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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think it's wrong for a dead woman to be used as an incubator?

365 replies

twofingerstoGideon · 18/12/2014 07:11

One of the most dreadful stories I've read in a long time. Could be triggering.

'Clinically dead' (that's dead, isn't it?) woman kept on life support machine to support 17 week fetus. Her own parents want the life support switched off. I really can't get my head around this at all.

AIBU to think we need to do everything possible to prevent our abortion laws becoming more restrictive and fight against the anti-choice demonstrators who are becoming more and more vociferous and ever-present outside clinics.

Surely even the most staunch anti-choicer can't argue that this is right.

story here

OP posts:
Gileswithachainsaw · 18/12/2014 18:05

And its not just about you. what about your existing children.

how long do you think you'd have before someone told the baby if it made it what happened.

Greencurtain · 18/12/2014 18:08

It seems the father wants the mother to be artificially kept alive so the baby can live. Presumably if the father and the mother were in a relationship the father is the best judge of whether this would have been the wishof the mother as well. I don't think it's a "legal" dilemma or a pro choice/ant choice thing, I think it's a question of taking the best guess possible about what the mother would have decided herself. Plenty of mothers would want to be kept alive in this scenario and plenty wouldn't, that's why the father's judgement is the closest you can get to the mother's possible judgement.

Dipankrispaneven · 18/12/2014 18:08

minipie, how do you know the father wants the foetus to live? I haven't seen any mention of him in the reports.

CupidStuntSurvivor · 18/12/2014 18:09

Not RTFT yet but my initial thoughts aren't about the wishes of the woman, her partner or her parents. They're about how the child will feel when s/he eventually finds out that they effectively developed inside their mother's corpse for most of the pregnancy. Even if they find out in adulthood, is it possible for them to take that news well?

minipie · 18/12/2014 18:11

Thing is Giles I honestly wouldn't give two hoots if someone danced on my grave. I'd be dead. I wouldn't know.

Insofar as I have an opinion about my dead body, I would want it to be used in any way it could be useful to others. But I accept that the people who are still alive will make the ultimate choice on that, and so they should IMO.

I appreciate I am unusually unemotional about dead bodies however. To me they are just so much decaying matter. The person is long gone.

minipie · 18/12/2014 18:13

Dipankrispi I thought I'd seen that upthread somewhere? May have misread however. If not, that does rather change things.

Gileswithachainsaw · 18/12/2014 18:14

But not to the family. They havent buried them. or had a funeral. It can't be possible to move on when your child's body is being kept alive against their wishes.

It's sad that there would be two casualties. extremely so. and maybe she was closer to term it would be something to consider. but there is just such a long dangerous road ahead one which probably hasn't got a happy ending.

Original poster
twofingerstoGideon · 18/12/2014 18:18

minipie the father hasn't been mentioned in any of the news reports, least of all making a statement to the effect that he wants the woman to be kept alive artificially. I can't quite understand where you got that from. Do you have a link?

OP posts:
TalesOfTheCity · 18/12/2014 18:24

TheChandler Human rights do not apply to dead people, or the unborn for that matter. She has no legal personality.

maddening · 18/12/2014 18:26

If it were me and it meant my baby could live I would want this to happen too irrespective of what my own parents would want.

Imscarlet · 18/12/2014 18:41

I think the heart of the issue is that despite whether the next of kin AND the medical profession wish to turn off the machine, they are not legally allowed to. It is likely that there will be another abortion referendum in Ireland in the Spring, I think that was in the pipeline anyway. There is still huge anti-abortion sentiment in Ireland and I think it is unlikely to succeed. Whether or not it is an issue concerning abortion, it is been promoted as a case concerning abortion. An awful situation for all involved.

minipie · 18/12/2014 18:47

twofingers I think I misread some of the earlier posts upthread - they said something like "if the baby's father wants the baby" and I misread it as "the baby's father wants the baby". Oops Blush

Giles I agree the wishes of those still alive are important. I had thought that there were two different opinions here though - those of the parents (want to switch off) and those of the baby's father (opposite). Turns out I got the baby's father bit totally wrong so parents' wishes should win out.

I agree that the baby's prospects are relevant. I have no idea what those are here. But I think the family's wishes trump the baby anyway.

Chocolateteacake · 18/12/2014 18:49

Its tragic for her family that she has durd, but wouldn't it be even more tragic if the baby died too if there was a chance that it could live?

I would want to be wired up to support the baby if it were me. I'd want my baby to have a chance.

CalleighDoodle · 18/12/2014 18:52

I would want to be kept artificially alive to give my unborn child a fighting chance. Why waste a life if theres no need to do so and it's te father's wish too?

NeverFinishWhatYouStarted · 18/12/2014 19:03

Part of the reason this has gotten media coverage is that it is the latest in a long line of abuses of women's rights and dignity, including refugees who cannot travel outside the state to access abortions because of the complications of their refugee status and an Eastern European women who was forced to carry her baby to viability (whereupon said extremely premature child was removed to the care of the state).

In this case, the only information to hand is that the woman's parents have to go to court for the right to remove their own dead daughter from life support. I am assuming (due to lack of info to the contrary) that they are the woman's next of kin. I am also assuming they would not be involved if there was a husband involved. To use the organ donation analogy, the woman's next of kin have the right to refuse for her organs to be donated. However, because of a fucked-up, misogynistic, discriminatory, inhumane amendment to the constitution, they will have to go through the courts at what must be an agonising time because the foetus has "an equal right to life" in spite of not being viable outside the body of the mother.

I'm terribly sorry for the family, but it is imperative that cases like this be discussed as part of a wider movement to end the mutilation and deaths of women in the name of procreation in Ireland.

plummyjam · 18/12/2014 19:04

The fetus might have a chance of life at 24 weeks but at 17 weeks there is no chance at all outside of the womb.

On a tangent, I wonder what would happen if a scan showed an abnormality in the fetus that was not compatible with life - absent kidneys for example? According to the law should the mother then still be kept alive at all costs knowing that the baby would not survive?

NeverFinishWhatYouStarted · 18/12/2014 19:12

plummyjam, Irish women may not terminate pregnancies even if the baby is not viable due to a medically established abnormality, and often have to carry them to term knowing they will not survive, so I don't see how this would be any different.

This commentator sums up the issue well.

Sallystyle · 18/12/2014 19:43

I would not want to be kept alive in this situation at that point in a pregnancy.

I would not want to put my already born children through the torture of knowing mummy is laying on a bed, having countless medical procedures done to her but she is going to be allowed to die as soon as she had had the baby delivered and served her purpose.

I would hope if this was me, my mum would fight for me to have life support turned off my already born children's sake.

Sallystyle · 18/12/2014 19:44

Excuse typos*

TheEagle · 18/12/2014 19:53

neverfinish is correct - there is no scope for a termination of pregnancy in Ireland for any reason unless a pregnant woman can prove she is suicidal.

This point was tested in the case of Ms Y, an asylum seeker who had been raped and who wished to terminate her pregnancy on the grounds that she was suicidal. A termination was denied her and she gave birth via C Section to a very premature baby.

There is still a large section of society here who are staunchly anti abortion, no matter what the circumstances.

Government after government has refused to deal adequately with the issue and so we are faced with tragic circumstances such as this lady's.

The High Court will decide the outcome for this lady and her unborn baby and will take her family's wishes and the medical advice into account as far as possible.

talesofthecity, in Ireland the unborn do have legal rights. Hence the quandary.

plummyjam · 18/12/2014 19:55

Never I suppose I was being Devil's advocate really. In that situation neither mother or fetus will survive in any event and yet the mother will be kept alive. Which implies that all things being equal the right of the fetus to life is actually greater than that of the mother, or else surely both would be allowed to die.

I believe that Irish law allows termination of pregnancy if the mother's life is at risk. But in this case there is no risk to the mother so presumably even a pregnancy with fetal death as the only outcome would be allowed to continue. Which is bonkers.

Interesting article linked to there.

TheEagle · 18/12/2014 19:59

plummyjam, bonkers is the most apt word for all of it Sad

NeverFinishWhatYouStarted · 18/12/2014 20:08

The bonkers part of the whole thing is not that the foetus has rights, it's that, from the moment of conception, the embryo has rights.

whois · 18/12/2014 20:11

God how on earth can Ireland be so unbelievable backward in this day and age?

We get all het up about abuses of woman at the hands of Islam while over in merry Ireland this is happening?

I can't believe we allow countries with such terrible treatment of woman to be in the EU.

NeverFinishWhatYouStarted · 18/12/2014 20:17

Membership of the EU has occasionally forced the issue to be examined, I think. The ECHR has considered the issue.