“Let God be God.”

Sunday 15th April 2018 saw the premiere of a new documentary film by award-winning director Rebecca Haimovitz entitled 62 Days. It is the story of the death of Marlise Munoz and her family’s fight to accord her dignity in death.

Marlise Munoz, aged 33, mother to a 15-month old son, and much-loved wife and daughter, was 14 weeks into her second pregnancy when she collapsed, apparently with a blood clot in her lungs. She was discovered close to death about an hour later by her firefighter paramedic husband. Despite efforts to save her she was pronounced brain dead — legally dead — two days later at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. The hospital, interpreting its duties under Texas law, refused to switch off the life-support machines despite the wishes of her husband and parents, and despite being informed that Marlise had previously stated such a wish. The hospital invoked section 166.049 of the Texas Health and Safety Code — “A person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment from a pregnant patient” — in support of its actions.

Erick Munoz then sued the hospital for “cruel and obscene mutilation of a corpse,” bringing a motion to compel the hospital to remove his wife from life-sustaining measures. On 24 January 2014, State District Judge R.H. Wallace, finding that Marlise Munoz was dead, determined that section 166.049 did not apply to her and ordered the hospital to pronounce her dead and remove all intervention by no later than 5pm on 27 January 2014 — some 62 days since she had collapsed.

This case raises many important ethical, legal, scientific, and human rights questions, including the continuing conflict between efforts to accord personhood or other rights to the fetus and the pregnant woman’s rights to autonomy and privacy. It raises questions about the moment at which rights accrue and the moment at which they are subsequently extinguished. What is the meaning of “dignity in death”? And should the state have the power to keep pregnant women “alive” so that the fetus may potentially be delivered — a power that could be argued amounts to the state “playing God”?

Unfortunately, the case of Marlise Munoz is not unique. Over 25 years earlier, the Superior Court of Georgia granted a declaratory judgment maintaining life support systems for Donna Piazzi, a pregnant but brain-dead woman, in order to preserve the life of her unborn child. The Court found that Donna’s rights to privacy were extinguished upon brain death and that “public policy in Georgia requires the maintenance of life support systems for a brain dead mother so long as there exists a reasonable possibility that the fetus may develop and survive.” The baby was delivered by Caesarean section some 14–15 weeks premature and died of multiple organ failure two days later.

According to the Center For Women Policy Studies, more than thirty states in the U.S. have legislation enabling life-sustaining treatment to be forced upon a terminally ill pregnant woman.

These cases raise the spectre of pregnancy as a condition that diminishes women in the United States. The necessity to debate these issues and their human and constitutional rights implications could not be more urgent and compelling.