Dead pregnant woman forced to stay on life support, due to TX State law

by adamah 285 Replies latest social current

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  adamah

  Sammielee, note the qualifers, "child IN UTERO", "unborn child", "unborn victims", etc. They're all paradoxical, i.e. contradictory on their face, since they all contain an element of using a term before they've met the accepted criteria, so it's qualified.

  We also use the phrase 'student doctor' to refer to medical students seeing patients under the supervision of a licensed doctor who's already earned a degree, but it's technically not correct to call the student a doctor yet, since they haven't actually completed the required coursework that entitles one to be given a doctorate degree, and the right to use the honorific title of 'doctor' (they also need to apply for a license from the State and pass their boards in order to see patients on their own, unsupervised).

  Student doctors still have to complete the coursework, but we assume they WILL, even though it's not yet 'in the bag' (i.e. they might drop out of school before even their very-last finals, due to illness or death, etc, and they won't graduate). So why do we call them 'doctors'? Since they're treating patients on clinical rotations, and most patients would be reluctant to allow an 'unlicensed (but supervised) medical student' treat them vs the same individual who's identified as a 'student doctor'.

  The word 'doctor' carries weight with the general public, just like the words 'child/baby/infant' (vs the more technically-correct terms like 'zygote/embryo/fetus' which by definition indicate that the individual is not yet born).

  108-212 allows for an amplification of charges, but as the Munoz case shows, there's many who'd grant full and equal rights to the unborn from the moment of conception, even placing the rights above the would-be mother's (who's obviously already been born). Exactly where to draw the line is the debate, and obviously there's many opinions and feelings on the issue.
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  sammielee24

  Moreover, in the 1989 case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to invalidate a Missouri statute that declares that "the life of each human being begins at conception," that "unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being," and that all state laws (including criminal laws) "shall be interpreted and construed to acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development, all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state," to the extent permitted by the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court rulings. A lower court had ruled that Missouri's law "impermissibl[y]" adopted "a theory of when life begins," and blocked its enforcement, but the Supreme Court nullified that ruling, allowing the law to go into effect so long as the state did not use it to restrict abortion.

  In Congress, some opponents objected to the bill's recognition of the "child in utero" as a member of the human family who can be harmed in a crime. Yet, on July 25, 2000, the House passed on a vote of 417-0 a bill that contained the same definition of "child in utero" and that embodied the same basic legal principle. That bill, the Innocent Child Protection Act, said that no state or federal authority may "carry out a sentence of death on a woman while she carries a child in utero. . . .>child in 'utero' means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." The principle embodied in the Innocent Child Protection Act was obvious -- carrying out the execution would take two human lives, including one convicted of no crime. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act extended that same principle to the rest of the federal criminal code, recognizing that when a criminal attacks a woman, injuring or killing her and injuring or killing her unborn child, he has claimed two victims.//Key Facts in the Unborn Victim Act
• 

  Simon

  This article discusses how a human baby is conceived and how the baby develops inside the mother's womb.

  Seriously? You think someone writing some content for a webpage or leaflet actually thinks about every conceivable outcome?

  Of course they use the word 'baby'. If they said "fetus that could potentially be brought to term and delivered as a baby" it would be rediculous.

  Some people seem to be looking for total black and white switchover between applicable laws and rules but life isn't like that. However much people try and think up every eventuallity there will always eventually be a case that fits in the cracks, that could be interpreted as having multiple rules applying that contradict each other.

  When that happens there should be intelligent and thoughful people to make a decision based on the best outcome for all concerned. In this case the mother was dead, the fetus was not viable and the father was being tormented all because (it appears) the hospital wants to clock-up charges from the insurance company.

  I'm glad it's finally been settled. Sad that it took way too long.
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  Comatose

  Just watched Anderson Cooper interview the husband and mother. Its so wrong what this hospital did... So wrong.
• 

  Dis-Member

  They switched off the life support.

  http://iacknowledge.net/brain-dead-pregnant-woman-removed-from-life-support-after-court-order/
• 

  adamah

  Comatose said- Just watched Anderson Cooper interview the husband and mother.

  Yeah Comatose, I saw the interview last night on-line: thanks for the heads-up.

  Comatose said- Its so wrong what this hospital did... So wrong.

  Sad thing is, there's currently nothing in Texas State law (Health and Safety Code, 671.001) that would prevent this same scenario from playing out over-and-over, since unlike other States (eg Massachusetts, Alaska, etc), there's nothing in Tx law which explicitly states a time-line for doctors to certify death (i.e. signing a death certificate) within a day or two of carrying out the diagnostic tests that determined the patient to meet the criteria of medically-dead (the doctors did the tests on Nov 28, but the judge ordered JPS to sign her as legally-dead last Friday).

  In Tx, doctors are allowed to play a morbid game of keeping patients in a zombie-like state of being "medically dead, but legally undead", and they're not even breaking any laws by doing so....
• 

  FlyingHighNow

  adamah, what about other states? I wonder how many states could end up with similar predicaments.
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  Band on the Run

  Research the laws of the other 49 states to see if they resemble the TX law. The US jurisdictions need to be checked, too. This was an antichoice law.
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  FlyingHighNow

  I tried to research medical directives for other states. I couldn't find anything that wouldn't take hours to plow through. It makes you wonder how many states haven't anticipated this type of situation. Texas is like other GOP domintated places: pro-birth, but not pro quality of life once the child is born. Texas has some of the worst policies on "hand up" programs.
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  adamah

  FHN said- adamah, what about other states? I wonder how many states could end up with similar predicaments.

  Wow, that's a major task, since it's not so much what the individual statutes say, but how they work together (as seen in this case). It's what's NOT stated in the law, too.

  Here's Massachusetts state law requiring the physician to furnish the death certificate after declaring death (in Massachusetts, a patient determined to be brain dead is not just clinically-dead, but legally-dead, too, so this kind of situation couldn't have happened there, since she'd be declared medically/legally dead on Nov 28th, after the clinical determination was made):

  https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleVII/Chapter46/Section9

  Section 9. A physician, after the death of a person whom he has attended during such person’s last illness, or the physician declaring such person dead, or the medical examiner, as provided for in section six of chapter thirty-eight, or, if the death occurred in a hospital, a hospital medical officer duly appointed by the administrator, shall immediately furnish for registration a standard certificate of death, or in the case of a medical examiner, a medical examiner’s certificate of death, to an undertaker or other authorized person or a member of the family of the deceased, stating to the best of his knowledge and belief the name of the deceased, the disease of which he died, defined as required by section one, where the same was contracted, the duration of the illness from which he died, and the date of death.

  Here's Texas State law, HSC 671:

  HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE

  TITLE 8. DEATH AND DISPOSITION OF THE BODY

  SUBTITLE A. DEATH

  CHAPTER 671. DETERMINATION OF DEATH AND AUTOPSY REPORTS

  SUBCHAPTER A. DETERMINATION OF DEATH

  Sec. 671.001. STANDARD USED IN DETERMINING DEATH.

  (a) A person is dead when, according to ordinary standards of medical practice, there is irreversible cessation of the person's spontaneous respiratory and circulatory functions.

  (b) If artificial means of support preclude a determination that a person's spontaneous respiratory and circulatory functions have ceased, the person is dead when, in the announced opinion of a physician, according to ordinary standards of medical practice, there is irreversible cessation of all spontaneous brain function. Death occurs when the relevant functions cease.

  (c) Death must be pronounced before artificial means of supporting a person's respiratory and circulatory functions are terminated.

  Acts 1989, 71st Leg., ch. 678, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1989. Amended by Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 201, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1991; Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 965, Sec. 8, eff. June 16, 1995.

  That says it all: the physician alone gets to state when, "in the announced opinion of the physician", the person is to be pronounced dead and unhooked from life support. The doctors were in full control, and refused to interpret and pronounce the results of their tests that showed her to be brain-dead.

  And since clinical determination (and pronouncement of death) is NOT tied to legal death in TX (as it is in Massachusetts) that explains eg why JPS listed her in "serious condition" even after doctors had clinically-determined that she was brain-dead.

  Adam