Marlise Nicole Muñoz (August 20, 1980 – November 28, 2013) was an American woman at the center of a medical ethics controversy between November 2013 and January 2014. She suffered a suspected pulmonary embolism and was declared brain dead. Because she was pregnant, doctors at a Texas hospital kept her body on a ventilator in the intensive care unit despite the determination of brain death. Muñoz's husband entered a legal battle to have her removed from life support. A Texas law restricts the application of advance directives in pregnant patients, but Muñoz's husband argued that the law was not applicable because his wife was legally dead. A judge ordered the hospital to remove life support and her cardiac functions stopped on January 26, 2014. A Haltom City man has filed a lawsuit against John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth in an effort to remove his pregnant wife from life support. In the lawsuit, Erick Munoz's lawyers claim keeping 33-year-old Marlise Munoz on life support is against her Fourteenth Amendment right since she told loved ones she didn't want to be kept alive by a machine. The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no State shall 'deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, the suit reads. The principle that a competent person has a constitutionally protected liberty interest in making decisions regarding their own body began at common law. The lawsuit further states since Mrs. Munoz is brain dead, she cannot possibly be a 'pregnant patient.' On the morning of Nov. 26, Mr. Munoz found his wife unconscious on the floor of the couple's kitchen. Mr. Munoz said later that day he was told by doctors at JPS Hospital that his wife 14 weeks pregnant with the couple s second child was brain dead. Doctors told Mrs. Munoz's family they suspect she suffered a pulmonary embolism. Since then, Mr. Munoz has been in a battle with JPS Hospital to remove his wife from life support. While tests on his wife's fetus show a normal h

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