Delight in Truth has closely followed the case of 33-year-old Marlise Munoz over the last couple months without weighing in on this complex ethical matter until now.
The 14 week-pregnant mom collapsed at home possibly due to a pulmonary embolism (clot to the lungs), and after resuscitation it was evident that she was brain-dead. But it appeared that her baby continued to have a normal heart beat after resuscitation.
In the aftermath of the diagnosis of brain death something paradoxical happened.
In such situations, the hospital and doctors are typically the ones who aggressively try to convince the family to take the patient off life support. In this particular case, it was the other way around. The family argued that lack of oxygen during resuscitation may have damaged the baby significantly, and they aggressively pursued legal action to remove her from life support. This action led to the baby’s demise at the gestational age of 22 weeks.
I agree that any life-sustaining treatment for the brain-dead mom was futile, but this was not the case for the baby.
Keeping the mom on life-support, keeps the baby alive.
Even though the hospital ultimately agreed that the baby was unlikely to be born “normal,” it is worthwhile to consider that a baby with a normal heartbeat inside a mom whose heart, lungs, kidneys and liver are working has an excellent chance to grow to the point where a C-section can be performed. This is because the baby’s development depends on a relatively low amount of oxygen delivered, and not the mother’s brain function.
Neonatologist Paul Bryne explains to Life Site News:
“The amount of oxygen a baby gets is much different than the amount of oxygen we get out here in the environment,” Byrne told LSN. He said the blood supply to the baby is venous blood, which has already had most of the oxygen consumed by the mother’s body anyway. “The baby’s body is used to living with a lower oxygen content. The baby is protected by the uterus more than the mother’s brain is protected, or the liver is protected, or the heart is protected [from lack of oxygen].”
“A baby has all of his or her parts by eight weeks after conception,” Byrne told LSN. “And so the susceptibility to medicines that could be toxic – and most of those that are used in resuscitation are not toxic – but even those that are toxic, the greater chance [of harm] is early in pregnancy, that’s when you have to be mostly concerned.”
These physiologic facts mattered not when the final decision was made.
This case, however complex, illustrates that we do not live in a culture that will fight for the unborn. No one in the baby’s family stood up for the baby. In fact they did the opposite. It was the hospital and state who sided with keeping the baby alive until a judge ordered the life-support to be discontinued.
It would have been difficult to keep going 10 more weeks. And so the chance to have beauty from ashes is gone.
This unfortunate situation resulted only in ashes.
Delight in Truth 
it is sad that the child was not given life support no matter what. The fact that our nation is highly desensitized to just how precious life should be regarded. As a veteran who lived the horror of a war, and put many brave and good men in body bags. The reality is that we really don’t hold life precious.
Another tragic decision about the value of human life in America. Thanks for sharing this story, Delight. As Manny has stated above, we have become desensitized. This story makes the issue of life in the womb come alive more than ever for some reason.
” No one in the baby’s family stood up for the baby.”
Those are haunting words.
God’s blessings…
I heard this story the other day and it’s extremely heart breaking. Today we know so much about what goes on inside a mother’s womb and how the baby grows and develops that you would think we’d be even MORE apt to do everything we can to bring these magnificent little ones into our homes. Instead the more we know the more we want to “choose” what we think is best for us and the baby- to end their life if something isn’t right. I am currently pregnant with my first and the one phrase I cannot stand when asked “what do you want to have” – as in boy or girl- and then they follow it up with “as long as it’s healthy right?” and I will always say, “and even if the baby is not healthy I still would be so happy to have them” We’ve been programmed to think that we can create & control our world around us- make ourselves invincible by eating the right things, taking the right vitamins and exercising the right way (I am not speaking against this, but it won’t save us)- and now we can pick the children we have and find out so much about them before they are born that if there is something we deem “wrong” with them, they are no longer a baby- but a fetus and we have no use for defective fetus’ when we can try again for one who is healthy.
Oh this is so sad, no voice for that precious baby