Adam, neither of these addresses a pregnant woman. The doctors in Texas knew the mother was brain dead.
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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Band on the Run
Why was she not declared brain dead? This was very political. The poor family was caught in the middle. TX- wonders why the rest of America views it as a substate where craziness reigns?
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FlyingHighNow
TX- wonders why the rest of America views it as a substate where craziness reigns?
We know that ultra conservative politics causes a lot of trouble for many Texans. If you've lived there, and especially if you have friends there, you know that it's a loud mouthed minority that gets the press. There are plenty of great things about Texas and Texans.
I live in Michigan, a very conservative part of Michigan: it's not much better here. In Michigan when it comes to the law of consent, there is no similar age clause. If you have a couple who've been dating since they were 14. They both are 15 and one turns 16, the parents of the 15 year old can press statutory rape charges against the 16 year old. Their is no excuse for the circumstances. The 16 year old will carry sex offender status for the rest of his/her life. Fifteen year olds are considered to breaking the law of consent as well. So if you have two fifteen year olds, they are not exempt from the law of consent. These laws should protect kids from older kids, from rape and from adults. They should not punish teenagers in love relationships for having consentual, premarital sex. Michigan is a long way from Texas.
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adamah
FHN said- Adam, neither of these addresses a pregnant woman. The doctors in Texas knew the mother was brain dead.
Yeah, that's the entire point, FHN. It's why I've been saying that you cannot look at applicable statutes in isolation, but must look at how they operate as a whole.
In Texas, 671.001 (the part of the law that defines clinical death) and 166.049 (the part of the law that mentions pregnant pts on life support) operate as a team, but JPS lawyers had conceded only hours before the hearing that doctors had clinically-determined her as dead on Nov 28th (a fact they hadn't admitted publicly until the day of the hearing, some two months later even though it was written in the charts, and Erick said they flip-flopped when the family was preparing to say their final goodbyes on the 28th after her death).
Hence the judge ONLY ruled on applicability of 671 (which was an easy ruling, since the JPS lawyers agreed not to contest the point), and the issue of pregnancy (raised in 166.049) didn't even arise. Since there was no requirement of legal death following clinical determination of death in 671, the judge ordered JPS to declare her as legally-dead and unhook her body from life support within 4 days of his ruling (the hospital didn't appeal the decision but complied, likely disappointing some right-to-lifers who'd claim even severely-compromised quality of life is worth fighting for).
That's why I said the ruling is seemingly a "one off", and there's nothing within TX law that would prevent this same exact scenario from repeating tomorrow by forcing another family to take the hospital to court to get a ruling for THEIR family member, ordering them to disconnect the pregnant cadaver (this case doesn't set any precedents applicable to other cases, since JPS could use the same strategy of not pronouncing legal death for months).
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FlyingHighNow
Looks like the hospital wanted a judge to make this decision from the get go.
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adamah
AS JT pointed out earlier in the thread, if they wanted clarity, JPS could've sought out clarification from the court without forcing the paramedic Erick to take them to court and increase the family's suffering (esp over holidays).
JPS seemingly was looking to "run down the clock" and buy time for the fetus until viability could be assessed, but they didn't count on the fetus being malformed and likely brain-damaged. What an ugly episode that didn't have to happen....