in the interest of her pregnancy. The difficulty then is that a positive action needed to be taken to allow nature to take its course, it appeared to be abandonment of a living person (the fetus). That is a moral dilemma. I am glad that it turned out that the fetus was non viable so that the decision was clearer. Principles versus Common Sense: one goal for common sense (I guess).
7
The fetus is not a living person. A PERSON is a human who has been born, who is independent of its mother, who breathes on its own.
This is where we get into the weeds: the idea that what is essentially a parasite is a person. No, it is not. It is a potential human person. But being a person is so much more than being a clump of cells.
6
What a story.
Not to lessen impact of theme. but who paid for her caire for two months?
On top of the emotional roller coaster, legal battles, worrying about health care bills would be awful if one didn't want medical care to continue.
20
And who was to take care of the infant? Whether healthy or not, a newborn needs constant care for a long time and not all families are in a position to provide that care with no mother involved. Would this baby have gone into the foster care system? Or been adopted? Adoption seem unlikely after discovering the severe disabilities involved, and a motherless family would very likely have been unable to provide the needed care. Being born into a life of institutionalization does not seem preferable to not being born at all. I have many problems with the idea of abortion in general, but I would rather have those problems reviewed and decided by the family involved, for the baby's sake as well as theirs.
5
If men and women have equal rights then women should have the same rights over their bodies that men do that includes abortion.
I am constantly amazed and dismayed over what is happening women are and should not be second class citizens.
Just to be clear I am a 68 year old man I was adopted in December 1950 my adopted mother could not have children. My birth parents were 15 and 16 year old war orphans. I realize that if abortion was legal in 1950 I might not be here. However I truly believe if G-d wants a child to be born then the child will be.
I took awhile to come to my conclusions but to force women to have and care for unwanted children is a bigger evil than abortion never mind what happens to those children.
Just my 2 cents.
46
If women did not vote to be second class citizens, they would not be. Women are the majority of the population and the majority of voters. So in the end it is women who are taking away the rights of women. and not only men.
When I initially read your caption "Can a Corpse Give Birth?" on the front page with no accompanying author's name assigned to it, I thought the title was referring to the recent and extremely horrific news in which a poor young woman living in a Phoenix area long term care facility in a near 10 year vegetative state had given birth, all while not a single professional caregiving soul, be it a nurse, a physician or even a nurse aide, at this 'care facility', suspected nor cared enough to either say or do something. In nine long months.
What on earth has happened to America to have let something like this happen to such a vulnerable, alone female. God help us.
93
Thank you NYT for this series. Women’s rights are being slowly quietly chipped away with laws that make no sense in the real world. This series is doing a good job of making it hard to ignore.
33
I am 70 years old and am just so weary of others feeling they have a right to tell women what to do with their own body and life. Men would never stand for it.
149
"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament"
Gloria Steimen
6
Couldn't agree more. I am a 64 year old man, probably 80-90% of most men, who are (by far) the politicians who make these laws. The Me2 movement, many other such organizations, and the women elected in the House will (hopefully) initiate some changes, You have to start somewhere, and have. This alone is a huge improvement, even if the Senate and POTUS are fighting them. When I saw the Women's March (our young daughter and her mother were there) on the White House, NY City, Los Angeles and elsewhere, I knew things will change.
6
Women outnumber men, so if men can't stand something, then they can sit down (straight men are good at that anyway.)
1
The United States, legislative bit by bit, is becoming a theocracy. Religious zealotry coupled with the power of the state, is the perfect recipe for destroying our democracy. Right now, at this very moment, the United States seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Why this obsession over the right to have an abortion? Why are we Americans under the thumb of these zealous anti-abortion evangelicals? The continuing attack over a woman's right to an abortion suggests to this reader that a deep underlying hatred of women, forms the core of the anti-abortion zealot. Religion + Politics = Theocracy.
98
Republicans can win only if they convince single issue voters concerning abortion, guns, or god, and demonizing anyone on the other side of these issues.
The US is a secular country with a godless constitution. Religious nonsense needs to be removed from public policy and the law books. The so called pro-life movement is populated with religious fanatics.
Religion+politics = Middle East
As truly horrible as theocracy is, nothing could as manifestly hell on earth than governments run by men who believe they are agents acting in the name of imaginary deity. The US is slowly sliding in that direction. There is nothing that is more narcissistic and depraved a framework for immorality as fundamentalists, people who believe they know the mind of god.
We we must fight for women’s rights as full and equal citizens. I would not wish anyone the heartache of trying to decide between their unborn child and their personal health but I would never presume the state is better equipped to make that decision.
66
Sadly, I think a lot of women these days are too busy taking selfies to care much about these issues. Thankfully I'm past the age of needing to care.
2
SL - Please care. I’m also past the age of needing to care, but I have 2 daughters. I care for them. I care for every woman who can or will be bearing a child now or in the future. The ramifications of these constrictive laws are mind boggling. The Handmaid’s Tale may well turn into our future.
19
I care. Even though I decided in my late 20s that I did not want to have children. We have always fought for women's rights. We have always been just fine paying more in taxes so that schools are funded for every child. We have always been just fine paying more in taxes so that those who are in poverty have their basic health and welfare needs might have these needs taken care of -- especially infants and young children. Under this administration, these basic human rights are slipping away at an alarming rate.
27