Marlise's Law Would Allow Families To End Life Support For Pregnant Patients

AZLE (CBSDFW.COM) - A Texas mother is on a mission to spare other families from her same pain she experienced more than a year ago.

Lynne Machado watched powerlessly for more than two months, beginning in November 2013, while her daughter Marlise Munoz was hooked up to life support at a Fort Worth hospital.

Munoz was brain dead, but 14 weeks pregnant. Her pregnancy took away her family's right to end artificial support, according to Texas law.

"It was a very difficult journey to see our daughter on artificial support for 62 days when we knew she was dead. The hospital had confirmed that," said Lynne Machado.

Machado was on-hand in Austin to help introduce "Marlise's law" at the Texas legislature. The bill would remove language from the state's health code that bars doctors from ending artificial support for a pregnant patient.

"It's a way to further honor our daughter's name, since we weren't able to honor her wishes," Machado told CBS 11.

It's a highly debated topic and will be through-out this legislature.

A competing bill would do the opposite of "Marlise's law" by assigning an attorney to a pregnant patient's fetus.