Clinically dead Irishwoman being used as human incubator

[FayKorgasm]

I am on my phone so cannot link but I was reading an article about a pregnant Irish woman who is clinically dead being kept alive against her next of kins wishes. The Irish constitution gives equal right to life of both woman and foetus.

Very sad situation made a million times worse .

Organ donation doesn't happen at biological death.

Doesn't it? Sorry. But it does happen at a given moment or in a short period of time, around the time that death is declared, surely. It doesn't involve a delay of months.

The woman's body doesn't need to be changed in order to give the baby life. It is already happening and it was happening when she was alive. They are maintaining the status quo and one which it is very likely that the woman chose, although we don't know for sure that she chose to be pregnant.

She is dead. Her organs can give her baby the chance of life. The only difference between this and organ donation is that the family does not have a portion of the body to bury/cremate.

You cannot assume that if someone chose to be pregnant, they would be "very likely" to choose to be artificially kept alive for five months.

There is nothing status quo about this situation - if she was not pregnant, she would be dead.

Her organs can give more than this baby the chance of life. So why not distribute those to already living, viable people?

Sorry kay, I should have been clearer. I was agreeing with what you said in answer to Stellas nok query.
I linked that story as it shows what happens with a baby and unmarried father, demonstrating that with a potential baby, the same applies, in that he would have no automatic legal say.

You cannot assume that if someone chose to be pregnant, they would be "very likely" to choose to be artificially kept alive for five months.

I didn't mean that. I meant that it is very likely that she chose to be pregnant.

She is dead.

Yonic I didn't mean it was termination. The point I was making was she wanted her baby. There is nothing to suggest she would not want her baby still to be born just because she will no longer live.

If it was me I would have wanted my baby to survive. Who wouldn't?

I wouldnt. Not in these circumstances. I wouldnt want my parents burdened with the decision of keeping or giving up for adoption a possibly very unwell baby with goodness knows what developmental issues due to having grown in a lifeless body.

Nor would i want to burden the child with that either especially as I wouldnt be there to do everything i could to make it's life as easy as possible should those problems arise.

I agree with the poster who said this will not end well.

I find this horrific TBH.

You wouldn't tell the kids its a dead body would you though. You would say mummy is sleeping.

So they think Mummy will wake up soon? I wouldn't put my existing child through that, to save a 14 week foetus, I think that is so cruel. I would want my family to be able to say goodbye to me, deal with their grief and get my child in counselling if necessary. Not drag out the agony and cause my child further confusion and distress.

Extremely distressing for the family, but doctors are doing the 'right' thing per the constitutional amendment - what's in that baby's' best interests?
furthermore, what would the mum have wanted?
why should the family's feelings trump that of the mother and the child's potential right to life?
this is no slippery slope it's a highly unusual situation very unlikely to be replicated often at all. Scary, sad, awful - but if doctors actively did anything now, it would be known to them that the baby would die, with certainty - and what other outcome? mother would cease to receive life sustaining support. She is clinically dead, ie loss of cardiac output, no breathing - but this is being done for her - there is no mention of brain stem death or other investigations. I am no Irish lawyer but if UK law amended fetus rights similarly UK doctors would do this. Very hard to balance interests, though. In current UK law of course, there is no duty to the unborn child and distressing decisions are upheld, such as mothers refusing a C/S knowing their baby would die, when doctors know they can both be saved and are then bound by the refusal. Is it not right that there is some level of duty to the unborn child? is it right that it can be 40wks+1 in utero and have no rights at all, no matter how easily it could be saved, dying - vs 40+2, born, and receiving full medical attention.
Anyway with this situation, it's doctors following child's best interests or the relatives' wishes or interests. I think a tragic case, will seriously complicate grief, may cause child problems if survives - however if one is not alive at all one can have no quality of life.

Soon it is not wonderful,it will set a precedent. A very precarious one.

I agree. It is very worrying. Will we now have life support beds and staff being taken up keeping dead women alive for up to 6 months? I dont know how common it is for a woman to die whilst pregnant but it happens. Women who have died in car accidents being transferred to hospitals to have their organs artificially maintained for months? Really? That is acceptable to people? Its fucking disgraceful.

however if one is not alive at all one can have no quality of life.

And never suffer a damn thing. How can anyone possibly say that premature birth, weeks, if not months in hospital, likely feeding issues, growth issues and developmental issues, add to that the psychological issues of how you came to be born and having no mother, is in the foetus' best interest when the alternative is no suffering at all? Baffles me.

It's disgusting treatment of the woman. I could understand if she was a few weeks off full term but to keep a corpse functioning for months is shameful. Shame on them.

Alternative is no life at all - but yes, agree. However, no reason to believe would be very prem, they should be monitoring closely. Rather ghoulish. I think they made the wrong call
However I imagine that because of nature of decline and perhaps stabilised pt on life support, it placed it very much as a decision to the team, who knew about the pregnancy. It's not at all like someone coming in, crashing, they stop trying even though pregnant. For all they knew, the death of the baby could have caused immense psychological anguish and damage to the family concerned. As far as they did know, it's a baby with a chance at a normal life. I don't think the law is good though because it is simply not possible to balance so accurately the best interests/autonomy of both in all cases - artifice due to abortion/religion.. however I think perhaps there are times when obstetrician could be involved in life saving decisions with a viable baby - which is missing from UK law.
So perhaps the issue is - is fetus capable of being alive of its own accord? or how long will it take to get there? if baby was past 22-24wks and this had happened, or later - would it not be right to keep in utero for long enough to administer steroids etc and improve condition to give it the best chance? How long is too long, then? is mother being used as means to an end? or not, because she's not alive anyway - balance of benefit:harm - 1 death or 2? or should it take into account family/societal interests and child's future emotional aspects

You'd tell kids mummy is sleeping then in five months time tell them she's dead?

I doubt that you would.

do rights end at death? scary stuff, and while it is an Irish precedent it will not be more widely adopted - and wuld be very rarely applied. I do sugest they got this wrong as early pregnancy, but I also think the babies that are definitely viable at time of maternal death should be supported in living, where possible, without going to such extraneous lengths. I also think there are times when best interests of a full term infant should perhaps be weighed with mother's decision and that sometimes it may rarely be appropriate to take action to save a term infant if quite easy to do so.

I don't think any who have said she should be kept alive for the foetus have said she shiould be kept alive waiting for a donor match for her kidneys.

What's the difference in your eyes?

sorry typos - clumsy asleep fingers! apologies

This is honestly the most horrifying thing I have ever read, I can't imagine what her parents are going through at the moment - to know your child is dead but being unable to start the grieving process as they are being kept "alive" to incubate a foetus.

I agree with pp, this feels like some sort of weird medical experience, but I honestly think that there must be some lasting negative effects of a foetus being incubated inside a lifeless body?

Forgive me if I misunderstand, but isn't the chance of the baby surviving slim?

I did not think it was easy to keep a dead body in a state where it could support a pregnancy.

Also, I do not believe we know whether or not the woman is in pain. We know she is brain dead. That means she isn't registering thoughts. But - and again, forgive me if I'm wrong - I thought that at some times, we respond to stimuli that do not even need to pass all the way up the spinal chord to the brain?

How do we know she's not in pain, but unable to register it in any of the tests we use to determine brain death?

That worries me.

without wishing to be gruesome, it's not like a zombie or anything - the mother will be well perfused, normal in appearance and vital signs are being mechanically controlled. When that stops, not alive. But it's not like the fetus will have a hugely differing experience. I wonder about drugs though, positioning and hormonal effects - it's not going to be a normal 'uterus' experience, but it won't be creepy.. the delivery as well, etc - I imagine the woman would be allowed to die in theatre following C/S

A very similar case occurred this year in Texas, and it was a step too far even for their courts who ruled the woman be allowed to die. Doesn't say much for Ireland.

edition.cnn.com/2014/01/24/health/pregnant-brain-dead-woman-texas/

cafe - yes, that was my point too!

I don't imagine that the mother won't be normal in appearance, but I didn't think the hormones etc. could be managed easily?

It is, obviously, something still at 'experimental' stages, which is making this foetus as much of a guinea-pig as its mother, btw.

I'm also worried about the prognosis for the foetus. We don't know exactly what caused the mothers death and whether this will have had potentially catastrophic implications for the child. Going by a previous case in Ireland where an abortion was refused, even though a miscarraige was in progress, all that had to be present was a foetal heartbeat for the medical staff to refuse to intervene. This could be the case here, in that the child may have suffered as a result of the event that killed its mother, but as it is technically still alive the mother must be kept on life support.

I truly hope that isn't the case and the likely outcome for the foetus isn't as bleak given the already devastating events.