To the editor:
The Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours on January 25 was from the book of Deuteronomy 24:16 which stated: "Parents shall not be put to death for their children nor children put to death for their parents." It was hard to understand this because of the awful circumstances of what Eric Munoz was a part of in Texas the day before. It was a tragic situation in that his pregnant wife developed a blood clot and was put on a ventilator. The hospital refused to take her off the ventilator because the Texas Law was there to protect the unborn child. The media kept referring to "the fetus" like it was just a throw away object.
I would encourage any reader to look at the 1965 issue of Life Magazine. It shows a reality that is once again overlooked in the media in this terrible situation; the visible humanity of the pre-born. Ask parents that view their pre-born children from a 4D ultrasound about the reality of their pre-born son or daughter.
This tragedy first occurred when his wife Marlise was 14 weeks pregnant, when all the systems of the pre-born child are developed and fully functioning, including a heartbeat. Eric’s pre-born child then reached 22 weeks gestation, which the media implied that the child had not reached viability. Viability is a function of measuring the advancement of medical technology and the ability to sustain life not the status of that life. It measures the advancement of external life support systems not the humanness of the premature infant.
Dependency does not affect the status of whether someone is human or not. It reflects the fragile state of the human being’s situation not their humanity. So the ventilator was turned off and two lives ended tragically, not one.
Fr. James Hewes
Rochester
