Exit poll: The post referendum thread. No electioneering.

Igotadose wrote: »

Also, all the whining about 'sensitive issue' is yet more stigmatizing of women for having abortions. That sh1te's got to stop, too. The woman in question's made the decision, the fetus is going to *die*. Sure, keep her name confidential, fine. But stop hiding behind 'sensitive issue.' The HSE and this hospital are *in the wrong*, the details are available, why aren't heads rolling at Coombe? What's the name of the midwife that informed the woman that the board has said she needed to wait 4 weeks? That kind of stuff - journalism's pathetic in this country. Name and shame ffs.

You haven't a clue. You know basically nothing about the reasoning in this case and you want to start publically naming medical practitioners and having heads roll? This sort of witchhunt by completely ignorant people does no good whatsoever.

Surgical terminations after 12 weeks unlikely to be widely available this year (via @IrishTimes) https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/surgical-terminations-after-12-weeks-unlikely-to-be-widely-available-this-year-1.3762969

Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have said that surgical terminations are unlikely to widely take place this year for clinical reasons. And the poster above wants to go naming and shaming people...

Igotadose

Amirani wrote: »

Surgical terminations after 12 weeks unlikely to be widely available this year (via @IrishTimes) https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/surgical-terminations-after-12-weeks-unlikely-to-be-widely-available-this-year-1.3762969

Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have said that surgical terminations are unlikely to widely take place this year for clinical reasons. And the poster above wants to go naming and shaming people...

Naming and shaming the board members that decided to deny this woman her abortion, absolutely. Likewise doctors that won't provide for 'conscience reasons.' It's all about suppressing women, nothing more. The chairman of Coombe hospital board is John Gleeson, who was Programme Manager at Cervicalcheck (https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/cervicalcheck-doctors-letters-to-be-changed-if-women-died-1.3500762). Another rumor posted here was that the poor women looking for an abortion at the Coombe was denied her records, sounds similar to Cervicalcheck.

Finally - it's not like abortions *weren't happening* in Ireland prior to this year. This hospital should be WELL able to perform a D&C. What are the clinical reasons? And, why couldn't the woman be referred to another hospital? Naming the board members that handed down this decision would be quick to get answers. Putting a little fear into the HSE that they cannot, as always, close ranks and protect their own in the case of denying women their rights is a plus.

Let's start with the midwife that informed the woman of the board's decision.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=109175093&postcount=7132

tigger123 wrote: »

What is it implying?

Igotadose wrote: »

Question: what's a 'voluntary hospital'.

One owned by a charitable trust or religious order, not the state.

Yet again the state pays the bills, but has no ownership and little control.

Time for a complete separation of church and state in this country.

tigger123

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

They could have accepted that the criteria for certification as FFA were met, but still refused it, and that statement above would be perfectly true.

Anyone familiar with the spin coming off the RCC hierarchy whenever a new scandal is exposed will recognise the same very bad smell of mental reservation off this one.

The important part of that sentence isn't "those reports are untrue" but "insofar". They are wording it very carefully to imply that the reports are completely untrue when they are only denying one very specific interpretation of the claims which have been made, NOT the claims as a whole.

Their statement, as far as I read it, is very carefully worded to refute the specific claim that's being made against them. They are only denying that the board overruled the two consultants and the GP as that is what's being claimed.

They can't go any further than that, and nor should they, as they have to uphold and respect the woman's right to privacy. Something which Brid Smith didn't see fit to do when she read the woman's name into the Dail record.

If they weren't keeping the details of her case confidential they could have handed her file over to the Irish Times to clear the whole thing up.

GP? You are reading things which are not there. You are ignoring what is actually written in favour of your own position.

seamus

Riskymove wrote: »

just reading up there on it.

that there is a fatal abnormality so an abortion could be carried out beyond 12 weeks. But it would take a few weeks to establish that in another hospital? But she does not want to wait so is thinking of going to UK?

Is that correct?

In effect.

Now, I don't know if she has gone to another hospital. There doesn't seem to be any indication that she has.

But ultimately there is no way to go to another maternity hospital and ask them to pick up exactly where the other left off.

Think of it like knee surgery. You need major cruciate surgery. You go to a hospital, you talk to the consultant, he orders various blood tests, conducts ultrasounds to get a feel for it and runs through the process with you before booking you in for surgery in two weeks.

You get cold feet you don't like this guy. So you take your record and go to a private hospital. At your first appointment with the new consultant, he won't just pick up where you left off, review your record and book you in for surgery. Certain routine tests like blood tests, won't need to be done again. But he will definitely want to do a new ultrasound and maybe x-ray for himself, and run through the pre-op discussions all over again. So you will put yourself back by a few weeks.

Same deal here. Any new hospital will accept the patient, but will need to redo many of the same tests again, which will likely lead to a few weeks of delays anyway.

And ultimately any requirement for preconditions to be met to obtain an abortion, leads to this scenario. If a woman can't just book in for an abortion without requiring clinical approval, then some women will still have to travel to the UK.

In this woman's case, some women will want to carry the foetus for a few more weeks, to give it a fighting chance or otherwise allow nature to take its course. Other women will want it over as soon as possible, unable to bear the thought of carrying a dying baby. There is no correct course of action except the one that the woman wants.

One of the articles, sorry not sure which, said something about the Coombe not wanting to give her her records, which would make it impossible to go elsewhere anyway, especially within a reasonable timescale, as you say.

Jolly Red Giant

From Ruth Coppinger this morning -

Three key questions are thrown up by this case : the law says 2 doctors are required to certify for an abortion -- why then are hospitals going beyond the law and insisting an unknown 'team' must approve? The second is the cowardice of politicians in refusing to vote for severe anomalies as a ground means women in tragic situations are forced to travel. And lastly what is driving this conservative application of the law - criminalization, Catholic influence or both? Forcing this couple to go abroad is wrong.

tretorn

Coppinger doesn’t seem to grasp that the Law was drafted to protect foetuses with defects from being terminated. Has she not read the legislation.

ohnonotgmail

tretorn wrote: »

Coppinger doesn’t seem to grasp that the Law was drafted to protect foetuses with defects from being terminated. Has she not read the legislation.

Well at least she has never written anything an uninformed as this

tretorn wrote: »

Well, no, the electorate were told the foetus right to life was constitutionally protected after twelve weeks, the only constitutional amendment was to remove protection for life up to twelve weeks.

Loafing Oaf

And lastly what is driving this conservative application of the law - criminalization, Catholic influence or both?

This sounds like when football pundits and managers criticise referees for awarding 'soft penalties'. It's either a penalty or it's not; the law is either applied or it is not. If a TD wants Irish hospitals to terminate pregnancies with severe but nonfatal anomalies, they'll have to legislate to that effect, not expect doctors to engage in mental reservations...

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

This sounds like when football pundits and managers criticise referees for awarding 'soft penalties'. It's either a penalty or it's not; the law is either applied or it is not. If a TD wants Irish hospitals to terminate pregnancies with severe but nonfatal anomalies, they'll have to legislate to that effect, not expect doctors to engage in mental reservations...

I can't quite believe you're really comparing the rules by which a game is voluntarily played with possible criminal sanctions if a doctor makes a wrong call in a tragic situation like this. That takes some tin ear to do that.

So it's been established now that the foetus didn't/doesn't have a confirmed fatal foetal abnormality, rather just an abnormality. Makes sense now why a termination couldn't be carried out in this case, as it's illegal.

Pretty irresponsible of Coppinger/Smith to bring it up in the Dail in hindsight without getting the full picture.

sabat

tretorn wrote: »

Coppinger doesn’t seem to grasp that the Law was drafted to protect foetuses with defects from being terminated. Has she not read the legislation.

As she again in her initial Dail statement repeated the widespread falsehood that women now have "a constitutional right to an abortion" you'd have to wonder if she's either delusional or a bit simple. I raised this very point in this thread last week but as usual a reasonable post was drowned out by some pro-choice non-sequiturs being thanked for no particular reason.
I'll state it again for posterity, and this is extremely important regardless of what side you're on: a legal nonsense has been inserted into our constitution. It offers no new rights to any citizens and actually diminishes personal freedoms by giving the legislature a new football to play with.

Amirani wrote: »

So it's been established now that the foetus didn't/doesn't have a confirmed fatal foetal abnormality, rather just an abnormality. Makes sense now why a termination couldn't be carried out in this case, as it's illegal.

Pretty irresponsible of Coppinger/Smith to bring it up in the Dail in hindsight without getting the full picture.

Have you read any description of the sort of multiple anomalies the fetus has? Several principal organs either in the wrong place or not visible as well as limbs wrongly positioned and malformed and who knows what else. Omphalocele (the intestines remaining outside the abdomen) can vary from somethng that can be fairly easily repaired surgically to fatal, especially when associated with other anomalies, including chromosomal anomalies.

Omphalocele, also called exomphalos, is a rare abdominal wall defect in which the intestines, liver and occasionally other organs remain outside of the abdomen in a sac because of failure of the normal return of intestines and other contents back to the abdominal cavity during around the ninth week of intrauterine development.

Omphalocele occurs in 1 in 4,000 births and is associated with a high rate of mortality (25%) and severe malformations, such as cardiac anomalies (50%), neural tube defect (40%), exstrophy of the bladder and Beckwith–Wiedemann syndrome. Approximately 15% of live-born infants with omphalocele have chromosomal abnormalities. About 30% of infants with an omphalocele have other congenital abnormalities.

This baby is clearly at the extremely serious end of the spectrum. The doctors told the woman that they would certify that its condition was fatal. For whatever reason they seem to have rowed back on that, it is still a very seriously disabled child. If it lives.

So assuming it's correct that the hospital simply couldn't do differently under the law as it now stands, do you think that a refusal of a termination to a woman like this is a fair reflection of what the people intended to vote for in May?

Because we've had all the whinging here about how the people hadn't voted for "abortion on demand", only for removing the 8th for all sorts of tragic cases where someone might end up deciding to terminate their wanted pregnancy.

So isn't this woman exactly the kind of person that the "Yes but not to abortion on demand" cohort thought they were voting to give a choice to?

We seriously need to get all maternity hospitals on board with an agreed set of guidelines for FFA cases. Also none of them pulling crap like the Rotunda saying they will only allow abortions up to 11 weeks, when the law is clearly stating 12.

Also, the 3 day wait is ridiculous and medically unnecessary and has to go.

volchitsa wrote: »

Have you read any description of the sort of multiple anomalies the fetus has? Several principal organs either in the wrong place or not visible as well as limbs wrongly positioned and malformed and who knows what else. Omphalocele (the intestines remaining outside the abdomen) can vary from somethng that can be fairly easily repaired surgically to fatal, especially when associated with other anomalies, including chromosomal anomalies.

This baby is clearly at the extremely serious end of the spectrum. The doctors told the woman that they would certify that its condition was fatal. For whatever reason they seem to have rowed back on that, it is still a very seriously disabled child. If it lives.

So assuming it's correct that the hospital simply couldn't do differently under the law as it now stands, do you think that a refusal of a termination to a woman like this is a fair reflection of what the people intended to vote for in May?

Because we've had all the whinging here about how the people hadn't voted for "abortion on demand", only for removing the 8th for all sorts of tragic cases where someone might end up deciding to terminate their wanted pregnancy.

So isn't this woman exactly the kind of person that the "Yes but not to abortion on demand" cohort thought they were voting to give a choice to?

I absolutely feel she should be allowed an abortion, but that's due to my opinion on abortion rights.

I completely see why the hospital didn't provide the abortion under the law.

Amirani wrote: »

I absolutely feel she should be allowed an abortion, but that's due to my opinion on abortion rights.

I completely see why the hospital didn't provide the abortion under the law.

Ok fair enough, for the first.

For the second, where exactly in the law is there a mention of this board whose agreement the two doctors first needed to get?

I don't know where that extra layer of decision making comes from - it seems like an excess of zeal to me.

Loafing Oaf

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

But they're only butting in a flimsy and half-hearted way as things stand...Anyway I just thought it was worth throwing the idea out there.

Simon Harris is the one making the decision, and I suspect if the protests have petered out completely by the time the exclusion zone legislation is scheduled to be introduced, he may decide it's not needed after all...

well I suspected wrong, looks like the exclusion zones are going ahead regardless. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/harris-committed-to-safe-zones-where-abortions-carried-out-1.3765081

Minister for Health Simon Harris has said he is committed to introducing legislation to ensure safety around premises in which abortion services are provided.

I guess it doesn't matter either way if the protests have petered out, as they seem to.

keano_afc

Amirani wrote: »

So it's been established now that the foetus didn't/doesn't have a confirmed fatal foetal abnormality, rather just an abnormality. Makes sense now why a termination couldn't be carried out in this case, as it's illegal.

Pretty irresponsible of Coppinger/Smith to bring it up in the Dail in hindsight without getting the full picture.

They have an agenda to push. Responsibility doesnt register with them.

Igotadose

Amirani wrote: »

So it's been established now that the foetus didn't/doesn't have a confirmed fatal foetal abnormality, rather just an abnormality. Makes sense now why a termination couldn't be carried out in this case, as it's illegal.

Pretty irresponsible of Coppinger/Smith to bring it up in the Dail in hindsight without getting the full picture.

Do you have a source to link to that it's confirmed there was no fatal foetal abnormality? That seems to contradict the signoff from the 2 consultants on it having a fatal abnormality. As it does seem like the woman in question went elsewhere, unfortunately, for her abortion, time is no longer of the essence. All Coombe stated was that their 'board' had no input into the decision. So, where was it established that there was no fatal abnormality?

ohnonotgmail

Igotadose wrote: »

Do you have a source to link to that it's confirmed there was no fatal foetal abnormality? That seems to contradict the signoff from the 2 consultants on it having a fatal abnormality. As it does seem like the woman in question went elsewhere, unfortunately, for her abortion, time is no longer of the essence. All Coombe stated was that their 'board' had no input into the decision. So, where was it established that there was no fatal abnormality?

Well the hospital said in a letter that there was no FFA and we should believe them without question. The poor woman was confused when two doctors told her the fetus had a FFA. And the board did have no input on the decision, if by board you mean the board of governors. There was a board, however, a board (ethics board perhaps) that decided the fetus did not meet the criteria for abortion. Pure mental reservation on behalf of the hospital.