Why I believe this case is politically motivated fetal experimentation:
- If one believes Marlise is "still" deserving of personhood rights, her expressed wishes are being intentionally being disregarded by the interpretation of the laws in Texas. That is not informed consent, it is State coercion. And hijacking of her "personhood" rights to self determination. The state of TX doesn't care if she wrote her wishes down, or not. Merely because she has a uterus, the State of TX has determined that she cannot have decision making rights over her own body.
-If Marlise retains "personhood" rights, she has not consented to what is being done with her body, nor has she consented to what is being done to her fetus.
-Marlise's legal decision maker, her husband, has been disregarded and replaced by the state of TX as Marlise's decision maker. He has not consented to what is being done to his wife's body, or consented to what is being done to the fetus she was carrying at the time of her death.
- The decisions about maintaining the host body have not taken into account medical information about the fetus, nor the circumstances of the host mother's death, nor the stage of development of the fetus at the time that the decision was taken to maintain Marlise's body as a involuntary host. The profound arrogance and paternalism of the TX law says that ONE day pregnant is enough to invalidate any advanced directives or expressed wishes.
- Medical science cannot predict with ANY certainty what the short term, or long term outcome of this experimental gestation will have on the fetus. There is no body of knowledge to guide decision making. There are 30 anecdotal cases in the past 30 years, and some of the earliest ones which are not robustly validated. There are no clinical studies, outcome criteria, best practices guidelines, or research protocols for this experimental gestation. There is no institutional review board approval for this experimental gestation. There is no ethics committee involvement in the decision making for either this deceased woman, nor her unfortunate fetus.
- The overwhelming circumstances of the duration and conditions of the decedent's oxygen deprivation add enormous uncertainty as to the potential outcomes for this early second trimester fetus. There are no protocols, or collective body of knowledge, to guide clinical decision making. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict that the circumstances of Marlise's hypoxia and cardiac arrest (multiple arrests, from EM's reports) will not have a positive effect on the developing fetus. The overwhelming likelihood is that IF the fetus lives to viability, it will be damaged neurologically to probably a very severe degree. This was NOT a witnessed arrest, with prompt restoration of oxygenation and circulation. This was a very, very prolonged hypoxic insult, compounded by ventilation perfusion mismatch from the embolism. There is NO physiological reason to believe that this fetus is "okay." And we don't know what the condition of the fetus is at this point, because it is confidential. All we know is that the heart is beating.
- There is no identified funding for this experimental gestation. Private insurance will not pay for donor care, once death is declared.
- Once undertaken, there are no identified circumstances allowable by state law to withdraw host support, save cardiac arrest of the fetus.
Basically, they are just "winging it", and hoping for the "best". (However they would define "best".) That is magical thinking, IMO. It is not the scientific practice of educated, moral, ethical professionals, IMO. It is opportunistic abuse of a fetus, IMO.
These are professionals and administrators who have been, IMO, willingly sucked into the vortex of abortion politics, magical thinking, and ignorance, and are willing to play "God" in a very childlike way with a dead woman's body, and a non-viable fetus.
It all boils down to a mentality of , "Let's do this thing, and just see what happens!" This is not a 6th grade science project. But the hospital, and the politicians are acting like it is. IMO.
hoh:
