Family of dead, pregnant woman is suing Texas for using her body as an incubator.

[Sirveri]

264. this story is an amazing addition to the abortion debate.

Is the mother a person if she's dead? Do the rights of a fetus trump the rights of a corpse? Who pays for it all?

Anti-choicers consider the fetus to be a person, and have personhood rights, so they logically would say the state has a duty to protect, and in this case they're not enslaving the mother, because the mother isn't really there anymore, she's dead.

As a pro-choicer, I reject the argument that the state has a duty to protect, because the fetus is not a person. However, the mother is also not a person, meaning that the choice in my view boils down to who should we act in the interests of, the family and the DNR, or the fetus. That's a hard question to answer, I'm personally leaning for letting the hospital keep the fetus alive, but it's a difficult call. While the family obviously has strong feelings, what's the hurry, why not just wait another six weeks? Yes, it's against her wishes, but she's dead, so she really won't notice or care what anyone does. So that leaves the family, but if they're not on the hook financially, then what real damages are they caused? Emotional, how do we quantify feelings? Should we quantify feelings? I could see fiscal damages if they get billed for this, but I think that should be picked up by the state if the father does not desire to attempt to save the fetus. So that eliminates fiscal damages. Does the fetus have any level of rights to development (I wouldn't say that right trumps the mothers rights to control of her body, but that's not at issue here since she's dead)?

It's really a fascinating angle to the debate, thanks for sharing.