Ireland: Woman denied termination dies in hospital

[WidowWadman]

FFS - how is that defensible in any way shape or form? My thoughts go out to her family.

www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2012/1114/1224326575203.html

Miscarriage (and its treatment) should be separate from the pro-life/choice debate.

It should be, but the Pro Life stance isn't. This is why women in Mexico are in prisson for murder after a miscarriage, it is up to the woman to prove she didn't induce it - not an easy thing to prove.

In Chile an ectopic pregnancy cannot be removed before the fallopian tube bursts because it is classed as abortion and is illegal.

Bad enough if this had happened when it was thought that the baby might survive but when they KNEW there was no chance of that, why prolong her suffering?

Because is you only allow abortion when the mother's life is in imminent danger that's what the law says you have to do.

Pro lifers convenently forget the miscarriages, the ectopic pregnancies, the foetuses that die in the womb.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. It is almost beyond belief that a woman in Saudi Arabia (and other Arabic countries) has more rights over her body than a woman in Europe.

A friend of mine in the US found out via ultrasound that the foetus she was carrying could not live once born due to medical issues. Her doctor advised a termination and she went to the local priest to see what his tuppence worth was. He said go ahead and have the pregnancy terminated -- this was a foetus with no chance at all of surviving beyond having its cord cut. She went ahead and brought the baby to term anyway, and it died shortly after birth.They held a funeral. Priest was great, supported them all the way, and they felt he would have visited in the hospital if she had terminated. He had been very surprised she went ahead to birth.

I agree with you Summerflower. This was terrible medical practice. The foetus had no hope at all. From the article I gather they didn't start ABs until way too late. Infection is a well known risk when amniotic fluid is leaking and dilation has occurred. That is why women are given CS's a lot of the time -- you can't be left dilated.

I hope those so called doctors will be tried for manslaughter at the very least, and stricken from the register.

I also agree with you , Chipmonkey. There is too much spinelessness and too much complacency here. Maybe this senseless death will be a turning point? How about Enda Kenny putting his money where his mouth is and risking it? He has been vocal where the church is concerned. Time to get vocal with the medical establishment now.

There was a woman on Ryan Tubridy this morning saying that she was in a comparable situation with a miscarriage. The pregnancy was found to be molar but there was still a foetal heartbeat and again doctors here waited till there was none. I find that shocking, a molar pregnancy is cancerous and should be removed ASAP surely?

And, in the case of an ectopic here, the foetus is removed, with or without a hearbeat. So using a heartbeat as the defining criteria is madness.

I hope Enda will come to his senses and do something about this.

I hadn't actually thought about this in terms of ectopic pregnancies. That's a terrifying thought, if it was ectopic would they still refuse to remove it? Even though there is no way it would be viable and leaving it would almost definitely kill the mother?

Even though there is no way it would be viable and leaving it would almost definitely kill the mother?

very rarely an ectopic goes to term ( wiki ). This is unfortunately used as an argument by extreme 'every foetus is sacred' dogmatists even though the vast majority of ectopics won't be viable and it's a major cause of death in countries where its not treated.

Grimma I didn't realise they ever made it to term. I've known a few people almost die because of ectopics though, and the thought that some people would have been happy to let that happen based on a very small chance, that makes me feel ill.

(Hi chipmonkey!) I am as horrified by this as everybody else I know. I am not sure it is a pro abortion/pro life issue - it reminds me of the hysterectomies in OLOL, if the 'consultant playing God' is true. In the short term, hospital ethics committees should be called in and clarify hospital policies. I hate to think what fudge of a mess the politicians will come up with in the long term.

MurderOfGoths ectopic foetuses are removed on a regular basis in Ireland. I know several woman who've had ectopics pregnancies.

I actually read a US forum where a woman was seriously considering not allowing doctors to remove her ectopic pregnancy based on what some loons on the forum were telling her!
But I have never heard of someone taking that stance in Ireland.

Poor woman, chip.

I think there is such a huge, huge difference between an individual woman - who may make dangerous or unwise choices, but it is her body - and society legislating to take the choice away.

I have never heard of someone taking that stance in Ireland.
yes -the point was that ectopic pregnancies (despite being vaguely possibly viable) are terminated regardless of foetal heartbeat. So the molar pregnancy mentioned should have been too; and so should Savita's once the doctors had given no hope for a viable pregnancy.

The Irish medical establishment is incredibly arrogant. The RC church isn't a patch on the little jumped up johnnys gods running around ob and gyne wards in white coats.

Of course they get it from the schools they attend, but they go unchallenged by the pols and that has to change. If they are working in public hospitals and treating public patients they are essentially civil servants and their attitude should reflect the servant bit. 'Civil' wouldn't go amiss either.

Using the foetal heartbeat as the acid test or threshold is pure medical incompetence. Everything else pointed to D&C and administration of antibiotics.

I cannot for the life of me understand why they didn't start antibiotics sooner, at the 12 hour point at the latest, given that she was dilated and leaking fluid. Are they rationing the fecking medicine? By the time she started shivering she already had an infection, which is a completely predictable and not one bit unusual consequence of labour failing to progress either in a live delivery of a stillbirth or a miscarriage.

Many years ago (late 60s) my mother returned to Ireland having given birth in the UK. She gave the baby up for adoption. A nun commented that Ireland was a very Catholic country but not a very Christian one. Wise woman.

I know a woman (friend of a friend) whose baby was found at 20 weeks not to be viable. She was a serous Catholic (baby very much wanted) and they consulted various bishops, and she terminated the pregnancy. There was no chance the baby would have lived, undoubtedly if it had been a question of handicap, however serious, she would have continued.

I wonder what the inevitable enquiry will say?

Really the Catholic Church does not care about women. At. All.Nun excommunicated for allowing a termination on a woman whose pregnancy was threatening her life. This priest would rather the woman had died (along with the foetus, presumably) than the pregnancy terminated. This is in another supposed westernised country FFS.

Abortion Rights
Time for Change in Northern Ireland

The Catholic Church hates women.

The Catholic Church hates women.

I'm not sure that's quite accurate - but it does seem to have a problem with women who don't stay in neat boxes of saint, nun or mother.

Precisely.

The Catholic Church hates women.

No no no. They put one up on a pedestal to show how much they love women.

Blessed be the fruit of thy womb, eh.

I was doing some research when the anti choice loons were trying tot ake over my country 2 weeks ago....

I found this regarding ectopic pregnancies. www.prolifephysicians.org/rarecases.htm it's the most upsetting thing I had read in a long time. I am genuinely concerned a pregnant women will find it and risk her life on its advice

Abigail that is a very telling article, isn't it?

"You can't do evil in order to do good" says the bishop but where was the evil? If that nun had not intervened, then mother and baby would both die, if she intervenes only one dies. Where the fuck is the evil?

I also think that celibacy in the church is at the root of this ridiculous prioritisation of theology over common sense. A bunch of men, who never have and will never have pregnant wives dictating to women from the lofty heights of the Vatican. The reality of your losing your wife and the mother of your children because of a rigid adhesion to dogma will never affect them.

Well, if those doctors really felt that being Irish and Catholic was such an almighty obstruction to doing their job properly, they could have asked an English team to go over there to do the procedure - given that it sounds like she was too ill to travel.

I'd have gone - I'd have paid my own airfare. This is so totally, totally unnecessary. I'm heartbroken that my profession has been so utterly utterly immoral.

I would counter the bishop with Edmund Burke's words:
'All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing'

'Evil' isn't the term I'd use here exactly but doing nothing and thereby letting two die sure as heck shows no ethical sense.

Halloween: that is the most evil article I think I have read on the issue.
Why did I know before I had scrolled to the end that it was American? Though I suppose we have our own share of "wasn't me wot did it" medical bandits here. "The foetus just sort of died on me. Whoops, shit happens".

It reeks of rank hypocrisy. So, it's OK to do something that you know is likely to lead to the foetus dying as long as you don't actually kill it. So what they are saying is that it doesn't really matter if the foetus dies, as long as it is collateral damage. That means it is not the death of the precious unborn life that concerns them; it is the need to square their own conscience i.e. they can go to bed at night saying "well, I didn't mean to kill it, it just unfortunately happened to die".

I can think of three words to sum up people with this attitude "cowardly, hypocritical bastards".

Doesn't matter if the woman suffers in agony with a doomed ectopic pregnancy or days of pain and distress with an unavoidable miscarriage, or nine months of hell carrying her rapist's issue..after all she's only a bloody incubator. What does her pain, her health, her grief matter as long as these doctors have their bloody consciences clear. Wonder what their precious God would say about their rank hypocrisy?

As for the analogy they use about leaving one person to die in a burning car if they can't save two and not shooting them. I think that if I had got to be left to die in a burning car I would bloody beg for a bullet rather than being left to suffocate on fumes or fry.

That article is toxic and disgusting.