Clinicaly dead pregnant woman on life support

Jesus h christ.

terrible news either way,will it be another miracle baby ,funny thing about women as they will give their life to see a new life begin.prayers for all of the family at this time.

If the baby is still able to grow naturally inside her while she is on life support i think they should give the baby every chance to reach full term or as near as

Just goes to show that it's impossible to legislate effectively for such complex things

cassid wrote: »

What a horrific situation for a family to be in. There is just no right answer here, either solution is just so sad and tragic.

The girls parents have asked for the life support to be switched off.

I wonder how the father feels ? Do her parents have the final say ?

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.

Jesus. Another shame for us to bear. So now Irish medical services use a woman's body as an incubator against her next of kin's wishes. Probably cheaper than incubators, mind. And self reproducing of course, if the baby is a girl.

The possibilities are endless. :mad:

What I don't understand, is how this needs to be on the news at this stage.
Surely the family deserves privacy to deal with this traumatic situation without the media throwing its claws in?
Likewise, can't the doctors seek legal advice quietly & discreetly?

Jesus, what an awful decision to make. Her poor family. I don't know if the baby can survive that situation but if it can survive I can see why they would keep her alive.

The Princess Bride wrote: »

What I don't understand, is how this needs to be on the news at this stage.
Surely the family deserves privacy to deal with this traumatic situation without the media throwing its claws in?
Likewise, can't the doctors seek legal advice quietly & discreetly?

I would say it's been leaked by the family themselves to bring attention to the issue.

P_1 wrote: »

Feck awful situation to be in for all concerned. I guess if a healthy baby is the result then it may be for the best but is that possible with the mother clinically dead and the foetus at 16 weeks?

Depending on whether or not the foetus is healthy after whatever happened to the mother then the chances of survival increase the longer the mother is kept on life support

As reported by Slattery et al, a fetus born before 24 weeks of gestation has a limited chance of survival. At 24, 28 and 32 weeks, a fetus has approximately a 20-30%, 80% and 98% likelihood of survival with a 40%, 10% and less than 2% chance of suffering from a severe handicap.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1741-7015-8-74.pdf

volchitsa wrote: »

Jesus. Another shame for us to bear. So now Irish medical services use a woman's body as an incubator against her next of kin's wishes. Probably cheaper than incubators, mind. And self reproducing of course, if the baby is a girl.

The possibilities are endless. :mad:

I don't see any shame here. This isn't about abortion. As others have said this same issue would likely arise in pretty much any jurisdiction the only possible difference being how much weight next if kin might have in any decision, and perhaps who is the appropriate person within her immediate family and relationship circle to decide on the future of the child she's carrying

The last thing that this poor lady and her family should have to endure at this time is being co-opted as some sort of standard bearer for the pro-life or pro-choice camps.

tritium wrote: »

I don't see any shame here. This isn't about abortion. As others have said this same issue would likely arise in pretty much any jurisdiction the only possible difference being how much weight next if kin might have in any decision, and perhaps who is the appropriate person within her immediate family and relationship circle to decide on the future of the child she's carrying

The last thing that this poor lady and her family should have to endure at this time is being co-opted as some sort of standard bearer for the pro-life or pro-choice camps.

I agree it isn't about abortion, but it is about the constitution being used in a way that it was never intended to. This is crazy, and no, I don't think other countries do face this particular issue : the next of kin want the life support switched off. She's clinically dead, so in other countries that should normally be that.

Instead her body is being used against her family's wishes to bring a child into the world - and you can't presume from the fact that she was pregnant that she would still want to bring a motherless child into the world. She thought she was going to become a parent. That isn't the same thing at all.

So since her family want her life support turned off, why shouldn't their wishes be respected? Do we keep other dead bodies on life support against their families wishes so as to harvest their organs to save lives? No we don't. Why should a pregnant woman be used as though she were a life support machine when there is no reason to think she wanted that, and some reason to think she didn't (since her family don't want it)

jank wrote: »

If the mother was aware of her pregnancy and wanted to bring that baby into this world than that what should be respected here. Legal quagmire though.

But she wanted to become a mother, presumably. Not create a child to give to someone else.

Who will raise this kid? We don't know that anyone wants to. We know that the relatives have asked for life support to be switched off. That would hint that there is no one to raise this child. Horrible situation.