To wonder who's life would be prioritised, mother or baby?

[splendidisolation]

Just one of those random train of thought questions that popped up in my head.

Imagine this theoretical scenario, a mother is giving birth and the doctor's have to decide whether to save her life or the newborn on its way out.
Ethically, which would they be forced to choose and why?

Imagine the mother's partner or a family member is present. Obviously horrific, but would they be asked to decide? Who makes that decision?

"Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist, originally from India, died on 28 October 2012 at University Hospital Galway in Ireland due to what was interpreted as complications of a septic miscarriage at 17 weeks' gestation, after having been denied an abortion."

@fakenamefornow, I really don't understand these people at all. Because in debates on abortion, danger to the mother's life is always given as the only circumstance in which abortion should be allowed.

I will just my eyes and my common sense thanks sugar.

My uncle was asked to choose 40+ years ago. He chose his wife and both she and my cousin survived.

In a resus situation, mother is always first priority. If both can be worked on at the same time, with appropriate obs/gynae support and it isn’t detrimental to the mother, then it will be attempted. It’s nit possible to request baby takes priority (by family) if mother is unconscious, or even if she is conscious. ED nurse- have worked these kinds of resus.

I remember my father having told me that shortly before one of my sisters was born (mid 60s), the Pope had stated that unborn babies should be given priority. Apparently when my mother went into hospital (in England) he insisted on knowing whether the midwives were Catholic so that he could veto them. He didn't want to risk a Catholic midwife deciding to follow the Pope's ruling.

the National Maternity Hospital has not and will not be given to the Sisters of Charity and is not run by the Catholic Church

Not any more, no - but isn't it the case that this was the intention before opposition arose?

www.irishnews.com/news/republicofirelandnews/2017/05/29/news/sisters-of-charity-give-up-ownership-rights-to-national-maternity-hospital-1038538/

At the heart of the controversy over the Sisters of Charity involvement in maternity services were concerns that nuns or the Catholic Church hierarchy could dictate what medical treatments or procedures were carried out ... Ambiguity deepened when Bishop Kevin Doran said the Sisters would have to obey church law as owners of the hospital, regardless of how the facility is funded, and that governance rests with the pope

coddiwomple The death of an unborn baby should be as shocking as a maternal death. It isn't because thousands of unborn babies are killed every day.

The mother always, including the mother's health. Anything else is barbaric as an assumption (I'm not talking about people who make choice to prioritise their unborn baby over their own health /life). Can you imagine this scenario in the UK:

We give you the right to request a termination to X weeks but after that point your fetus will be prioritised over you?

@fakenamefornow I think I read about that aswell, if it's the same one two activists tried to get guardianship of the fetus" to prevent the procedure, as far as I read she survived with slight brain damage!

Yes I think that was it. I thought they tried to get custody of the mother though? I can't really remember apart from them being on the news saying they were trying to prevent the murder of the baby. Of course the case attracted a whole bunch of pro lifers demonstrating outside the hospital and courts. I don't remember if the termination was allowed to go ahead or not.

Oh, and there were counter demonstrations supporting the family.

@MyDcAreMarvel it’s not common sense though, is it? And I am really interested in having a conversation here because the logic of it is fascinating once you start thinking of it. Ok, so you say that an unborn child has a status of person? When do they acquire that status? At conception?

Because if you then say they become a person at conception then that has implications for how we define a person and what makes someone human.

Ha! A Dad asked this when we went on a tour of the maternity facilities at hospital for expectant parents. Hilarious! His wife didnt look too pleased.

The midwives said both of course!

Mother unless specified otherwise because at terrible as it sounds the mother can always go on to have more children and is already an established person that probably has family and friends that love them and will be able to support them through such a tough time. A child without their mother is likely to be more disadvantaged than a mother without their child as a adult can process grief and loss much better than a child growing up can.

Of course a newly fertilised egg is not a person. It has no consciousness. Right, MyDecAreMarvel? Or do you seriously disagree?

If you agree - when does it become a person? What are the attributes of personhood?

And even if an unborn baby was as fully a person as its mother, why would its life automatically take precedence over hers? What makes one person's life worth more than another's?

I will just my eyes and my common sense thanks sugar.

Meaning you don't wish to think about this question. I'm afraid that means your judgement on the matter is not as valuable as that of someone who has made a bit more effort than just using their eyes and 'common sense'.

@fakenamefornow
Yes that's the same one, in the end doctors agreed to a termination after court battles from the activists who kept changing what they wanted e.g. Guardianship of fetus, mother, "the unborn"
What a horrific time for the husband while she was in a coma, hard enough deciding a termination without strangers protesting!

My Mother went into premature labour with her first child in the mid 80's.

She was haemorrhaging ad they made the decision to save her as opposed to delivering the baby. Sadly he passed away.

If they had saved the baby at her expense, my sister and I would never have been dead and my Dad would have died before his eighteenth birthday.

Mother.

I've chatted to my mum about this. Without c-sections, both she and my younger brother would be dead.

I imagine the very vast majority of emergency c-sections are performed to save the mother as much as they are the baby. I think it is wonderful that medical science has progressed to the extent that generally speaking, both can be saved. I'm sure it wasn't so far back in history that 'one or the other' was not an unsual question

Well if it was a sinking ship and you had your child there and you were trapped (there was a film about this long ago), you would want your child to be saved. (Gosh that film gave me nightmares - thankfully the woman was saved and reunited with her daughter).

Another scenario is if it was a decision between your child or your husband who would you save?

Child, obviously!

What if you had other children at home and no-one to look after them elendon?

No this was the scenario in a film about a sinking ship - the mother was trapped and her daughter was there. The mother said (after many attempts to try and free her) to please take her child.

I'm highlighting the difference between the moment of birth and the life of a child.

The mother gets priority in birthing situations at all times, in my opinion. I detest the lack of abortion rights in Northern Ireland and Ireland. Everyone raves about equality in gay rights, but women are just left stranded on a raft in the ocean.

I did ask the child or husband scenario at work once and no one said husband.

I'm a single parent too and thankfully past child bearing age.

Mum of course. Although if I was now given a choice, me or my child, my child. But no one else gets to make that decision for me!

Unless I lived in Northern Ireland or Latin America etc!

Not sure if these have been shared yet.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world-0/el-salvador-abortion-case-raped-woman-jailed-miscarriage-evelyn-beatriz-hern-ndez-cruz-prison-a7827891.html

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/el-salvador-miscarriage-abortion-strictest-laws-in-world-sonia-t-bora-a7584671.html