- Who decides if a pregnant woman can be taken off of life support? The family? The hospital? The State? 62 DAYS is a documentary film about Marlise Muñoz, a brain-dead pregnant woman whose family was forced to keep her on life support against her wishes. This film shows the human story behind the headlines, and shines a light on a controversial law.
- 62 DAYS tells the story of Marlise Muñoz, a brain-dead pregnant woman whose family was forced to keep her on life support against her wishes. The film follows the Muñoz family's journey from private loss, to unwanted media attention, and finally towards activism as they fight to change this law.—Rebecca Haimowitz
- Marlise Muñoz was 33 years old and 14 weeks pregnant with her second child when she died. She suffered a pulmonary embolism and was pronounced brain-dead in a hospital in Fort Worth, TX. Marlise had previously told her family that she never wanted to be on life support, under any circumstances. And since a brain-dead patient is in fact legally dead, that should have been the end of this sad story. But the Muñoz family was forced to keep Marlise on mechanical support against their will for 62 days, because of a little known law that states "a person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment... from a pregnant patient."
What followed was a painful ordeal, with critical implications about bodily integrity, rights and liberty.
The media picked up the story and the blogosphere wildly debated what choice the family should make. But the bottom line was: the family didn't have a choice. The case ignited polarizing opinions; one side argued that if anything could be done to save this fetus, it should. The other claimed that the State was imposing a ghoulish and cruel mandate on the family, using a dead woman's body to incubate a fetus.
The film reveals that this is not an anomaly: there are currently 32 states (and counting) with similar or identical pregnancy exclusion policies. The Muñoz' personal journey is the jumping-off point for a timely examination of a growing trend of laws that seek to control a pregnant woman's body.
Even her dead body.
62 DAYS uses evocative and artistic filmmaking to humanize a polarizing event, exploring the depths and complexities of a controversial subject through personal storytelling. The film begins as a tragedy, unfolds like a thriller, and ends as a call to action. It is a suspenseful and emotional short film that presents an intimate portrait of a family in crisis, and reveals a growing political trend.
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