For The Love Of The Unborn
VICTORIA, B.C.–Few can imagine a scenario more heart wrenching than that of Dylan Benson. On December 28, 2013, his beloved wife and high school sweetheart Robyn Benson suffered a severe brain hemorrhage. Doctors could find no way to repair the damage, and the following day she was declared brain dead.
At the time of the hemorrhage, Robyn was 22 weeks pregnant. Dylan Benson insisted his wife be kept on life support so that his child could have a chance of surviving. Now doctors are trying to keep Robyn alive for seven more weeks so the baby boy, to be named Iver, is more viable.
The baby is currently at 27 weeks gestation, and all signs show a healthy and growing fetus.
“Amazingly things are still remaining healthy as far as my wife’s body goes,” said Benson on his blog.
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“She still looks so beautiful, and for the most part she looks like she’s sleeping. I miss her so much. I’m so proud of her for how strong she is holding up for Iver. I wish so badly that I could talk to her just one more time. I’m trying so hard to stay so strong but when I think about having to live the rest of my life without her, it’s so hard.”
“On one hand I can’t wait to meet my son and try and give him the best life possible and try my hardest to be a great dad for him, on the other hand I know that the day or the day after he is born will be the day that I have to say goodbye to Robyn.”
This story comes just a week after a contentious court case in Texas involving very similar circumstances. In that case, Marlise Munoz of Forth Worth, Texas, became brain dead when she was 14 weeks pregnant. Her husband, Erick Munoz, stated that his wife never wanted to be on life support after she died, and said that that they had talked about it at length prior to her death since they were both paramedics.
However, Texas law intervened when the doctors were about to take Marlise off of life support. Officials at John Peter Smith Hospital argued that state law required them to maintain life-sustaining treatment for a pregnant patient.
“I thought, there must have been a miscommunication in some way. We said ‘No, no, no. That’s not what she wanted. She wanted never to be on life support.’ They said, ‘Well, but she’s pregnant.’ And then, you know, it went from there,” Machado said in an interview with CNN. “We knew we weren’t going to let this rest, because it wasn’t right. It was not honoring her wishes.”
The family finally won their court case, but there was no sense of victory. After Marlise was taken off life support however, the family felt they could finally grieve properly, and found comfort in the knowledge that their decision was what Marlise would have wanted. As for the unborn daughter, the family grieves for her as well, but do not think she would have survived even if Marlise had been kept alive. Attorneys for the family testified that the fetus was ‘distinctly abnormal‘, while Erick Munoz continued to argue that his wife’s wishes shouldn’t be disregarded just because she was pregnant.