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Clinicaly dead pregnant woman on life support

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    #812
    Shrap
    Registered Users Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    I don't blame anyone here for their comments as this is a very powerful debate regarding this situation. We're all only human at the end of the day. I admire the compassion forwarded here in after-hours. Whatever our disagreements are I just hope the right decision is made.

    It's so, so awful and I respect that everyone is incredibly saddened and that the anger that is being felt comes from our utter helplessness over the situation. However, this powerful debate is the face of a very steep learning curve for an awful lot of people who are now seeing the reality of what it is to value the life of a 16 week old foetus to this extent.

    I don't blame anyone for their comments as mostly they come from a lack of education into the issue of the 8th amendment. I blame the fact that this lack of education has meant (until now) that we could never speak of a foetus as being less deserving of life than an adult woman and we only ever talk about it on the back of the latest tragedy and abuse of a woman.


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    #813
    Stheno
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 51,687 Mod ✭✭✭✭Stheno


    bogwalrus wrote: »
    Would you agree then that the decision is more of the medical experts decision to pull the plug?

    As in they advise the family that there is no chance the fetus will survive and the parents either agree or disagree with the doctors advice.

    I mean if the parents wanted to keep their daughter on life support with the hope of the fetus surviving would the doctors actually let them?

    Firstly her father (her mother is dead) took the court action. Secondly, Did you read the reports today? The womans brain has fungus growing on it, she is on six different lots of treatments, has high blood pressure, a constant temperature and is brain dead. What parent would want that? Her children were upset at seeing her and one refused to look at her?

    The law currently allows that technically she can be kept on life support to maintain the foetus.


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    #814
    drkpower
    Registered Users Posts: 5,475 ✭✭✭drkpower


    It is conceivable that the rationale of this decision (if it goes in favour of discontinuation of treatment) may open up the door to legal termination in the case of fatal foetal abnormality.

    Perhaps something good might come out of this tragedy.


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    #815
    volchitsa
    Registered Users Posts: 7,371 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    bogwalrus wrote: »
    Would you agree then that the decision is more of the medical experts decision to pull the plug?

    As in they advise the family that there is no chance the fetus will survive and the parents either agree or disagree with the doctors advice.

    I mean if the parents wanted to keep their daughter on life support with the hope of the fetus surviving would the doctors actually let them?

    Surely the medical advice is usually taken by the family, and only in the cases where there is a breakdown in communications does it need to go to court?

    But it should be a medical opinion, not a legal one.

    That is the only difference with other countries where these problems (around pregnancy, such as brain death in this case) also occur regularly - and it is the legal constraint that makes them insoluble in Ireland.


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    #816
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Stheno wrote: »
    In this particular case though, how much more do the family endure in the hope that a normal healthy child is delivered?

    And more broadly, how much longer do we have to see Ireland in the international press year after year due to our badly written constitution which causes cases like this again and again?

    And even worse, how many more families will have to suffer due to gray laws which leave medics confused and families having to find the resources to mount high court challenges?

    And also the United Nations constant response to Ireland regarding our human rights issues.


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    #817
    mrbike
    Registered Users Posts: 110 ✭✭mrbike


    Stheno wrote: »
    I fear that the High Court will be constrained in their decision making ability and we will see more of a quagmire developing with this poor family having to endure it.

    Multiple medical professionals today stated that the foetus is currently healthy, so according to the eight, it has a right to life.

    Sadly I think you're right. It's a legal matter, based around the 8th amendment. The wishes of the family or the recommendations of the medical professionals carry no weight. As long as the foetus is alive, regardless of current health or future prospects, under our constitution, it has the right to life.


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    #818
    wendell borton
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,336 ✭✭✭wendell borton


    How many more disgusting incidents have to occur before the 8th amendment is removed.
    As the current case has just shown such a sledgehammer piece of legislation cannot govern such a complicated area.


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    #819
    Hollister11
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,482 ✭✭✭Hollister11


    Feel sorry for the family of course, but if the baby can keep growing and be kept alive the body should be kept on life support, regardless of what he family want.


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    #820
    Shrap
    Registered Users Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    Hollister11 wrote: »
    Feel sorry for the family of course, but if the baby can keep growing and be kept alive the body should be kept on life support, regardless of what he family want.

    Why, for goodness sake?? Have you read the last 10 pages of this thread or so? Have you read the prognosis for the foetus? Have you read what is happening to the woman's body and how it's only getting worse? Why do you value the life of one 16 week foetus over the appalling horror of this family's situation?


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    #821
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Just 'don't forget' that the medical experts said their piece, and genuinely gave their realistic opinions as medical professionals. Who are we to disregard their genuine medical advise in this case ?.

    These medical experts will always uphold the life of a human being to the best of their ability, but when they say what they said in court you have to respect their professional view as hard as it can be. I'm with the medical professionals at this time.


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    #822
    Cantremember
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,305 ✭✭✭Cantremember


    wendell borton wrote: »
    How many more disgusting incidents have to occur before the 8th amendment is removed.
    As the current case has just shown such a sledgehammer piece of legislation cannot govern such a complicated area.

    It's not a sledgehammer it's an idiotic unreal form of words rooted in "revealed" religion i.e. Essentially a magical understanding of life. It is primitivism written into the practice of modern medicine. The decision should rest with doctors and her family: not wannabe lawyers and "debaters" here and never again priests.


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    #823
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Hollister11 wrote: »
    Feel sorry for the family of course, but if the baby can keep growing and be kept alive the body should be kept on life support, regardless of what he family want.

    It's not a baby, have you delved into this case at all ? It is a fetus.


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    #824
    Shrap
    Registered Users Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    It's not a baby, have you delved into this case at all ? It is a foetus.

    It's a foetus that should be dead already. To put it very bluntly.







    Cue horror, shock and dismay from many that I could be so "heartless".


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    #825
    bodice ripper
    Registered Users Posts: 4,681 ✭✭✭bodice ripper


    This is what you wanted isn't it Bogwalrus, justification?

    The foetus can die this time, now that we've turned a woman into a medical experiment without her consent, a mother into a horror that will haunt her children, and let her father watch her rot slowly for a few weeks.

    So this time it's ok.


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    #826
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Shrap wrote: »
    It's a foetus that should be dead already. To put it very bluntly.







    Cue horror, shock and dismay from many that I could be so "heartless".

    Well we can all understand the situation of this problem now, and it's one hell of a situation to think and ponder about in this country now. It's one hell of a tough one on the brain that's for sure, and I'd say most will agree.

    It's a catch 22, but I will go with the medical advice of the medic professionals. Still, it's heavy stuff.


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    #827
    AboutaWeekAgo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 651 ✭✭✭AboutaWeekAgo


    Hollister11 wrote: »
    Feel sorry for the family of course, but if the baby can keep growing and be kept alive the body should be kept on life support, regardless of what he family want.

    Sorry for being so blunt but it's the only way I can put it. You think her body should be left to rot in a hospital bed just to keep a foetus growing even though there is a very slim chance that it will survive? That's not right.


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    #828
    bodice ripper
    Registered Users Posts: 4,681 ✭✭✭bodice ripper


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    Well we can all understand the situation of this problem now, and it's one hell of a situation to think and ponder about in this country now. It's one hell of a tough one on the brain that's for sure, and I'd say most will agree.

    It's a catch 22, but I will go with the medical advice of the medic professionals. Still, it's heavy stuff.

    Did you read that article? It's not a tough one, the plug should have been ****ing pulled when the family asked.


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    #829
    Shrap
    Registered Users Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    It's one hell of a tough one on the brain that's for sure, and I'd say most will agree.

    It's a catch 22, but I will go with the medical advice of the medic professionals. Still, it's heavy stuff.

    I don't see it as a catch 22 at all. You either value the life of a tiny non sentient foetus as much as the life/dignity in death of a woman, or you think this is atrocious. At some point, people are going to have to put their brains in gear and use their imaginations to realise that this is the very reason people (like me) have been melting their heads for 30 years trying to tell people the 8th is a dangerously abusive article that damages people's lives, in some cases beyond repair.

    Please delve into the reasons it was brought in in the first place, the warnings that were given at the time and the multitude of hardships that it has brought about. And then tell your politician that you'll vote to repeal it. There is no other way to stop these disasters from happening. They made sure of that when they wrote it.


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    #830
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    bodice ripper wrote: »
    Did you read that article? It's not a tough one, the plug should have been ****ing pulled when the family asked.

    It is a catch-22 scenario when you take every-ones comments into consideration.

    I do agree, but what I was saying is that it is a catch-22 situation when you take every-ones comments into respect. I'm not going to degrade another persons comments. I have been following this tragic news from the beginning so I fully understand the issue here.


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    #831
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Shrap wrote: »
    I don't see it as a catch 22 at all. You either value the life of a tiny non sentient foetus as much as the life/dignity in death of a woman, or you think this is atrocious. At some point, people are going to have to put their brains in gear and use their imaginations to realise that this is the very reason people (like me) have been melting their heads for 30 years trying to tell people the 8th is a dangerously abusive article that damages people's lives, in some cases beyond repair.

    Please delve into the reasons it was brought in in the first place, the warnings that were given at the time and the multitude of hardships that it has brought about. And then tell your politician that you'll vote to repeal it. There is no other way to stop these disasters from happening. They made sure of that when they wrote it.

    In bold above... You are not taking into concideration all of the different views and comments here. I have already made my point on where I stand in this case. Open the box and step out and try to understand the bigger picture regarding all views.


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    #832
    Sala
    Registered Users Posts: 1,494 ✭✭✭Sala


    I hate to say it, but this case could be a turning point with regard to the law. Obviously I mean that with the greatest respect to the loved ones who just want to do their best to treat the girl with dignity and not become some sort of legal precedent.

    But, the tone has changed on this thread and that, in my opinion, is rare in regard to anything to do with the 8th amendment. Usually the arguments go around and around- today we have seen people change their position, or just opt out. I don't think anyone had any idea of the horrors of this case. Even though I was fully in support of the rights of the next of kin to decide, I did have the "coma" image that many have alluded to. I suspect very few of us knew what was actually going on and the facts are so awful they have the ability to change people's minds.


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    #833
    Shrap
    Registered Users Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Shrap


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    In bold above... You are not taking into concideration all of the different views and comments here. I have already made my point on where I stand in this case. Open the box and step out and try to understand the bigger picture regarding all views.

    Jesus H., Why should I take on board the view that a nonsentient unformed foetus should have the same right to life as me?

    Why don't you make an attempt not to condescend to me and have a go at imagining what it must be like to have a crisis pregnancy in this country? Imagine how you'd feel abandoned, rejected, controlled, spat out by your very own country if your foetus had a fatal abnormality and you had to make your own health care arrangements in a different country?

    I understand that people like yourself have these sentimental views about a foetus (being a cute baby, is mostly what is said. So wrong), but I don't have to take it on board. I have lived my whole life here in the knowledge that if you have a crisis pregnancy in Ireland, your country cannot be depended on to look after you right - sometimes to the point that you could die by a constitutional abuse of your bodily autonomy.

    It is this very sentimentality about a 4 month old foetus that has this situation happening today. People need to OWN that and look to the 8th amendment for what to change.

    Edit: I'm sorry. I didn't want to descend into having a go at people. It's late, and this is such a mindfcuk for everyone. I do understand that you're struggling with the concept of saving a foetus not necessarily being the right thing to do, but it's an ongoing and daily concept that women have dealt with and decided upon for time immemorial. Not a catch 22 at all to the 12 women every day who decide that they are going to abort their pregnancies. It seems obvious to them and to me.


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    #834
    um7y1h83ge06nx
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,029 ✭✭✭um7y1h83ge06nx


    The reports are simply horrendous. It reads like some weird and twisted medical experiment that a Nazi doctor would have performed.

    Impossible to describe what it must be like for her family. Terrible too for the doctors to have their hands tied legally and having to let things come to this.

    It's is unimaginable that the ruling on the 26th would allow this continue in light of so much expert medical opinion.


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    #835
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    This is what happens when dogma causes people to abstract themselves so far from realty that they're willing to tie themselves into all sorts of horrendous legal knots.

    Our laws in this area don't care about the reality of life at all.


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    #836
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Shrap wrote: »
    Jesus H., Why should I take on board the view that a nonsentient unformed foetus should have the same right to life as me?

    Why don't you make an attempt not to condescend to me and have a go at imagining what it must be like to have a crisis pregnancy in this country? Imagine how you'd feel abandoned, rejected, controlled, spat out by your very own country if your foetus had a fatal abnormality and you had to make your own health care arrangements in a different country?

    I understand that people like yourself have these sentimental views about a foetus (being a cute baby, is mostly what is said. So wrong), but I don't have to take it on board. I have lived my whole life here in the knowledge that if you have a crisis pregnancy in Ireland, your country cannot be depended on to look after you right - sometimes to the point that you could die by a constitutional abuse of your bodily autonomy.

    It is this very sentimentality about a 4 month old foetus that has this situation happening today. People need to OWN that and look to the 8th amendment for what to change.

    Edit: I'm sorry. I didn't want to descend into having a go at people. It's late, and this is such a mindfcuk for everyone. I do understand that you're struggling with the concept of saving a foetus not necessarily being the right thing to do, but it's an ongoing and daily concept that women have dealt with and decided upon for time immemorial. Not a catch 22 at all to the 12 women every day who decide that they are going to abort their pregnancies. It seems obvious to them and to me.

    What do I have to do to kindly converse with you ? it's not a baby for the 3rd time I have to say this, it's a foetus.

    Look, you are angry and taking it out on me because I don't comply with your opinion. Please try and have an intelligent conversation. I already explained how difficult this thread is to talk about such shocking stuff.

    I understand your frustration, and I understand every-ones frustration regarding this debate so I won't hold it against any-one if they go over the top as sincere as they are. It's just mind-boggling this is.

    No problem Shrap, it is a mind-fcuk indeed, but I know where you're coming from.

    Bong.


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    #837
    bogwalrus
    Registered Users Posts: 1,454 ✭✭✭bogwalrus


    bodice ripper wrote: »
    This is what you wanted isn't it Bogwalrus, justification?

    The foetus can die this time, now that we've turned a woman into a medical experiment without her consent, a mother into a horror that will haunt her children, and let her father watch her rot slowly for a few weeks.

    So this time it's ok.

    Seriously now. You just have some anger against me for just contributing my views on a very complicated issue.

    You can't just bully people into thinking the way you think.

    I also do not appreciate you making me out to be some disguisting monster which I most certainly am not.


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    #838
    ProfessorPlum
    Registered Users Posts: 1,806 ✭✭✭ProfessorPlum


    bogwalrus wrote: »
    Seriously now. You just have some anger against me for just contributing my views on a very complicated issue.

    You can't just bully people into thinking the way you think.

    I also do not appreciate you making me out to be some disguisting monster which I most certainly am not.

    Not directed directly at you, but isn't this a major part of the problem?


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    #839
    volchitsa
    Registered Users Posts: 7,371 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    ProfessorPlum wrote: »
    Not directed directly at you, but isn't this a major part of the problem?

    Absolutely it's the crux of the issue in Ireland - one group of people is so used to being able to dictate to everyone how we must all behave, and what we can or can't do, that they now believe that refusal to agree with them is some form of abuse of their personal freedom.

    It would the funny, if there hadn't been so many tragic outcomes as a result of their arrogance.


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    #840
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Let us have a close look at ethics.

    Is it ethical for a court of law to decide that this lady should be kept attached to a life-support machine even though she is dead ? when the outcome from the words of medical professionals told them that the foetus will not survive ?

    Is it ethical for this lady's electronic life-support machine to be turned off ? and give her dignity and a burial and also relief for her parents ?

    Is it ethical to deny this lady to rest in peace ?


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    #841
    lazygal
    Registered Users Posts: 12,644 ✭✭✭✭lazygal


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    Let us have a close look at ethics.

    Is it ethical for a court of law to decide that this lady should be kept attached to a life-support machine even though she is dead ? when the outcome from the words of medical professionals told them that the foetus will not survive ?

    Is it ethical for this lady's electronic life-support machine to be turned off ? and give her dignity and a burial and also relief for her parents ?

    Is it ethical to deny this lady to rest in peace ?
    Ethics, like clinical judgment, have no place in the abortion law in Ireland. I don't think it's ethical to expect that suicidal 14 year old rape victims should remain pregnant but the law says otherwise.


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