Clinicaly dead pregnant woman on life support

jaykay74

conorhal wrote: »

She's already dead. What you want is to let the baby suffocate to meet your own agenda. Why not be honest?

If the opinion of doctors is (and to be clear I'm not saying it is but is hinted below) that the foetus won't be delivered alive do you think it makes sense to comtinue from week 16 to week 40 ?

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/clinically-dead-pregnant-woman-being-kept-alive-by-hospital-30845660.html

“The legal advice would be there is one life here and it is the unborn child. Everything practicable has to be done – and that’s both under the constitution and the legislation passed last year. There is also a high possibility the unborn child will not survive,” a senior source said last night.

lazygal

jaykay74 wrote: »

If the opinion of doctors is (and to be clear I'm not saying it is but is hinted below) that the foetus won't be delivered alive do you think it makes sense to comtinue from week 16 to week 40 ?

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/clinically-dead-pregnant-woman-being-kept-alive-by-hospital-30845660.html

“The legal advice would be there is one life here and it is the unborn child. Everything practicable has to be done – and that’s both under the constitution and the legislation passed last year. There is also a high possibility the unborn child will not survive,” a senior source said last night.

Practicable is open to interpretation. Is it practicable to continue life support for the duration of a pregnancy? I don't know what the answer is.

kylith

conorhal wrote: »

Aaaaaaand what exactly is inaccurate about what I've said? Is that not exactly what will happen? Does that reality not make you uncomfortable?

No, that's not what will happen. It can't suffocate; it doesn't breathe and it doesn't have lungs that are even remotely capable of doing so.

Typical really; the only people who are actually affected by the situation (the woman's parents) are having their opinions ignored while people tear their hair out over what the brain-dead and the brain-less might want.

Akrasia

lazygal wrote: »

It is not the job of dead women to provide babies for the childless. It is not any woman's obligation to remain pregnant so others can fulfil their desires of parenthood.

But dead people don't make choices, and we don't know if this was a pregnancy that the mother wanted or not.

The woman is dead now, what happens to her body no longer concerns her, she can not be harmed. Life is for the living.

As some others have said, I really hope that this mother was not denied life saving treatment because of the pregnancy. That would be a massive miscarriage of justice, but even if that happened, what happens next should be decided on the merits of the situation, not on what happened before

eviltwin

I don't know what to make of this as the article is so vague. Her parents are objecting and I can understand that, talk about prolonging their agony. They will have to park their grieving until such time they can bury their daughter, that must be really difficult for them. I can see why they would want to just end things now.

No mention of husband/partner...if she is a single mum then the parents have the final say as next of kin and I don't agree with medical staff going over their heads. If there is a father though maybe he and this lady discussed the issue and he knows she would want to give the child every chance of life in which case maybe this is another hard case brought about by the lack of fathers rights.

Either way I wonder what kind of impact a clinically dead mother will have on the development of the baby. I also wonder about the cost of keeping her alive all this time. Now I'm not reducing this to a numbers game but having heard people on the radio last week talking about how they are facing certain death as the HSE won't fund their medical treatment you have to wonder who decides these things. One of the women I heard will be dead within a year if she isn't given these drugs which the HSE says it can't afford. Where is her right to life?

conorhal

kylith wrote: »

No, that's not what will happen. It can't suffocate; it doesn't breathe and it doesn't have lungs that are even remotely capable of doing so.

Typical really; the only people who are actually affected by the situation (the woman's parents) are having their opinions ignored while people tear their hair out over what the brain-dead and the brain-less might want.

Suffocation is death due to oxygen deprivation. As for the parents, their daughter is dead, her child is not, I fell great sympathy for them but that does not extend to permitting them end the life of a child.

The_Valeyard

I'm going to keep out of this debate until more facts emerge rather than let the rumour mill grow.

My deepest sympathies to the family and all those involved. Such an awful tragedy.

conorhal

lazygal wrote: »

It is not the job of dead women to provide babies for the childless. It is not any woman's obligation to remain pregnant so others can fulfil their desires of parenthood.

Did I say it was? As for the woman in question her 'obligations' are over. Ther is however still a living child, what obligation do we have to that foetus?

cletus van damme

Grayson wrote: »

I'd imagine the parents would have known what the woman's wished would be in this situation.

you can't say that.
Personally speaking my parents wouldn't know what I wanted for breakfast not mind a situation like this.
Mayeb YOUR parents would know but not everybody would be in same situation.

I'm for keeping the mother on life support to try and save the baby.
The mother is gone - it's not about mothers life over childs life.
There is only one life here - she is in second tri according to news report this morning . I think if there is a chance , it's the moral thing to try and save the baby.

jaykay74 wrote: »

There is also a high possibility the unborn child will not survive,” a senior source said last night.

Does that mean we shouldn't try?
I always presumed human life was sacred , should we not try?

I do think this is nothing to do with abortion but as usual it has decended to such.
that said I've heard no pro-life people on media yet - all pro choice.

lazygal

lazygal wrote: »

If she is not married her parents are her next of kin and make end of life decisions like this, even if she is in a relationship.
This is an awful story, for so many reasons.

Which is why people in not formalised relationships should specify their next of kin

lazygal

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Which is why people in not formalised relationships should specify their next of kin

You can specify all you like but legal next of kin can override that easily. It's one of the reasons I wouldn't have children outside marriage here if I could help it. The law is not dealing with real life situations.

Gongoozler

conorhal wrote: »

Aaaaaaand what exactly is inaccurate about what I've said? Is that not exactly what will happen? Does that reality not make you uncomfortable?

I didn't imply anything was inaccurate about your post. You're getting defensive. I was simply pointing out the moment where this thread became about killing a child.

And to answer your question, no aborting a 16 week old foetus doesn't make me uncomfortable. It happens all the time and I'm comfortable with that.

lazygal

lazygal wrote: »

You can specify all you like but legal next of kin can override that easily. It's one of the reasons I wouldn't have children outside marriage here if I could help it. The law is not dealing with real life situations.

Depends on where you specify it though? I may easily be mistaken but can you not legally have it that someone, other than closest relative, is next of kin?

I would honestly love to know if the father is on the scene and is wanting the child delivered but privacy easily trumps that

kylith

conorhal wrote: »

Suffocation is death due to oxygen deprivation. As for the parents, their daughter is dead, her child is not, I fell great sympathy for them but that does not extend to permitting them end the life of a child.

I stand corrected on the suffocation front, but it doesn't change the fact that the foetus wouldn't know a damn thing about it. It can't feel pain. It is, in fact, really only marginally more alive than its mother is at the moment. Turning off the machines won't give it a moments inconvenience.

If you think this foetus has a life that can be ended do you think that someone who kills a pregnant woman should be charged with two murders? Should women who drink or smoke in pregnancy be charged with child endangerment? Should child allowance be paid from conception?

Riskymove

The_Valeyard wrote: »

I'm going to keep out of this debate until more facts emerge rather than let the rumour mill grow.

My deepest sympathies to the family and all those involved. Such an awful tragedy.

tbf this is about the legal situation and the facts seem quite clear

The next of kin want to turn of the life support and medics wont because of the child. That is the issue to be decided legally


other "rumours" about what has happened are probably irellevant to that fact. Actual events might change how poster feel about the issue or their change their sympathies to the people involved but that doesn't change the legal matter here.

ProfessorPlum

This should be a decision for the medics and this woman's next of kin, in consultation with the baby's father if he's on the scene. End of. The 8th amendment has once again over complicated the issue so as we can hardly see the wood from the trees. Are we seriously suggesting that a brain dead woman who is 4 weeks pregnant should be supported to deliver her child? How about 2 weeks? Should we support all brain dead women of child bearing age until we can definitively rule out the chance that they may be pregnant?

Being a doctor is not all about 'preserving life'. Sometimes it's about letting people go with dignity. Let the doctors and her family decide what's best in each individual situation.

lazygal

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Depends on where you specify it though? I may easily be mistaken but can you not legally have it that someone, other than closest relative, is next of kin?

I would honestly love to know if the father is on the scene and is wanting the child delivered but privacy easily trumps that

Any solicitor will tell you marriage and civil partnership is the only way to specify without challenge legal next of kin. It's unfair but it's one of the reasons gay people deserve proper marriage. A gay person's life partner could've been ignored before civil partnership was legal. People need to realise that your legal of kin are a spouse or your immediate family, not a boyfriend or close friend.

Stavro Mueller

What's also bothering me is what might happen to the foetus if it gets to the stage where it's viable. Sometimes I think modern medicine's ability to sustain life does more harm than good. You get very premature babies who'd not otherwise have survived being afflicted with chronic health issues (e.g cerebral palsy, hearing and sight problems). At the other end of the scale you've people with locked in syndrome etc .

It's a tricky issue. I've a relative who was lucky enough to adopt a baby in the last year and how much the little child has lit up their life. On the other hand, it sounds almost ghoulish, keeping this poor woman alive.

conorhal

dubscottie wrote: »

This makes me sick.. The mother is dead so the unborn dies. Its is nature.

In that case we can close the hospitals all together and let nature take it's course. If you're pregnat it's natural to give birth, thus abortion is a medical intervention, by your logic that should also be banned no?

lazygal

conorhal wrote: »

In that case we can close the hospitals all together and let nature take it's course. If you're pregnat it's natural to give birth, thus abortion is a medical intervention, by your logic that should also be banned no?

Should we let women take unborn children out of the country for medical procedures like abortions?

Grayson

cletus van damme wrote: »

you can't say that.
Personally speaking my parents wouldn't know what I wanted for breakfast not mind a situation like this.
Mayeb YOUR parents would know but not everybody would be in same situation.

I'm for keeping the mother on life support to try and save the baby.
The mother is gone - it's not about mothers life over childs life.
There is only one life here - she is in second tri according to news report this morning . I think if there is a chance , it's the moral thing to try and save the baby.

That's not a baby though. Would you make them keep alive a woman who was 4 weeks pregnant? or one who had IVF the day beforehand. You know, just in case.

And if anyone knows what the woman would have wanted, it's the parents. It's certainly not all the idiots in this thread who keep saying that she would have obviously wanted this. Her parents certainly have more insight into this than any of us. people are dismissing their opinion saying that they are distraught and if they had more time, they'd obviously want to keep life support on. They're saying that they couldn't/wouldn't know their child. That's so insulting.
If it were the other way around and they wanted to keep her on life support but the state wished to switch it off, those self same people who are dismissing the parents opinion now would be calling on us to accept the parents decision.

Grayson

conorhal wrote: »

She's already dead. What you want is to let the baby suffocate to meet your own agenda. Why not be honest?

As someone pointed out with the suffocation it's not possible. that's because it isn't a baby. It's not a child. If there was a baby we'd all be in favour of keeping the woman's body on life support. As I asked someone else, what if the woman was only a couple of weeks pregnant and didn't even know? She goes in after an accident and when running blood tests they discover she's 3-4 weeks pregnant. Should she be used as an incubator?

Lux23

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

This should be a decision for the medics and this woman's next of kin, in consultation with the baby's father if he's on the scene. End of. The 8th amendment has once again over complicated the issue so as we can hardly see the wood from the trees. Are we seriously suggesting that a brain dead woman who is 4 weeks pregnant should be supported to deliver her child? How about 2 weeks? Should we support all brain dead women of child bearing age until we can definitively rule out the chance that they may be pregnant?

Being a doctor is not all about 'preserving life'. Sometimes it's about letting people go with dignity. Let the doctors and her family decide what's best in each individual situation.

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

tritium

lazygal wrote: »

It is not the job of dead women to provide babies for the childless. It is not any woman's obligation to remain pregnant so others can fulfil their desires of parenthood.

She has no job, full stop- she's dead! Please stop referring to her as if she was a living cognisant human being who was being oppressed. She's not, she's a corpse, kept functional by machines, a position thats no more natural than any of the many other miracles of medicine.

To talk about her choices, bodily integrity as a person etc as though she could still express that will or make any decision is kind of surreal. Whoever the right people to make any decisions a this stage- next of kin, courts whatever, it's not her! Whatever the rights and wrongs of society, whether we don't give women choices, whether we deny fathers rights to their family on the basis of some ritual ceremony they did or didnt take part in , all that diesnt matter a jot to her now.

Unless she's explicitly made some sort of living will to cover this one then none of us with certainty know what she wants. Equally the one hurt and affected by this isn't the woman, she's not going to be screaming about her body her choice. Its the next of kin and other loved ones who will have to deal with grief and any distress caused by whichever decision they make. That's not going to be helped by the rush to co opt their daughter/sister /partner into one or other ideological divide.It's not a position I envy them.

lazygal

tritium wrote: »

She has no job, full stop- she's dead! Please stop referring to her as if she was a living cognisant human being who was being oppressed. She's not, she's a corpse, kept functional by machines, a position thats no more natural than any of the many other miracles of medicine.

To talk about her choices, bodily integrity as a person etc as though she could still express that will or make any decision is kind of surreal. Whoever the right people to make any decisions a this stage- next of kin, courts whatever, it's not her! Whatever the rights and wrongs of society, whether we don't give women choices, whether we deny fathers rights to their family on the basis of some ritual ceremony they did or didnt take part in , all that diesnt matter a jot to her now.

Unless she's explicitly made some sort of living will to cover this one then none of us with certainty know what she wants. Equally the one hurt and affected by this isn't the woman, she's not going to be screaming about her body her choice. Its the next of kin and other loved ones who will have to deal with grief and any distress caused by whichever decision they make. That's not going to be helped by the rush to co opt their daughter/sister /partner into one or other ideological divide.It's not a position I envy them.

We protect the dead in all sorts of ways. You're not allowed to harvest organs, without consent of next of kin, for example. And defiling a corpse is a crime too. Living wills are not legal in Ireland, and the wishes of a dead person can be overridden by the decisions of next of kin.

tritium

kylith wrote: »

Typical really; the only people who are actually affected by the situation (the woman's parents) are having their opinions ignored while people tear their hair out over what the brain-dead and the brain-less might want.

I'm not sure they're the only people affected by the situation. The baby would have to have a father to, fair chance he's affected even if our messed up laws don't actually take any account of him.

tritium

lazygal wrote: »

Should we let women take unborn children out of the country for medical procedures like abortions?

If we're defining the standard as only what's natural as per the post that started this line of thought then planes and boats are human creations and definitely out

Swimming is still permitted.....

/sarcasm

The ease at which a number of posters would kill a baby is disgusting and shameful. Not even giving it a second though or giving the child a chance at life.

This is also a lesson for people who laugh at the idea of marriage. You could be the father of that child and have zero say in what happens.

lazygal

Dimitri Many Backside wrote: »

The ease at which a number of posters would kill a baby is disgusting and shameful. Not even giving it a second though or giving the child a chance at life.

Which baby? There's a 16 weeks old foetus, not a baby. The ease with which its ok to use women as incubators regardless of their wishes is shameful.
I say that as someone who told my husband that I would want to be kept 'alive' should the need arise when I was pregnant. If he didn't want to do that, he should have the right to decide to let me die.

lazygal

lazygal wrote: »

Which baby? There's a 16 weeks old foetus, not a baby. The ease with which its ok to use women as incubators regardless of their wishes is shameful.
I say that as someone who told my husband that I would want to be kept 'alive' should the need arise when I was pregnant. If he didn't want to do that, he should have the right to decide to let me die.

It's a baby as far as I'm concerned.