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This case is another tragic one that has landed before the courts due to ambiguity around the rights of pregnant women and the rights of their foetus or baby.
In this case, the woman went into hospital at 14 weeks pregnant and within a week was so sick, she was on life support. Sadly, she got worse and was declared legally brain dead, as all brain activity had stopped.
The machines are the only things keeping her alive and while her family want to turn off the machines, the hospital would not because they were unsure if they had a duty of care to the foetus. So they have been keeping her alive on life support to allow the baby stay alive.
The family brought the case to the courts to ask the machines be turned off and doctors have agreed but the 8th amendment is unclear about the rights of the baby and so this family is in limbo now, waiting to get a ruling from the courts.
They will find out on St Stephens day if the machines will be turned off or not.
This is such a muddy issue and the family is going though hell – what do you think should happen?
Why put a family throu such a nightmarre for a foetus that has no or very little chance of life.
Sad it has to go into court for a decision that all the parts invloved agree on.
Fabienne
i can only go on what i would want done for my baby. having been recently pregnant this thought did cross my mind " what if something happens to me ?" i told my partner i would want every effort to save baby if i couldnt be saved. understandably the baby may not live to be born but….. why cant we at least give the baby a chance to be born. on the other side of it i do see where family are coming from they want to bury their daughter and im sure if she was 28 weeks pregnant or in 3rd trimester they would want to keep baby but at this moment in time. the baby may not survive and they have lost their daughter already it is a very hard situation and i think it should come down to what the mother wants but its a subject no doctor or family wants to ask a woman. but i myself wouldnt be offended if that was a question on the check in card. if anything happens to you do you wish the hospital to keep up life support to support baby. it could easily be one of the many many questions to tick while you are waiting for your first appointment. it would save all of these court issues etc.
I read the details on this and found it very distressing. The whole debate was on the rights of the child. Yet, they were giving the child a slow torturous death. If a baby had a temp of 40′ – we would race to the hospital with baby. This baby was being kept at an unnatural temperature in a corpse. It was by no means fully developed and how it could ever develop without a mother I cannot imagine. This has nothing to do with pro-life debate. In the past, if the mother died, the baby died too and it was an accepted part of life. It is not abortion. It is tragic but we cannot play god.
The courts ruled to switch off the life support on 26th December and I think its the right decision.
The doctors explained in court that there was ‘virtually no chance’ of the baby making it and they only kept it going for fear that they would be in trouble if they did not make every possible effort to save the baby. They said the baby was in an extremely critical condition and would not have a chance of developing in the mother’s womb under these circumstances.
Initially I was thinking that if there was a chance the baby could live, then maybe they should keep the life support going but that was before the facts became clear. Now, after hearing the doctors saying there was no chance for this baby and the only reason they were keeping the life support on was because they were afraid they would be in breach of the 8th amendment if they switched it off, they are right to turn it off.
It was all done for legal reasons – not medical and that is not right. The mother was given no consideration and neither were her family. And in a way, it was also cruel to the foetus because it never had a chance or survival so this was just prolonging the inevitable.
I hope now this family can bury their daughter with dignity and start the grieving process.
What a living hell they have been put through. So so sad.
It raises the debate once again about the vague and confusing wording of the 8th amendment. This will need to be looked at again to avoid situations like this. This was a factor in the Savita Halapanaver case too, where she was not allowed a termination, even though her baby was dying and then she lost her own life as a result. They put the baby’s welfare before hers and with this woman too and both the women died too. Its not right. 🙁
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