Erick Munoz

THERE were reportedly people willing to adopt the baby of Marlise Munoz, the pregnant Texas woman who was removed from life support yesterday after a judge ordered that the hospital where she was being treated was not required to keep her barely alive to save the child. Now there is no baby to adopt. Her husband, Erick, had argued for termination, stating that his wife did not wish to be sustained ever on life support. We can never know whether she would have ended the chances for her child, and it doesn’t matter what she would have done. That’s not the issue. The issue is whether the State should protect the weak and diseased. The answer that has been given is, no.

Jay writes:

The state-sanctioned killing of  Munoz’s child in Texas has made me think about how we got here and about an argument I had with some leftists a few years ago when Casey Anthony was set free.  I said at that time that, of course, it was okay for her to kill her toddler, that is where we are since 1973, but we did not get here overnight.

In 1973, a few lawyers with the right political connections got promoted to the highest ranking lawyers in the land, called Supreme Court justices.  These justices arbitrarily decided that it is perfectly fine to kill your child before it is born any time you like from the moment of conception until the last possible day before delivery.

As time has moved forward, we later had a “doctor” proceeded to move about the country “assisting” people to kill themselves —  and not just the terminally ill who had weeks to live, but the mentally ill who with the right assistance and medication might have lived normal lives.

Then we move onto to poor Terri Schiavo, whose husband quite possibly pushed her down the stairs and left her in the state she was in and who was permitted against the wishes of her own parents to starve her to death.  And the state police were used to arrest the parents for trying to save their daughter, rather than arresting the person responsible.  Again some random lawyer called a judge decided what her fate would be.

Then we move onto Casey Anthony and twelve people too stupid to get off jury duty unable to see that all of her lying to the police was designed to send them on a wild goose chase so the evidence trail could disappear over time. After all, this woman did not really want her child, so all this really was a post-birth abortion in the eyes of many.

Finally we have come to a pregnant woman in Texas, who if she was permitted to remain on life support a bit longer would give birth to a new human being.  There was even a law on the books designed to protect the child and keep this from happening.  But again another judge has decided that this law is not correct and ordered the hospital to turn off her life support, thus killing her child.

And many wonder where some of us get the idea that death panels for seniors will inevitably result from our current system of “health care.”

— Comments —

Robin writes:

I will spare you excerpts from my lengthy, yet fruitless conversations on mainstream news media comment threads over the past few days regarding this matter.  As a native Texan now living in a predominantly Blue state, I followed this story with great interest and passion.

Texas is changing.  The fact that an arbitrary judge thought it his right to overturn by precedent-setting ruling a law that has clearly been on the Texas books to protect the unborn and feeble who are unable to speak for themselves is disgusting.  A few more weeks could have passed with this baby living (clearly the baby had a heartbeat upon examination by John Peter Smith Hospital physicians), and the baby would have been given the chance at life.

I sat in the NICU in our state with our son who is disabled, and witnessed countless babies born at 23, 24, 25 weeks gestation – living and breathing on their own and eating.  They had a future!  People waited to adopt them!  Mothers and fathers sat bedside for months awaiting their discharge from the NICU.

Instead, countless Texans rallied around this undoubtedly heartbroken husband and father while he relentlessly pursued his wife’s alleged desire to terminate her life.  He took it upon himself (and others passionately supported him) to terminate the life of his unborn son or daughter.  Many used the justification that the baby “was severely deformed and would have no quality of life,” as if the quality of ones life and the inherent value of a person formed in the image of God is ours to determine.

I am so glad to see you write the Truth about this matter, yet so terribly grieved at what has become of my Great Friendly State.    God bless you for continuing to say it like it is.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

All the commentary — and there has been copious commentary from leading publications such as The New York Times and Slate — advocating that Munoz be taken off life support has amounted to the public execution of a human being, whose only crime was that he was physically abnormal.

Laura adds:

From where does this desire to end the life of the deformed come? It comes from the knowledge in the hearts and minds of many people who are thoroughly paganized that they themselves could not and would not care for someone who was gravely ill. There are too many more important things to do. Caring for the sick or disabled is considered intrinsically degrading. Is it any wonder that the assisted suicide movement has grown? The sick must be aware of this indifference and callousness though few of them could articulate it and most who choose suicide probably possess the same attitude themselves. 

Robin writes:

What you have written is so true; people perceive people with disabilities as “burdens”; time and again on the news media comment threads, people wrote of how Mr. Munoz “wouldn’t want to be burdened with a child with special needs who would never know him” and so on.

Well, the love that God has for these children is immense, let me tell you.  I have sat in children’s hospitals and seen families with such tremendous love for disabled children it would set your heart afire.  Through social media I have come in contact with people I’ve never had the honor of meeting face to face, who have children with diagnoses that include “Incompatible with Life.”  Their children were never expected to make it alive from their mothers’ wombs.  When they exceeded doctor’s expectations, and were actually born alive (with Trisomy 18, 13, and 21), these families fought to have doctors even treat their children!  Some transferred to hospitals under threat of arrest just to see that their children had a chance at life.  Others have traveled thousands of miles from home just to find a surgeon willing to do life-saving heart surgery or other complex procedures on a child deemed medically “incompatible with life.”

These people have children who may never speak a single word.  No one knows their capabilities, but these families do not care.  Little is known of their potential life span because ninety-five percent of them with a prenatal diagnosis are aborted immediately.  One girl with Trisomy 18 did live to age 25 and was a tremendous blessing to her family and everyone she met.

Another child is almost twenty-one months old now, a little girl with Trisomy 18, or Edward’s Syndrome, who was never expected to gestate to full-term.  She delights her family, smiling and squealing and bringing joy to her two older siblings, who undoubtedly, are not “burdened” by their sister in the least.  They are in love with her.  They visit her in the hospital when she is ill.  They read to her and bathe her and feed her whipped cream, just like any other older siblings would.

Others have had beautiful babies who have lived only minutes or hours, but left legacies of love and hope for other mothers and fathers with prenatal “fatal” diagnoses:  it IS worth it to carry your child to term, hold your baby, and grieve.  It is healthy.  It is normal.  It is good.

Some have given birth and had weeks and months with their children, never leaving the walls of a children’s hospital.  They’ve endured open-heart surgeries and codes and CPR, and they say they’d do it all again if they knew what they know now.  Their children were blessings and never, ever burdens.

Is there suffering in bringing a child with special needs into this world?  Certainly.  When were we promised that suffering would not exist in this life?    We have become such a selfish society that we value comfort more than life.  I suppose that is why I felt so strongly about sharing these things with you and your readers.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

From one of your commenters:

Many used the justification that the baby “was severely deformed and would have no quality of life,” as if the quality of ones life and the inherent value of a person formed in the image of God is ours to determine.

If a child is born severely deformed, he was obviously not formed in the image of God.

It is utterly arrogant of the human species to construct technology to keep the severely deformed alive against God’s own obvious will.  If Christians would accept what they like to say, namely, that this is a fallen world, they would have nothing to do with this.  If God wanted children born at 25 weeks’ gestation to continue living, they would be able to do so with normal standard care.

Prior to all this medical technology, seriously sick and deformed babies  died, the deaths were mourned and life for the rest went on.  Was this all an omission, an act of hatred on God’s part, to allow this natural death to go on for so long?

Laura writes:

You are confused about the meaning of “formed in the image of God.” Man is formed spiritually in the image of God, not in a state of physical perfection. God is not physical.

 “[T]he Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7)

Disease and suffering are a means of restoring man to spiritual perfection.

You seem to reject advanced medical care. The same argument could be made for ending the life by passive non-intervention of people with any number of diseases, including cancer and heart disease.  “If God wanted children born at 25 weeks’ gestation to continue living, they would be able to do so with normal standard care.” If God wanted people with leukemia to live, they would be able to do so with “normal standard care,” whatever that is.

By the way, it was not known how deformed the Munoz baby would be. In any event, she could have been delivered by C-section immediately and may have died, but there was no reason not to try to save her, especially since people had come forward to adopt her.

Bob L. writes:

I have not followed the Munoz case closely, but I was wondering, with respect, if the matter was somewhat more complex than you make it seem. While I do not entirely agree with Betsy (I agree that she misunderstands the meaning of imago dei, among other things), her concerns are somewhat similar to mine.

I looked at 2278-79 and 2264 of the Catholic Catechism and was left very confused on what the Catholic Church would teach is the appropriate course of action here. My own faith similarly does not seem to provide a clear answer. Ordinarily, in both my faith and in Catholicism, extraordinary care like life support is discretionary on the part of the patient, or in the case of his incapacity to decide, on the part of those who have legal guardianship over him. Catholicism, as far as I understand, rejects the idea that heroic measures are required. Whether keeping Ms. Munoz on life support (according to the Catholic teaching that brain death is death, she was already dead, and not ‘barely alive’ as you say; the scholars in my faith have failed to reach as decisive a ruling) is or isn’t a heroic measure is not clear to me.

Further, your examples about chemotherapy for cancer patients seem off to me–I am not aware of any teaching that requires people to prolong their lives artificially with medical science. Certainly, starving oneself intentionally, or intentionally denying oneself water, in order to hasten death would be forbidden. But refusing chemotherapy, for example, would probably be acceptable–2278 of the Catechism seems to allow for declining treatment that is burdensome and/or extraordinary. Here, the situation is obviously complicated because it is not the patient making the decision for himself, but his legal guardians. But it seems that the Church accepts that often there is more than one decision that can be made in a particular case, with neither decision being morally wrong.

Could you clarify specifically why you believe life support is mandatory, rather than discretionary, here, despite the wishes of Ms. Munoz and her family, whose views do seem to have some relevance under Church teaching? While I see why a family would choose either option, I seem sympathetic to the view that this is such a difficult decision that the law, in either a Catholic society or a secular one, should leave this to the discretion of the family.

 Laura writes:

This is not at all the same as situations involving someone on life support who will never revive. Mrs. Munoz was 20 to 22 weeks pregnant at the time she was disconnected. She was sustaining the fetus, who was not dead. The baby could have been delivered by C-section immediately or the hospital could have waited a couple of weeks more and tried to deliver the baby then. What’s complicated about that? It seems pretty clear-cut to me. What was the harm in keeping Mrs. Munoz on life support for a little while longer? Who exactly was being harmed? In fact, I can’t think of any better way to leave this world, if one has to die fairly young, than to spend one’s last moments nurturing a son or daughter, holding them in one’s womb until the last possible moment. I find it very hard to believe that Mrs. Munoz would not have wanted that. But even if she had not, the hospital had a duty to protect this living being who was not demonstrably brain dead.

As far as my response to Betsy, she said the severely deformed person who requires advanced medical technology to stay alive does not represent God’s intentions. In other words, God himself does not want the severely deformed to live. She wrote, “It is utterly arrogant of the human species to construct technology to keep the severely deformed alive against God’s own obvious will.” That’s a hell of a statement, a death sentence for all of the severely deformed that raises the question as to who decides what is “severely deformed” and why anyone with serious physical anomalies, including someone with advanced cancer, should be given the benefit of advanced medical technology. Many children with genetic abnormalities are eliminated in the womb. Many of them have very manageable problems, such as Down Syndrome, and are not severely deformed at all. Life begins at conception because the soul and body are united from the very beginning. Therefore, eugenics is wrong, even if it involves the unborn.

By the way, the full extent of the Munoz baby’s deformities was not known. Also, usually children with extremely severe abnormalities do not tend to live for many decades, regardless of advanced technology.

Laura continues:

I don’t deny the very serious ethical dilemmas that advanced technology poses. There are many cases in which relatives must reasonably say, “Stop! Enough has been done. You are torturing someone simply to prolong life for a short time.” But this was not that kind of case.

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