Suu, your Facebook friends are retards.

[Bu🤠ns]

I think the disconnect that I'm having here isn't about the women's rights laws that texas might potentially impose but that this issue in particular is a familial one.  This father isn't considering the legislative implications but his own selfish ones.  I don't think i'd consider him vile. If I was in his position, I honestly have no idea what I'd do.  I hope that doesn't' make me vile.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

So now the hospital gets to decide, and not the next of kin?

Nobody gets to decide.  The default position is that the pregnancy continues. 

Texas wrote a law that managed to drive a huge wedge between choicers.  There is no good answer to this, and that's no accident.

They are now waiting for the right of choice people to say that the dad has the say.

At that point, they all start cheering, and arrange new and shinier legislation, stating that the father has a say in all kinds of different situations.  And a woman's reproductive freedom, at least in Texas, would now be in the hands of the father.

Paranoid?  Maybe, but I doubt it.  I lived there for years, this is how they get shit done.  And any time you want to think of Texans as hicks, just remember Lyndon Baines Johnson was Texan.  This is not above their capabilities.

You could be right. But ultimately, the father is the next of kin both for the dead mother, and for the fetus, and should have the legal right to decide on life support for BOTH of them, if the fetus if going to be treated as a legal entity. That is completely aside from right to life issues.

From an ethical standpoint, you are correct.  If the kid had been born and the mother and the kid were in this condition, the father would of course have the right to make the decisions.

But that's not how this case will be interpreted.  The far right may be becoming less relevant as time goes on, but it doesn't mean they don't have a few nasty tricks up their sleeves.  At the VERY least, the father's say-so and the viability issue could go full retard in the court system.

Guy doesn't want his SO to have an abortion because she is less likely to leave him if there's a kid.  Guy uses open court case from above to get a "stay" that will of course last longer than the pregnancy itself.

Or whackjobs try to stop abortions at the very fringe of viability, using the viability argument from the above case.

[East Coast Hustle]

I think "ethically, you're right" is really all that matters. Acting unethically because you're worried about how someone else may then act is, well, unethical.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So now the hospital gets to decide, and not the next of kin?

Nobody gets to decide.  The default position is that the pregnancy continues. 

Texas wrote a law that managed to drive a huge wedge between choicers.  There is no good answer to this, and that's no accident.

They are now waiting for the right of choice people to say that the dad has the say.

At that point, they all start cheering, and arrange new and shinier legislation, stating that the father has a say in all kinds of different situations.  And a woman's reproductive freedom, at least in Texas, would now be in the hands of the father.

Paranoid?  Maybe, but I doubt it.  I lived there for years, this is how they get shit done.  And any time you want to think of Texans as hicks, just remember Lyndon Baines Johnson was Texan.  This is not above their capabilities.

You could be right. But ultimately, the father is the next of kin both for the dead mother, and for the fetus, and should have the legal right to decide on life support for BOTH of them, if the fetus if going to be treated as a legal entity. That is completely aside from right to life issues.

From an ethical standpoint, you are correct.  If the kid had been born and the mother and the kid were in this condition, the father would of course have the right to make the decisions.

But that's not how this case will be interpreted.  The far right may be becoming less relevant as time goes on, but it doesn't mean they don't have a few nasty tricks up their sleeves.  At the VERY least, the father's say-so and the viability issue could go full retard in the court system.

Guy doesn't want his SO to have an abortion because she is less likely to leave him if there's a kid.  Guy uses open court case from above to get a "stay" that will of course last longer than the pregnancy itself.

Or whackjobs try to stop abortions at the very fringe of viability, using the viability argument from the above case.

Legally, the viability issue and the next-of-kin issue are inextricably tangled. If the fetus is a person, its mother is dead and its father is the next of kin and has the right to make medical decisions. If the fetus is not a person, its existence is irrelevant to the question of whether the mother stays on life support.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think "ethically, you're right" is really all that matters. Acting unethically because you're worried about how someone else may then act is, well, unethical.

Sometimes you just have to roll around in the gutter.

Allowing reactionary freaks to lead you around by your ethics isn't a win.  It's getting swindled by Texas.  I see less harm in allowing the pregnancy to continue that I do in doing precisely what my opponents want.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Legally, the viability issue and the next-of-kin issue are inextricably tangled. If the fetus is a person, its mother is dead and its father is the next of kin and has the right to make medical decisions. If the fetus is not a person, its existence is irrelevant to the question of whether the mother stays on life support.

But the sticking point here is that the only person allowed to choose which it is, is the mother, who isn't available.

The moment we decide as a society that someone else can make that determination, then the wedge is driven in.

[Left]

My thought/fear is that we don't know if the fetus was irreparably damaged from lack of oxygen in this case?
As mom wasn't found for about an hour.

Thinking... "Congrats, sir, here's your vegetable."

I could see why the husband/dad wouldn't want to continue a pregnancy in a case where ending up  with a viable, but catastrophically brain-damaged child is a big possibility.

Me and girlfriendo were discussing this-if it was our partner who was in this situation, and our potential kid?  Neither of us knew what we'd do...
But I'd rather keep it a private decision than make it the purview of the state...
Tangentially related...
Since the new restrictions on clinics here have gone into effect, women down in the Valley are DIY aborting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/us/looking-to-mexico-for-an-alternative-to-the-abortion-clinic.html

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Legally, the viability issue and the next-of-kin issue are inextricably tangled. If the fetus is a person, its mother is dead and its father is the next of kin and has the right to make medical decisions. If the fetus is not a person, its existence is irrelevant to the question of whether the mother stays on life support.

But the sticking point here is that the only person allowed to choose which it is, is the mother, who isn't available.

The moment we decide as a society that someone else can make that determination, then the wedge is driven in.

No, you are completely missing my point. If the fetus had been a month farther along, they would have C-sectioned it already. Viability is a crucial element in the question of whether, after the death of the mother, the fetus is a human being for which the father is next-of-kin, or not. Right now, in a sense, the fetus is on life support by proxy. The crucial question, legally, is whether it can be declared a person. According current laws, it cannot.

[Reginald Ret]

This is a very important subject, and one where emotions may rise very high.
It is important to think before having an opinion on subjects as sensitive as this.
Therefore i say: Kill them all.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

When did Texas ever have anything to do with "ethics"? */rhetorical*

[East Coast Hustle]

I think you guys are missing my point, which is that acting in a morally objectionable manner in the name of the "greater good" is a slippery slope, the bottom of which history has shown time and time again.

[Reginald Ret]

I think you guys are missing my point, which is that acting in a morally objectionable manner in the name of the "greater good" is a slippery slope, the bottom of which history has shown time and time again.

Agreed.
I still stand behind my solution though.
Whenever someone poses an unsolvable problem like this there can be only one sane response: Prevent them from doing that to you again.
Violence is not unethical if it is in selfdefense.

[hooplala]

I think you guys are missing my point, which is that acting in a morally objectionable manner in the name of the "greater good" is a slippery slope, the bottom of which history has shown time and time again.

It's called Objectivism.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think you guys are missing my point, which is that acting in a morally objectionable manner in the name of the "greater good" is a slippery slope, the bottom of which history has shown time and time again.

You make an excellent point.  On one hand, you are unquestionably correct.  On the other hand, Texas.

I have to think about this.  I have never made it a secret that in some cases, my hate trumps everything else.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

By the time things get anywhere NEAR the Texas legislature, they've lost subtleties like "mom is brain dead, had a horror of life support and left a living will expressly stating that she did not want to be kept "alive", and fetus was without oxygen for an hour, so this is an exceptional case and whatever is decided here should not be applied to women with brain function." Instead, it becomes "HOW CAN WE USE THIS TO FUCK PEOPLE OVER?"

Throwing this one to the wolves for the greater good IS unethical. But I'm not sure it's always possible to deal with garbage like Texas pols without getting some on you.