BREAKING UPDATE: Judge Orders Hospital to Remove Life Support From Pregnant Woman
Update:
The Fort Worth hospital has ended its life-sustaining treatment of Marlise Muñoz, the pregnant, brain-dead woman in accordance with a judge’s order.
Hospital officials took 33-year old Marlise Muñoz off a ventilator this morning.
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Original Post:
In the comments thread to a separate post, a reader asked,
[W]hat about that brain-dead woman in Texas — 14 or so weeks pregnant — being kept alive for the sake of the child. She wanted no extreme efforts to be made to keep her alive — yet that’s what they’re doing, all for the sake of the child. Is this right? Where does a woman’s right to choose start — and where does it end?
Well, a Texas judge has just ruled that the Fort Worth hospital where brain dead Marlise Muñoz has been hospitalized, must remove the life support of the pregnant woman, “siding with the husband and family in a case that has drawn national attention.”
The judge, R.H. Wallace Jr. of State District Court in Tarrant County, ordered John Peter Smith Hospital to pronounce the woman, Marlise Muñoz, dead, and remove her from life support by 5 p.m. on Monday, which gives the hospital a chance to appeal.
Ms. Muñoz has been on life support since Nov. 26, when she collapsed on her kitchen floor from what appeared to be a blood clot in her lung. She was 14 weeks pregnant.
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