Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%

Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.

Brain-Dead Woman 'Gives Birth'

By Wendy Kaplan Ampolsk
August 30, 2005

A few weeks ago, the media was all over a touching story: A 26-year-old pregnant woman, suffering from a fast-moving malignant melanoma, tragically died when the tumor attacked her brain. Unlike the Terri Schiavo case, the woman's grieving husband and family all accepted that she was dead. But, believing that she would have wanted them to save her baby against all odds, they arranged for her to stay on life-support until the fetus was viable enough to be taken from its brain-dead mother.

The woman's body was kept “alive” for 3 months until the cancer, which was also growing due to the life support, ravaged the body and threatened to harm the fetus. At that time, the baby was removed from the mother's body, which was allowed to finally die along with the brain. Delivered at 29 weeks, the baby is reportedly healthy and doing well; any implications of the mother's disease to the baby are not yet known, but, according to the media quoting the doctors, it seems unlikely.

Read These Next
Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It Image

Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?

Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough Image

There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.

The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement Policy: One Year Later Image

The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.

A Lawyer's System for Active Reading Image

Active reading comprises many daily tasks lawyers engage in, including highlighting, annotating, note taking, comparing and searching texts. It demands more than flipping or turning pages.

Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent Trolls Image

With trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.