This fuckin country...
doctors are forced legally to keep a brain dead/clinically dead woman alive, because she's 15 weeks pregnant..the foetus wont survive, her family want the life support turned off, but the law has decided that they arent allowed die..
this is why we hate the church and its remnant control of policy here
Wanna visit the dark ages, come to Ireland
A clinically dead pregnant woman must be maintained on life support if the High Court finds there is a “real” prospect her unborn child will achieve viability outside the womb, lawyers representing the interests of the unborn have argued.
The Constitution requires the right to life of the unborn be vindicated where “practicable” and that right surpasses the right of a non-sentient woman to a dignified death, Conor Dignam SC submitted.
A three judge High Court, comprising Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, Ms Justice Marie Baker and Ms Justice Caroline Costello, heard final legal arguments from Mr Dignam and the other relevant parties today on the woman’s family’s application to stop the life-supporting somatic treatment. The court will rule on the application at noon on Friday, St Stephens’s Day.
Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, one of the three judges, who handled proceedings with delicacy and tact, as the evidence proceeded swiftly Scale of tragedy, depth of distress too big to process
John Rogers SC, for the woman’s father, argued the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which sets down the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn, was not applicable to this case. Photograph: Frank Miller High Court told keeping brain-dead pregnant woman on life support would be ‘grotesque’
The family want the somatic treatment stopped so they may bury the woman, aged in her mid-20s and a mother of young children, with dignity.
She was pronounced clinically dead on December 3rd last, her condition is deteriorating and she displays puffiness of the torso, an open head wound, rotting brain, and also has several infections. A number of medical experts have said the prospect of the foetus surviving intact is small even if treatment continues.
On Christmas Eve, in submissions for the family, Mary O’Toole SC said it appeared unanimous among the clinicians who gave evidence, all of whom had “vast experience”, the prospect of this unborn surviving to viability, let alone birth is “small, almost negligible”.
In those circumstances, the 1983 ant-abortion amendment was not engaged, she argued. When Mr Justice Kearns remarked it did not seem to the court this is an abortion case at all, Ms O’Toole agreed and said both the woman and her baby would be dead were it not for medical intervention.
There was also an issue concerning the effects of the drugs being “pumped” into the mother, counsel said. It was not in the best interests of this unborn for it to be maintained in its current environment.
The best interests test should rest on the medical evidence, she said. The right to life of an unborn is the right to be born and the purpose of the 1983 amendment was to prevent anyone maliciously preventing that.
What happened here was “an act of God” where the child’s mother was stricken with this dreadful catastrophe, counsel said. The likelihood of bringing the child to viability is almost negligible so this course of treatment should not be continued, not just in the best interests of the unborn but of the woman’s family.
As a matter of “human decency and understanding”, the court could appreciate the position this family are in, counsel said. The woman’s father had not just had the nightmare of his child predeceasing him but he had also had to endure an “unimaginable level of suffering” watching her deteriorate in scenes “akin to a horror movie”
In his submissions for the unborn, Mr Dignam said the court’s decision whether maintaining somatic support was proportionate and justifiable would ultimately rest on the evidence as to the unborn’s prospect of achieving viability outside the womb.
The medical evidence showed as much as a 33 per cent chance the unborn may be delivered alive, he said. That, plus the fact the mother is no longer sentient “and feels no indignity”, meant the maintenance of somatic support was justified, he submitted.
Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, the 1983 eighth amendment , “acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect and, as far as practicable by its laws, to defend and vindicate that right”.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-an ... -1.2048425
