FORT WORTH, Texas
(AP) -- A brain-dead, pregnant Texas woman's body was removed from
life support Sunday, as the hospital keeping her on machines against her
family's wishes acceded to a judge's ruling that it was misapplying
state law.
Marlise Munoz's body soon will be
buried by her husband and parents, after John Peter Smith Hospital in
Fort Worth announced it would not fight Judge R.H. Wallace Jr.'s Friday
order to pronounce her dead and return her body to her family. The
23-week-old fetus she was carrying will not be born.
The
hospital's decision Sunday brings an apparent end to a case that became
a touchstone for national debates about the beginning and end of life,
and whether a pregnant woman who is considered legally and medically
dead should be kept on life support for the sake of a fetus.
Munoz's
husband, Erick Munoz, sued the hospital because it would not remove
life support as he said his wife would have wanted in such a situation.
Erick and Marlise Munoz worked as paramedics and were familiar with
end-of-life issues, and Erick said his wife had told him she would not
want to be kept alive under such circumstances.
But
the hospital refused his request, citing Texas law that says
life-sustaining treatment cannot be withdrawn from a pregnant patient,
regardless of her end-of-life wishes.
Wallace sided Friday with Erick Munoz, saying in his order: "Mrs. Munoz is dead."
Wallace
had given the hospital until 5 p.m. Monday to comply with his order,
but officials there announced Sunday morning that it would forego any
appeal.
"From the onset, JPS has said its role
was not to make nor contest law but to follow it," according to a
statement released by hospital spokeswoman J.R. Labbe. "On Friday, a
state district judge ordered the removal of life-sustaining treatment
from Marlise Munoz. The hospital will follow the court order."
Shortly afterward, Erick Munoz's attorneys announced that she had been disconnected from life support about 11:30 a.m.
"May
Marlise Munoz finally rest in peace, and her family find the strength
to complete what has been an unbearably long and arduous journey," they
said in a statement.
Erick found his wife
unconscious in their Haltom City, Texas, home Nov. 26, possibly due to a
blood clot. Doctors soon determined that she was brain-dead, which
meant that she was both medically and legally dead under Texas law, but
kept her on machines to keep her organs functioning for the sake of the
fetus.
Erick Munoz described visiting his wife
in the hospital, saying her eyes were now glassy and the smell of her
perfume had given way to a smell he knew to be of a dead body. His
attorneys told Wallace on Friday that doctors had performed medical care
on her body over his protests.
"There is an infant, and a dead person serving as a dysfunctional incubator," attorney Heather King said.
Marlise Munoz's parents, Ernest and Lynne Machado, agreed with Erick Munoz and sat next to him at Friday's hearing.
But
Larry Thompson, a state's attorney arguing on behalf of the hospital
Friday, said the hospital was trying to protect the rights of the fetus
as it believed Texas law instructed it to do. The hospital's attorneys
cited a section of the Texas Advance Directives Act that reads: "A
person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment under this
subchapter from a pregnant patient."
"There is a life involved, and the life is the unborn child," Thompson told the judge.
Legal
experts interviewed by The Associated Press said the hospital was
misreading the Texas Advance Directives Act and that the law doesn't
have an absolute command to keep someone like Munoz on life support.
"This
patient is neither terminally nor irreversibly ill," said Dr. Robert
Fine, clinical director of the office of clinical ethics and palliative
care for Baylor Health Care System, in an interview earlier this month.
"Under Texas law, this patient is legally dead."
Erick
and Marlise Munoz already had one son, and Erick Munoz told The
Associated Press how he had once looked forward to the birth of their
second child. But both the hospital and his attorneys agreed the fetus
inside Marlise Munoz could not be delivered this early, and not much is
known about the fate of children born to mothers who have suffered brain
death.
Munoz's attorneys said the fetus had
significant abnormalities, including a deformation of the lower body
that made it impossible to determine a gender.
Whether
the Munoz case leads Texas to change the law remains unclear. In recent
years, the Legislature has enacted several new anti-abortion
restrictions, including setting the legal guideline for when a fetus can
feel pain at 20 weeks - a milestone Marlise Munoz's fetus had passed
about three weeks ago.
The case has been noted
by Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the two leading candidates
running to replace him, but none of them has called for any new laws yet
or action as a result of the case.
Republican
Attorney General Greg Abbott, through a spokesman, said the case was a
"heartbreaking tragedy" and that "Texas strives to protect both families
and human life, and we will continue to work toward that end."
Texas
Sen. Wendy Davis, a Democrat from Fort Worth, said through a
spokeswoman that any decision like this "should be made by Mrs. Munoz's
family, in consultation with her doctors."
