Close Menu
The Baylor Lariat
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube LinkedIn
    Trending
    • Students react to emergency alert following campus lockdown
    • Baylor shelter-in-place lifted following police pursuit of robbery suspects
    • Baylor graduate charged after killing cats with pellet gun, hanging bodies over utility lines
    • Baylor Football’s Alex Foster dies at 18
    • Board of Regents confirms budget, renovations, new leadership in May meeting
    • How facilities responds to storms, flooding in campus buildings
    • Welcome Week leaders now paid in hopes of increasing numbers
    • 5 Baylor sports storylines to look forward to in 2025-26
    • About us
      • Spring 2025 Staff Page
      • Copyright Information
    • Contact
      • Contact Information
      • Letters to the Editor
      • Subscribe to The Morning Buzz
      • Department of Student Media
    • Employment
    • PDF Archives
    • RSS Feeds
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube LinkedIn
    The Baylor LariatThe Baylor Lariat
    Subscribe to the Morning Buzz
    Tuesday, July 8
    • News
      • State and National News
        • State
        • National
      • Politics
        • 2025 Inauguration Page
        • Election Page
      • Homecoming Page
      • Baylor News
      • Waco Updates
      • Campus and Waco Crime
    • Arts & Life
      • Wedding Edition 2025
      • What to Do in Waco
      • Campus Culture
      • Indy and Belle
      • Sing 2025
      • Leisure and Travel
        • Leisure
        • Travel
          • Baylor in Ireland
      • Student Spotlight
      • Local Scene
        • Small Businesses
        • Social Media
      • Arts and Entertainment
        • Art
        • Fashion
        • Food
        • Literature
        • Music
        • Film and Television
    • Opinion
      • Editorials
      • Points of View
      • Lariat Letters
    • Sports
      • March Madness 2025
      • Football
      • Basketball
        • Men’s Basketball
        • Women’s Basketball
      • Soccer
      • Baseball
      • Softball
      • Volleyball
      • Equestrian
      • Cross Country and Track & Field
      • Acrobatics & Tumbling
      • Tennis
      • Golf
      • Pro Sports
      • Sports Takes
      • Club Sports
    • Lariat TV News
    • Multimedia
      • Video Features
      • Podcasts
        • Don’t Feed the Bears
      • Slideshows
    • Advertising
    The Baylor Lariat
    Home»News

    Pregnant, brain-dead woman’s husband sues hospital

    webmasterBy webmasterJanuary 14, 2014 News No Comments4 Mins Read
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    By Nomaan Merchant
    Associated Press

    DALLAS — The fate of a brain-dead, pregnant Texas woman and her fetus likely will be decided in a courtroom after the woman’s husband sued the hospital keeping her on life support against his wishes.

    Erick Munoz filed a lawsuit in state district court in Fort Worth, where his wife, Marlise Munoz, has been on life support since he found her unconscious in their North Texas home on Nov. 26. She was 14 weeks pregnant at the time. Her family says the exact cause of her condition isn’t known, though a blood clot is a possibility.

    Erick and Marlise Munoz, both paramedics, had seen life and death up close and he previously told The Associated Press that his wife was clear with him: If she fell into a condition like this, pull life support and let her die.

    John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, however, has refused to take Marlise Munoz off machines, citing a state law the hospital says requires it to continue treating a pregnant patient.

    Munoz’s lawsuit says that law doesn’t apply because Marlise Munoz is legally and medically dead. The condition of her fetus is unclear.

    “Marlise Munoz is dead, and she gave clear instructions to her husband and family — Marlise was not to remain on any type of artificial ‘life sustaining treatment,’ ventilators or the like,” the lawsuit said. “There is no reason JPS should be allowed to continue treatment on Marlise Munoz’s dead body, and this court should order JPS to immediately discontinue such.”

    The Tarrant County District Attorney’s office, which is representing the public hospital, said its attorneys were reviewing the lawsuit and had no immediate response Tuesday. Hospital spokeswoman J.R. Labbe previously has said hospital officials stand by their position: “This is not a difficult decision for us. We are following the law.”

    The Texas Advance Directives Act reads in part that, “A person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment under this subchapter from a pregnant patient.”

    But experts say the hospital is incorrectly applying the statute because Munoz is brain-dead and beyond any chance of recovery.

    “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.”

    Texas is one of 12 states across a wide political spectrum that automatically invalidate a pregnant woman’s advance health care directive. The others are: Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, South Carolina, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin, according to a 2012 report by the Center for Women Policy Studies, an advocacy group that supports abortion rights.

    “This one, I think, will probably be of course very painful but also might set some precedents,” said Leslie Wolfe, the center’s president, in an interview. Wolfe said she could not recall a similar case in recent years.

    Erick Munoz’s attorneys have asked for an expedited ruling in a case that likely needs to be resolved in weeks, not months. No hearing was set as of Tuesday afternoon.

    There is some precedent for the successful delivery of a child in similar situations. A 2010 article in the journal BMC Medicine found 30 cases of brain-dead pregnant women over about 30 years. Of 19 reported results, the journal found 12 in which a viable child was born and had post-birth data for two years on only six of them — all of whom developed normally, according to the journal.

    The article said a fetus has about a 20 to 30 percent chance of survival at 24 weeks of gestation — a milestone believed to be about three weeks away — but a much higher chance, 80 percent, at 28 weeks, and a 98 percent chance at 32 weeks.

    The Munoz family has said they do not know the condition of the fetus, and their attorneys did not respond to requests for interviews after the lawsuit was filed Tuesday. Marlise Munoz is believed to have been without oxygen for some time before her husband found her.

    Doctors have told Erick Munoz they are monitoring the fetus, but Munoz has said he’s uncertain about how healthy the fetus will be given his wife’s condition.

    “You know what kind of damage my wife sustained, and what kind of possible damage the baby inside her sustained,” he said recently.

    Brain-dead court Texas
    webmaster

    Keep Reading

    Students react to emergency alert following campus lockdown

    Baylor shelter-in-place lifted following police pursuit of robbery suspects

    Baylor Football’s Alex Foster dies at 18

    Board of Regents confirms budget, renovations, new leadership in May meeting

    How facilities responds to storms, flooding in campus buildings

    Welcome Week leaders now paid in hopes of increasing numbers

    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Recent Posts
    • Students react to emergency alert following campus lockdown June 27, 2025
    • Baylor shelter-in-place lifted following police pursuit of robbery suspects June 26, 2025
    About

    The award-winning student newspaper of Baylor University since 1900.

    Articles, photos, and other works by staff of The Baylor Lariat are Copyright © Baylor® University. All rights reserved.

    Subscribe to the Morning Buzz

    Get the latest Lariat News by just Clicking Subscribe!

    Follow the Live Coverage
    Tweets by @bulariat

    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube LinkedIn
    • Featured
    • News
    • Sports
    • Opinion
    • Arts and Life
    © 2025 ThemeSphere. Designed by ThemeSphere.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.