The heartbreaking saga of pregnant, braindead Marlise Munoz has sparked an outcry and opinions from people of all beliefs and political persuasions. But the one voice that should count in what happens to the fetus she was carrying apparently has no sway. That voice belongs to the kid’s dad. Munoz, 33, was found brain dead on her Fort Worth Texas, kitchen floor from what doctors think is a blood clot on her lungs. Unbeknownst to her family, she was 14 weeks pregnant. (Pregnant women are at greater risk of developing blood clots, although it’s unclear the two events were related.) After the hospital discovered she was pregnant, doctors said they were not permitted by Texas law to turn off her life support, even though Ms. Munoz had previously indicated she did not want to be kept alive under such circumstances. About half of U.S. states do not allow life support to be withdrawn from a pregnant woman. Viewpoint: Why Brain Death Isn’t An On-Off Switch The hospital’s actions are also in opposition to her husband, Erick Munoz and both of the woman’s parents. “All she is, is a host for a fetus,” her father, Ernest Machado, 60, a retired cop, told the New York Times. “I get angry with the state…Why are they practicing medicine up in Austin?” Aft first Ms. Munoz’s situation seems like a thorny moral question. Now that the mother has lost her ability to make her choices about the future of the fetus known, who has the most claim to make decisions about its fate? Should nature just take its course? Is it the state’s responsibility to step in? The obvious answer is that the decision should be in the hands of the person who would be that child’s father. He will be the only extant biological parent should the baby make it to full term. This is particularly poignant in this case: it’s not clear whether the time that Ms. Munoz spent without oxygen to her brain, or if not moving for most of the
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