FORT WORTH — A Texas judge ruled on Friday that a Fort Worth hospital must remove the life support of a pregnant brain-dead woman, siding with the husband and family in a case that has drawn national attention.
The judge, R. H. Wallace Jr. of State District Court in Tarrant County, ordered John Peter Smith Hospital to pronounce the woman, Marlise Muñoz, dead, and remove her from life support by 5 p.m. on Monday.
Ms. Muñoz, 33, has been on life support since Nov. 26, when she collapsed on her kitchen floor from what appeared to be a blood clot in her lung. She was 14 weeks pregnant. Ms. Muñoz’s husband, Erick Muñoz, 26, as well as her mother and father, said they were told by the hospital that she was brain-dead. They said they had asked the doctors to remove her from respirators, as Ms. Muñoz had urged them to do if she was ever in that situation.
Doctors refused, citing a state law that prevents them from withdrawing or withholding “life-sustaining treatment” from a pregnant patient, and her husband filed suit asking a judge to order the doctors to remove her from the machines.
Mr. Muñoz’s lawyer argued Friday that keeping her on life support would set a dangerous precedent in future cases of pregnant brain-dead women.
