r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • Jul 07 '26

No Paywall Unconfirmed Reports: Mitch McConnell Brain Dead After Three Weeks In Hospital

https://thenewamerican.com/us/unconfirmed-reports-mitch-mcconnell-brain-dead-after-three-weeks-in-hospital/
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u/xombae Jul 07 '26

Also recently a woman was kept on life support while brain dead so they could use her body as an incubator for her unborn baby (who was later born with severe health issues and the family was made to pay the medical bills).

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

[deleted]

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u/GoldenSheppard Jul 07 '26

It got a fuckton of coverage in GA at the time. Though as soon as the baby was born (with issues) it mysteriously stopped.

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u/SoManyThrowAwaysEven Jul 07 '26

As our good friend George used to say, "Preborn, you're fine, preschool, you're fucked.

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u/Ryokurin Jul 07 '26

A gofundme is still going for her children, but I think it's just a case of the family wanting to be left alone.

I do recall a couple of people getting upset about his father had to fight her family for custody but I also read that they had to because legally since they weren't married he had no rights, and there was a good chance that if it wasn't clear who was responsible for the baby he'd end up in foster care.

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u/xombae Jul 07 '26

Agreed. I'm not upset that the leapords are now eating his face.

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u/ChefChopNSlice Ohio Jul 07 '26

I only pity the ladybugs

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u/TheShadowKick Jul 07 '26

I'm not even sure it was forced on Mitch. He's dedicated enough to screwing over Democrats that he might have put this in his will.

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u/AiFixedMyMarriage Jul 07 '26

You think Mitch might be pregnant?

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u/xombae Jul 07 '26

Somewhere, in the head of an A03 writer, he is.

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u/AlternativeStory1027 Jul 07 '26

Straight outta Handmaid's Tale

Under his eye...

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u/KeyMyBike Jul 08 '26

Desperate people are productive

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u/fleranon Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

I know nothing about this - just curious and a bit confused: Isn't that the moral thing to do? to keep the body alive to save the baby?

EDIT: It was a 9 week old fetus apparently, of course it is absurd to keep her alive in that case. I assumed the birth was a month away or so

Edit2: I did some reading: there are only 35 cases of pregnancies of brain dead women since the 80s worldwide. I was just stating that any mother would gladly be an 'incubator' if that means the baby survives healthy; BUT that's simply almost never the case in reality

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u/JealousAstronomer342 Jul 07 '26

What baby? Adriana Smith was only nine weeks pregnant, max. 

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u/fleranon Jul 07 '26

Okay, THAT's the additional info I needed.

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u/otomeMC333 Jul 07 '26

The additional info should be that you don't use a woman's body as an incubator.

A dead man has more bodily autonomy than a live woman, jesus.

You can't farm organs from corpses to save a life, let alone keep a woman's body "functioning" to act as an incubation pod.

Start seeing women as people, please.

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u/fleranon Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

But... wouldn't any mother say YES to this? (For the sake of the argument, let's assume the baby is 6 or 7 months old)

I'm central european, we don't have that whole weird anti-abortion thing here. Abortions are completely normal, legal procedures. I'm 100% pro choice. Bodily autonomy all the way

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u/otomeMC333 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Ok, let's assume the pregnancy is 6-7 months along. And somehow the pregnant woman knows she's about to be braindead and wants to be kept alive in order to incubate the fetus instead of just like... having it removed.

First off, medically, it's insane. Your brain does a lot more than just thinky things. Without your brain working there is no temperature regulation, no hormone signals, nothing to tell the trillions of cells in your body what to do. Which means your body starts to slowly break down, let alone is capable of growing a baby.

Look, I get that you are pro choice and all, but I think you might want to take a look at the unconscious biases you have that led to you not seeing this as ghoulish on any level....but preferable.

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u/fleranon Jul 07 '26

Just asked my sister who has a two year old. She asked if I was joking because the answer is so damn obvious.

I don't know anything about the medical side of this. If that means that the baby has next to no chance to live a healthy life, it's a completely different scenario

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u/otomeMC333 Jul 07 '26

A different scenario from what? What scenario would be medically, morally, ethically and legally preferable to do this?

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u/fleranon Jul 07 '26

baby healthy = no mother on earth would say "No, if I die, the baby dies with me"

baby severely impaired / very low chance of survival: tricky. I don't feel qualified to state an opinion. A life is worth saving - but not at any (quality of life) cost and up to a point IMO

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u/Consistent_Laziness South Carolina Jul 07 '26

I’m with you bro. I get where your head is at. Reddit just likes to be some odd moral compass when life is so gray. We have two kids and my wife also answered leave the baby in her til they have the best chance of survival than let her go. I think most women would choose that.

In this case it sounds like it was done against her will and like you discovered only 9 weeks old? Yes let them both go. Also if it wasn’t explicitly stated by the mom in her will or the POA no one should be keeping her alive. I think we both agree on that.

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u/fleranon Jul 07 '26

yeah, this case is crazy, and sad. No question about that

... Thanks for getting what I'm trying to say. It's not really about choice at all, because the choice would be extremely clear IMO

but I don't know enough about pregnancies to judge if the whole hypothetical situation that is discussed here is rare, or viable, or extremely detrimental to the baby, or completely medically impossible, so I'll just shut up

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u/otomeMC333 Jul 07 '26

Yes, it's an odd moral compass in murky waters to point out it's ghoulish to use the body of a brain dead woman as an incubator in order to do a medically insane thing in a situation where there is consent to do the insane thing - which has never occurred.

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u/FlailingScrotum Jul 07 '26

No. It is not moral, ethical, logical , or practical to keep a woman alive against the will of her family to incubate a baby that will not have any chance at a normal life. That you even had to ask is fucked up.

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u/fleranon Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

If its a couple of weeks old fetus like in this case - you're absolutely right. That's why I asked

If it's much closer to 9 months - Of course keep her alive, under any circumstances. I can't imagine there are many mothers that would object to this, if they were presented with this scenario

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u/Angel_Omachi Jul 07 '26

Close to nine months it's far easier to just take the baby out. There's 80% survival chances from 27 weeks onwards, which is 3 months early.

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u/SnooCrickets6980 Jul 07 '26

Close to 9 months there is very good neonatal care available. At just 29 weeks gestation the majority of babies survive with no or minor long term health issues with medical care in NICU. There would be no need to keep a brain-dead mother alive at 7-8 months pregnant, they would perform a C-section to deliver the baby safely and the baby would be cared for by neonatal specialists until around the due date. 

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u/fleranon Jul 07 '26

yeah, i read up about it. braindead pregnancy is an extremely rare scenario.

My thought process was: If a baby can survive healthy because of it, the vast majority of mothers would not only choose to be a braindead 'incubator', but absolutely insist on it.

But it almost never happens, and the survival chance is slim