In the case of social contract ethics, citizens of a state are entitled to human rights, considered to be unalienable, and legal rights, which are both protected by the state. When a woman is declared brain-dead, but she is pregnant and kept alive to have the child, it seems like the right thing to do. Brain death occurs when a loss of all brain and brain stem function due to damaged brain cells. Brain deaths are often termed as an irreversible coma as the damaged cells cannot regenerate themselves and a patient is stuck in a coma-like state.
Malise Munoz, a brain-dead pregnant thirty-three-year-old, who was wrongly kept on life support at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. Misconception of the Texas Advance Directives Act by John Peter Smith Hospital staff led to the violation of the contractarian paradigm. The hospital was following the directive to maintain legal immunity for its hospital staff, although the rights of the family were violated along with the medical fundamental principle of healthcare.
When a woman is brain-dead and being kept on a ventilator to allow the …show more content…
A signed consent was never signed, but Marlise’s wishes were not to be on life support, and her husband was honoring her wishes. The intervention interferes with the principle of autonomy of Marlise. As a person with morals, I do believe that life is a blessing. I understand the necessity or at least the value of utilitarian perspective in a society like ours and a situation like this. Instead, John Peter Smith Hospital violated the rights of the Munoz family by inappropriately using Texas directives to hide from a lawsuit. Although the hospital took the correct initial actions upon the arrival of Marlise Munoz, they failed to understand where their treatment should stop. In this case, the rights-based approach to ethics focuses on the need to respect an individual’s legal, and moral rights as the basis of justice and