Fetus of brain dead woman appears to be deformed.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

'Quite sadly, this information is not surprising due to the fact that the fetus, after being deprived of oxygen for an indeterminate length of time, is gestating within a dead and deteriorating body, as a horrified family looks on in absolute anguish, distress and sadness,' the attorneys said.

This is so disgusting and sad.

Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544361/Fetus-brain-dead-woman-kept-life-support-against-familys-wishes-distinctly-abnormal-deprived-oxygen.html

[Jefferson23]

1. The womans husband and their living child deserve to be allowed to move on. The judge

who will hear the case was appointed by Perry. How much does this get dragged out? It is ghoulish.

R.H. Wallace, Jr (R)

State District Judge (Tarrant)

Entered Office: 12-01-2010
Term Ends: 12-31-2016
District: 96
General Information

Home Town: Keller
Personal Information

Judge Wallace obtained his B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1966, and his J.D. degree in 1973 from Baylor University School of Law. He served two years as an attorney with the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and 8½ years as an Assistant U. S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth. Judge Wallace joined the law firm of Shannon, Gracey, Ratliff & Miller, L.L.P., in 1984, where his practice concentrated in the areas of commercial litigation and professional liability defense. He is board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in the area of civil trial law.

Professional honors that Judge Wallace has received include induction as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2002, and he was named in the “Best Lawyers in America” and “Texas Super Lawyers” for a number of years prior to assuming the bench.

He was appointed by Governor Rick Perry to fill the vacancy in the 96th District Court and assumed the bench on December 1, 2010.

http://www.txdirectory.com/online/person/?id=39730

[theHandpuppet]

2. Morbid, horrifying, inhumane

No excuse for this. NONE.

[uppityperson]

3. For those looking askance at dailymail link, here is nbc link too.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/22/22404705-fetus-of-texas-woman-on-life-support-distinctly-abnormal-family-lawyers-say?lite

Attorneys for the family of a brain-dead pregnant woman who is in life support in a Texas hospital said Wednesday they have medical records showing the fetus is "distinctly abnormal."

They issued the statement, they said, to clear up any “misconceptions about the condition of the fetus.”
(clip)
“Even at this early stage, the lower extremities are deformed to the extent the gender cannot be determined,” the statement says. In addition the statement says the fetus as swelling of the brain — “hydrocephalus” — as well as possible heart problem.
(clip)
The statement also appears an attempt to reinforce Erick Munoz' and some experts' position that the Texas statute doesn’t apply to dead people. “Were that to be true, then it would be incumbent upon all health care providers to immediately conduct pregnancy tests on any woman of child bearing age who becomes deceased, and upon determining the deceased body was pregnant, hooking the body up to machines in an attempt to continue gestation,” the statement says. “ Surely, such a result was never intended nor should it be inferred.”

[Squinch]

4. These people forcing this are evil ghouls. May they reap all the karma they are earning right now.

[defacto7]

5. How despicable....

Sure, let's add more pain to the world, shall we?

This needs to stop now with what little dignity can be derived from this pitiful situation.

[Arkansas Granny]

6. I don't understand why anyone, even the most rabid pro-lifer

thought than there was going to be a better outcome to this situation. This family deserves to have their wishes followed so they can complete the grieving process and move on. I can't imagine their pain and sorrow.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Texas the state that can remove life support against the family's wishes if the hospital decides that there is no chance of recovery? I seem to recall reading a couple of stories about this a few years back.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. It's magic thinking.

I guarantee, there are rooms full of people praying for that fetus every day. And when the end result comes, and the results are horrific, they will shrug en mass, and claim it was god's will.

And, as it will be born, they will no longer show any interest, and expect it to pull itself up by its bootstraps.

My goodness, the world is turning me into a hyper-cynic.

[pstokely]

30. life begins at conception, caring ends at birth

nt

[JaneyVee]

7. Is this really America?

[Sissyk]

8. This is just horrible.

I wish the family the best on Friday. Let this family move on and grieve like any husband and family would want after the death of a loved one.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. "Dead and deteriorating body"...not really?

Brain death is not somatic death, and the tissues of the body don't decay or deteriorate as long as they're receiving oxygen and blood keeps flowing (there is a case of a brain-dead body being maintained on a ventilator for over 20 years). Yes, this woman should not have been maintained on a ventilator against her family's wishes, and the foetus was almost certainly not viable, but misrepresentations of the facts aren't really helpful either.

[jeff47]

10. Yes really.

Brain death does not always mean all brain tissue is dead. Higher functions are always gone, but sometimes the brain stem is still functional. In cases where a "brain dead" person is kept alive by machines for an extended period of time, their brain stem is still alive.

If the brain is completely dead, the body will start breaking down despite the efforts of the ventilator. There are important body functions that are no longer being maintained by the brain stem.

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. Nope.

http://www.hods.org/pdf/Long%20Survival%20Following%20Baterial%20Meningits-Associated%20Brain%20Destruction1.pdf

NB that this is a case of brainstem death. "Brain dead" patients who have brainstem activity are not "brain dead" and can be maintained without a ventilator (see Terri Schiavo).

[jeff47]

12. Yep.

The only evidence of brain stem death in your paper is lack of reflexive response to audio. The brain stem does a lot more than that. For example, it controls body temperature, and the boy's temperature was stable for most of his "life".

[azurnoir]

25. there was obvious Hypothalamic activity meaning there was no brain death

the evidence of this is from your PDF, given that this person had been in a vegetative state since early childhood 41/2 years old according to the PDF he had gone through some sort of puberty as evidenced by pubic hair even scant pubic hair for that to happen the hypothalamus and pituitary gland must on some level be active

At the time of the autopsy, the body measured approximately 104 cm in
length and had an approximate weight of 70 kg. The extremities were
symmetric but poorly developed, with atrophic musculature. Cushingoid
facies and body habitus was observed, including truncal obesity and asuprascapular fat pad. The testes were bilaterally descended, and there was only scant pubic hair

[kestrel91316]

15. Loss of pituitary hormones and the autonomic nervous system

due to total brain death and liquifaction will invariably lead to body death in time.

She's DEAD, Jim.

[longship]

22. Brain dead is dead, by definition.

If the brain dies, the body dies. Keeping it ventilated does not change that fact. What is ethical about doing what is being done here?

By all we know about the human body, neurology, and everything, brain dead is dead.

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. I never said there was anything ethical about it.

Just that there's a difference between brain death and somatic death (brain-dead bodies having been maintained on ventilators in some cases for years).

[Boudica the Lyoness]

29. I think what the comments above

are saying is that the little boy wasn't completely brain dead, like the pregnant woman and Jahi in California. The little boy had some pubic hair, meaning he had to have some activity in his brain to produce hormones.

Here's a doctor's report on the 13 year old Californian brain dead girl.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/196756012/Children-s-Hospital-Oakland-Supplemental-Declaration-of-Dr-Heidi-Flori

[Spider Jerusalem]

32. Except there was no activity on EEG and no spontaneous breathing (apnea test was negative)

which meets the criteria for "brain dead". This isn't to address the ethics of it or the question of keeping a brain-dead person on life support (for what it's worth I think the whole situation is a terrible thing and that the wishes of the family here in NOT keeping this woman on life support for the sake of a non-viable foetus should be respected).

[kcr]

31. If they were maintainted for years, there must have been some basic function

There must have been some basic brain function maintaining bodily function. Life support cannot maintain a body for years. They were legally brain dead, but the brain was not completely non-functioning

[PowerToThePeople]

13. I hope they let her go.

I was mixed about it at first, but only because of the possibility there could be a viable fetus. Since that no longer appears to be the case, let them go.

[herding cats]

14. There's no excuse for putting the family through this.

Ideology aside, this is just cruel and mentally abusive. Let them find peace.

[AtheistCrusader]

17. I thought I had seen the full extent of horror at the hands of unethical medical and legal acts in

the Schaivo case.


Holy flaming shitballs was I wrong.
That poor family.

[PeaceNikki]

36. No shit. I can't express how angry this makes me. And ANYONE who thinks 'giving the fetus a shot'

despite her wishes and the wishes of her family is a monster.

[KitSileya]

37. And will the intrepid defenders of ignoring the woman's wishes acknowledge that they were wrong?

I haven't seen any of them in this thread.

[PeaceNikki]

38. Never. I predict they will defend it further.

The nightmare this family has had to endure is unfathomable. In a just world, the decision makers at the hospital would be criminally charged and punitive damages would be astronomical enough that no facility ever repeat this.

[KitSileya]

40. I wonder how much the family will have to pay.

It must be an astronomical sum by now.

[gollygee]

42. +1

[gvstn]

18. This viability issue was raised from the very start.

Most of the healthcare professionals thought the fetus was not going to be healthy. That is what is so agonizing about this case. A husband who lost his wife has to be preoccupied with this legal wrangling when the outcome is not going to be good either way--when he should be allowed to grieve. Talk about adding insult to injury.

This law was written by a bunch of legislators that never bothered to get expert opinions or didn't bother to read them. Seems to happen more and more. The guys writing the laws don't really examine the possibilities and repercussions of the laws.

I truly feel sorry for the husband and family and as the weeks go by it just makes things worse and worse.

[jsr]

19. A true legal abomination written and enforced by cruel idiots

[JI7]

20. i hope the family sues them for causing more pain

[liberal_at_heart]

26. I hope they do too.

[Sgent]

27. Unfortunately

there is no one to sue probably.

Its not the hospital, its the State of Texas, which is probably immune.

[Ilsa]

34. There were lawyers saying that the hospital

and doctors were deliberately misinterpreting the law. For what reason, I don't know.

[MsPithy]

21. How fucking "BIG" can the government get.

Isn't this this definition of "BIG GOVERNMENT," that the republican/religious zealots say they hate?

[liberal_at_heart]

23. They hate big business when it comes to regulating and taxing the rich. They love big

business when it comes to telling people what they can or cannot do in their bedrooms or with their bodies.

[azurnoir]

28. I hope decency prevails in this case

and this woman and her baby are allowed to finally rest and the family can begin to heal

[malaise]

33. This happens when politicians and their semi-literate base

decide they know more than doctors.
Fuck these fucking stupid people and the violation of the rights of that woman's family.

This crap will soon end.

[Ilsa]

35. kick. nt

[CFLDem]

39. For people who are such fervent believers in the afterlife

why do they fear death so much, as evidenced by this nutty law?

Baby is getting a free pass to heaven. Time to let go.

[dembotoz]

41. again sickened that coverage for the most part comes from outside of the us

i guess that justin bieber clown getting a ticket is more important

i was going to say let the poor woman die
but shit
she is already dead

this whole thing is repugnant on just too many levels

[G_j]

43. and yet, Texas (16) and Florida (7), were responsible for 59% of executions

last year..