Anderson Cooper interviews Marlise Munoz’s family, plight of preborn child ignored

Wednesday night, the husband and mother of the late Marlise Munoz gave CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° an exclusive interview chronicling the events that led up to Marlise’s ultimate death, along with that of her pre-born daughter, earlier this week.

The interview primarily vilifies the Texas law that required Marlise to be kept on life support until her baby, whom Marlise was still gestating in her “brain dead” state, had reached viability, and Cooper focused little on the fact that Marlise had been pregnant.

Below is an excerpt of the transcript.

The abortion lobby took a keen interest in the case, and NARAL Pro-Choice America even created a petition asking Attorney General Greg Abbott to address the purported discrepancy between Marlise’s end-of-life wishes as her husband recounted them, and the Texas law that protects the children of pregnant women who are pronounced “brain dead” until they are viable and can be given a chance at life outside the womb (this normally takes place around 24 weeks).

Marlise’s wishes were not documented on paper, and whether or not she would have wanted to be disconnected from her ventilator knowing that it would have prematurely ended her child’s life is unclear. (Brain death as “death” is a development of the early 1980s, and is highly-controversial because its diagnosis can, legally, vary greatly between physicians and hospitals.)