Brain-Dead Nebraska Mom Karla Perez Kept Alive to Deliver Baby

[joeybee12]

A brain dead Nebraska woman was kept on life support for nearly eight weeks so the baby she was carrying could survive, medical officials said.

Baby Angel — weighing just 2 pounds and 16 ounces — was delivered earlier this month, according to the Methodist Health System. It said Angel's delivery was the first of its kind in the U.S. since 1999.

Methodist Health System said a team of more than 100 doctors, nurses and staff kept Angel's 22-year-old mother Karla Perez alive for 54 days — just long enough to deliver the baby via cesarean section.

"Our team took a giant leap of faith," Sue Korth, vice president and COO of Methodist Women's Hospital, said in a statement Thursday announcing the successful procedure. "We were attempting something that not many before us have been able to do."

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/brain-dead-nebraska-mom-karla-perez-kept-coma-2-months-n351716

Hope the little guy makes it.

[enlightenment]

1. I wonder if anyone

knew what the woman thought about this? I suspect, given her age, that she never really considered the possibility - but perhaps she did.

Personally, I'm not comfortable with the idea of a woman being kept "alive" as an incubator for a fetus.

[joeybee12]

2. If it were me, I would say yes...nt

[Xithras]

3. Ethically, it's no different than donating body parts.

The woman was dead either way, so any debate over the appropriate use of her leftover body bits is really just semantics. SHE no longer existed as a person at that point, so her freedom and perspectives weren't being violated. Whether her body parts were cut out of her and used to prolong one life, or kept on a machine to support the development of another is a judgement call for her family to make.

[enlightenment]

4. Apples and oranges, really.

If you recall the Texas case last year, the husband successfully made the argument that his brain-dead wife would not have wanted to have her body kept alive as an incubator for the fetus.

I'm not concerned with whether or not the dead woman cared - she was dead. I am concerned about the use of a dead person's body as an incubator, which I find substantively different than organ donation, as it does not benefit a living person (a non-viable fetus, which is what the "baby" was when the mother died, is not a living person). Ethically, I find it problematic.

[Xithras]

9. Fetuses are living things.

There is no real debate about that part. They may not be human, or babies, or people, but by nearly any definition of the word, they're certainly alive.

So your objection seems to be about the use of human tissues to keep nonhuman life alive. That's more of a judgement call really. Honestly, if we can use pig heart valves to keep humans alive and fetal tissues to treat human maladies like Parkinson's and paralysis, I don't have any ethical problems with reversing the positions and using human tissues to keep animals and fetal tissues alive. So long as everyone involved consents, we're simply talking about using one set of body parts to keep another living thing from dying.

In the end, it really is the same as a transplant. Harvesting body parts is just a way to use the tissues from one formerly living thing to sustain another currently living thing. In one example, we're pulling individual parts from a body to sustain another life. In this one, we're using the entire body to sustain a life. Whether or not the other life is "human" is just a detail.

And, in the end, it's almost certainly what she would have wanted, so it's also the respectful and humane thing to do.

[enlightenment]

15. I'm discussing a legal standard.

You're discussing biology. Different things. Science can do amazing things, but legally the woman's fetus was not viable when she died. I'm old-fashioned - I think babies become babies when they are born and start breathing. Before that, they are only potentials that may or may not be realized.

I have no objection to organ donation - none. Nor do I object to the use of nonhuman parts (pig, whatever) used to prolong human life (or vice versa ). My issue with this situation is more of a slippery slope argument (not a "what is life" argument or even whether or not this woman would have wanted to be kept functioning until her fetus was viable, something we will never know).

Almost every day I read about some new level of wtf concerning the erosion of the rights of pregnant women. Women who are incarcerated because they drink or use drugs while pregnant. Woman who are charged and convicted because they miscarry - or are forced to undergo medical procedures that threaten their lives, because they are pregnant. (http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/arrested-having-miscarriage-7-appalling-instances-where-pregnant-women-were ).

When I read stories like this one, couched in these "aren't we all happy and good luck little baby" language, a part of me is repelled. I don't hate babies or pregnancy or anything like that - but I do worry that things like this, that are treated as right and proper outcomes, could extend (in the convoluted thinking of the loonie right) to further erode the rights of pregnant women.

Am I a little paranoid? Probably - but I'm not sure I'm completely around the bend on this. It isn't an isolated incident; there are more and more stories about women's bodies being maintained after their deaths to serve as incubators to non-viable fetuses. Six weeks, eight weeks, twelve weeks (just a Google away, if you're curious) . . . at what point do we say that the potential just isn't going to be realized?

Science will continue to push back the boundary of viability and hopefully, they will also figure out a method of gestating outside a woman's body at the same time because as viability is pushed back, it will be easier and easier for those who oppose abortion to push back legal limits - and for those who seem to think pregnant women are nothing more than walking incubators, it will be easier to force new rules and laws to keep them 'in line' until they deliver the product.

[Ms. Toad]

17. Do you have children?

Or have friends or family with children?

What did you call the uterine contents during pregnancy? Since I have never heard anyone, other than facetiously, call a wanted pregnancy a fetus or potential life I'm pretty sure you called a baby, referred to it by gender (if known), and perhaps name - if named in advance. That is how everyone I have ever encountered in real life refers to a wanted pregnancy.

It is only in the context of abortion (or when we're afraid that acknowledging that reality in a related context such as this will lead to a decrease in women's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy) that most people switch to fetus (or similar distancing terms).

In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is referring to it as a fetus or potential that is new fangled; a label that has developed sometime since Roe v. Wade. People who are old fashioned refer to the impending bundle of joy as a baby (or some other live human designator).

[enlightenment]

18. Yes and yes.

As I recall, I referred to it as "the kid" - I think occasionally, "spawn" (still do that 35 years on, come to think of it). I don't recall how others referred to their unborn - probably baby. Not sure what that has to do with this but there's the answer.

Science calls it a fetus (after about nine weeks gestation). US Code calls it an "unborn child". However, you're talking about something that is really quite tangential to the issue of whether or not something (call it a baby/fetus/unborn child/whatever) that could not survive on its own should be kept alive until it develops to a point that it can survive on its own after the woman gestating the <fill in the blank> has died.

I don't consider fetus a distancing term - just the correct term. Sort of like using penis and vagina instead of wee-wee and hoo-haw. There is nothing new-fangled about it, actually.

Here is a link to Google Books - a search limited to the 19th century on the term "fetus":
https://www.google.com/search?q=fetus&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1#q=fetus&tbm=bks&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1800,cd_max:1899

Here is another one: 18th century, this time.
https://www.google.com/search?q=fetus&biw=1138&bih=536&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F1700%2Ccd_max%3A12%2F31%2F1799&tbm=bks

And just because it's easy . . . the 17th century:
https://www.google.com/search?q=fetus&biw=1138&bih=536&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F1600%2Ccd_max%3A12%2F31%2F1699&tbm=bks

And the 16th . . .
https://www.google.com/search?q=fetus&biw=1138&bih=536&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F1500%2Ccd_max%3A12%2F31%2F1599&tbm=bks

Pretty sure the use of the word "fetus" predates Roe vs Wade.

[karynnj]

12. Ethically, it is easy to justify - especially if it is the wish of the family

If you look at Roe vs Wade, the rights of the woman and fetus change over time. At the beginning, all rights belong to the mother. When the fetus becomes viable, the right of the mother change to give some rights to the fetus. When the mother is dead AND the fetus has some potential for life, it seems easy to make an ethical argument that the balance shifts to the fetus - especially if this is the wish of the family.

I note YOU refer to the fetus as "not a living person", BUT it is true that the fetus has the potential for becoming a living person -- as this baby did. I suspect that you are reacting, not to this specific case, where this is what the family wanted - and they are her best advocates, but to this as a general principle.

Here, it was not an outside group, that for ideological reasons demanded the child be born, it was the grieving family that wanted the baby to have a chance.

[karynnj]

8. I know that I would have very much wanted this to happen

To my husband and older daughters, they would have faced not just the loss of me, but also of a very much anticipated child. Here, the person who knew her best, her husband made the decision.

In addition, the woman was not kept "alive", she was dead. From the point she died, she felt no pain. Why do you think she would not have wanted to give her baby a chance to live? What did she actually give up - being buried a few months earlier?

[closeupready]

10. The likely response to you is, 'it wasn't a baby; it was a fetus.'

But I agree with your views.

[karynnj]

14. I intentionally wrote it as I did because I was writing from what I imagined the

position of both my husband and then 3 and 5 year old daughters would have been. The conversation during the pregnancy between us used the word "BABY" -- all though I assure you my well educated, brilliant husband knew the difference in meaning. Consider that norm comments are "we're expecting a baby" and the too old fashion "I'm with child". Not to mention, I was speaking of what was anticipated -- we were all looking forward to having a baby.

Like probably everyone here, I have grieved with friends and relatives when informed that someone "lost a child". No one ever said, they lost a fetus. I know that when that woman died, the fetus was not viable. However I KNOW if both my child and I had died when I was 6 months pregnant with my youngest, my family would have mourned both me and their angel sister, who never lived.

I am willing to bet that almost all expectant moms do not think of what is in her uterus as a fetus, but as a growing baby. Technically, that is incorrect language, but I suspect that just as "fetus" distances someone using that word, using the words "growing baby" has the impact of making the fact that there will be baby more real.

I also realize that this is not just semantics - and to many concerned about keeping abortion legal - the distinction needs to be maintained at all times.

[enlightenment]

16. I'm not going to rewrite what I

wrote above, but I will respond.

Yes, this was a singular incident and I am thinking about general principles.

Yes, I do believe that a fetus is simply a potential until it is able to survive on its own. A baby, in my book, is what a fetus becomes after it is born and begins to breathe.

Yes, I am aware that families in these situations do not feel that way, that they see their potential as a person and refer to it as "baby" - give it a name - etc. I'm a mother and I am familiar with the process and the emotions engendered by carrying a pregnancy. I'm not talking about emotions, though. Just broader responses to the growing ability of the medical community to actually accomplish this sort of thing and how this 'advancement' might be perceived by the anti-abortion/fetus first sector.

[Takket]

5. seeing this makes me think....

This is something a woman should add to her living will, to make sure her wishes are carried out in the event of something like this happening.

[hifiguy]

6. That is an excellent idea

and very clear thinking.

[Aerows]

19. Agreed.

You can only know what the husband thought before this tragedy happened to his wife, because his wife couldn't speak for herself. I have to believe, though, if the child was wanted that the mother would have done this willingly to have a part of herself live on.

I haven't the faintest clue whether she would have approved or not, I just know that the child is here now, and criticizing the circumstances upon its arrival is useless.

[Saphire]

7. off topic, but isn't 2 pounds 16 oz = 3 pounds?

[pipi_k]

11. It's actually

2 lbs 12.6 oz, according to the article

[TeeYiYi]

13. Any woman...

...would want this for her child.

TYY