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Original poster

Clinically dead Irishwoman being used as human incubator

322 replies

FayKorgasm · 17/12/2014 21:18

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 Sad .

OP posts:
PoinsettiaGordino · 19/12/2014 07:27

The thing is starlight that actually this situation has nothing to do with what the woman would have wanted. It would have happened regardless of whether she had wanted to keep the baby, or even if she hadn't known she was pregnant

msrisotto · 19/12/2014 07:30

I just don't think that one can be both dead and pregnant at the same time. What a crazy sentence that is! It is different to organ donation as the organs are removed quickly after death.

Gothgirl78 · 19/12/2014 07:35

Does anyone know what would happen in the uk? If it's what the woman would have wanted and there's a good chance of a healthy baby I don't see the problem. To be honest it's what I would have wanted. Some women die in childbirth, I'm sure the child could feel guilty about that.

Of all the things that governments and individuals do around the world I can't understand those who think it's the most upsetting macabre thing . I do understand that Ireland doesn't have abortion rights and that is awful but we really don't have enough information to make judgements that she could have been raped etc.

I'm pro choice up to 24 weeks, so not a rabid pro lifer. I think a heathy baby would be a good outcome if it's medically possible.

Like I say , the uk has abortion up to birth in some instances. what would happen here?

Original poster
FayKorgasm · 19/12/2014 08:07

The familys wishes for her life support to be switched off would be respected.
A pp made an excellent point,it is about choice or lack thereof. Saying you would choose to continue is fine because that is your choice,there is no such luxury of choice afforded to pregnant Irish women and girls. They have no choices. According to the constitution they must birth at all costs. The pill only became legal in 1980 with strong almost impossible restrictions. Symphsiotomy was routinely performed until the 80s. They locked up unmarried mothers and sold their babies or held vaccine trials on them.
We think we have moved on from the atrocities of the recent past but we haven't really.

OP posts:
SkudSikker · 19/12/2014 08:25

Totally agree Fay. It's true, not much movement that came from 'within'. Lone Parent Allowance only came in to existence in about 1986, roughly the time European parliament started to have involvement and observe what was going on.

YonicSleighdriver · 19/12/2014 09:47

In the UK, there is no concept of personhood or equal rights for the foetus. The doctors would be looking to act in the best interest of the patient. If there was no hope of even partial recovery, as seems to be the case here, I don't think even the wishes of NOK would prevent the withdrawal of life support because no interests of the autonomous patient are being served by it.

YonicSleighdriver · 19/12/2014 09:49

Understandably, there is little or no data to know what chance of "a healthy baby" might be.

YonicSleighdriver · 19/12/2014 10:00

By the same token, gothgirl, NOK probably wouldn't be allowed to keep a relative alive for a few months to allow another relative to get well enough for a transplant operation, even if the dead person would have wanted that.

scarletforya · 19/12/2014 10:09

I'm not sure if it's been said before but she has a dp/DH and two other children. The baby was wanted.

JellybeansInTheSky · 19/12/2014 10:16

This is completely bonkers. It would make sense for a few days or possibly maximum a couple of weeks if the baby was on the borderline of viability and just needed a bit of extra time to cross the threshold or for steroid injections to take effect and help mature the lungs. In that case it wouldn't be so different from what happens with organ transplant.

in early pregnancy it makes to sense whatsoever. If this woman is brain dead as opposed to brain damaged everything in her body will be breaking down. The livescience article linked to earlier explains quite well what will be happening.

Ireland's abortion laws are the only possible explaination for this decision. They make no sense whatsoever and are based purely on heartbeat despite that not even being the medical definition of life. Even if your baby has no brain function and will die immediately after birth in Ireland you will still be forced to continue with the pregnancy.

Greythorne · 19/12/2014 10:16

Posting from
Phone so will be brief. Just wanted to say what a sad and thought-provoking thread. I wish the media would consider threads like this one with intelligently argued moral dilemmas argued with great compassion next time they want to write about mumsnet.

Artifexmumdi · 19/12/2014 13:10

Yes, the baby was wanted, but if I understand correctly, if it was not wanted, they would still be doing the exact same thing. That is, the mother's wishes are totally irrelevant. They would be keeping the mother alive regardless of what she wanted. That's where the horror comes from.

YonicSleighdriver · 19/12/2014 14:24

Yy artifex.

And re who is next of kin - as she and her DP already have two kids together (ie this isn't a casual relationship) then I would hope and assume her parents are in discussions with him.

GarlicDrankTheChristmasSpirit · 19/12/2014 14:32

This ghoulish procedure has given rise to the need for a new term because the law is not keeping the mother alive. She is dead. Her body's being forced to go through the motions of being alive and in a coma. She is not in a coma, she's gone for good. Even the word 'undead' suggests more life than this poor corpse has got.

PoinsettiaGordino · 19/12/2014 14:41

precisely artifex - whether the baby is wanted or not is irrelevant to the law. people saying "if the baby was wanted by the mother then i don't see why this is a problem" are missing the whole point

Original poster
FayKorgasm · 19/12/2014 15:08

Thank you greythorne but I doubt the media is interested in anything but the sex threads cause you know,us mummies shouldn't be talking about the horizontal sprint Wink

Yes I agree that the whole point of choice has been lost. Her parents choose to turn the machines off but that choice is not respected because it doesn't matter. If the woman had said herself to turn the machines off it would not be respected.
There may not be a dp/dh. I could go out tonight and have a one night stand and become pregnant,should he get a right to my uterus if I was in this womans situation?

OP posts:
GarlicDrankTheChristmasSpirit · 19/12/2014 15:29

Assuming this abomination's justified by the principles of the Catholic church, it would be interesting to know what its very impressive current Pope would have to say about it.

An Irish Mumsnetter will, by now, have given 'birth' to the genetically compromised foetus she was forced to incubate, knowing it would die upon delivery. I last read her posts during the four months she spent in hospital, suffering extreme pain & severe illness as her body tried to reject the foetal tissue. They were among the most harrowing threads I've read in eight years on the site.

Original poster
FayKorgasm · 19/12/2014 16:31

Garlic one of my very dear friends gave birth two years ago to a baby with severe brain abnormalities who they knew would die as soon as he was born. She could not travel for the abortion she wanted as she was quite ill and the drugs she could take were not the right ones as she could not take the right ones because she was pregnant. The morbid cruel irony is not lost on me.

OP posts:
ApocalypseThen · 19/12/2014 19:07

Assuming this abomination's justified by the principles of the Catholic church, it would be interesting to know what its very impressive current Pope would have to say about it.

It isn't. The Catholic Church won't allow you to procure an abortion for the purpose of not being pregnant, but if a woman is bring treated for something and the foetus dies as a side effect, that's unfortunate but not sinful.

This is down to an extremely poor constitutional amendment. At the time, the man responsible for drafting and pushing the amendment thought that the wording "as far as practicable" would cover all eventualities to protect women's lives due to how broad it is. Of course, it has had the opposite effect because doctors have no idea what they may do.

I used to know the granddaughter of the taoiseah who agreed to hold the referendum leading to this amendment. Seemingly it ended up being the bitterest regret of his public life.

This is a case where bad laws make hard cases.

PuffinsAreFictitious · 19/12/2014 19:32

Just to reiterate what Apocalypse said, this has nothing whatever to do with Catholicism for a change

She's dead, according to The Church, the foetus she was carrying can be allowed to die too, without anyone going to Hell for it.

I hope they make the decision quickly, before the host's liver starts to fail and poisons the foetus.

GarlicDrankTheChristmasSpirit · 19/12/2014 19:57

The morbid cruel irony is not lost on me - It is a gruesome irony indeed. The Irish State will keep you alive but not well, preferring the survival of a foetus which is too unwell to live outside your ravaged body. Everybody loses. Now that State doesn't even care if you are dead.

(I realise the State probably does "care", but not enough to have revised its draconian law on the matter.)

GarlicDrankTheChristmasSpirit · 19/12/2014 19:57

Thanks for the clarification, Catholics!

ApocalypseThen · 19/12/2014 20:08

(I realise the State probably does "care", but not enough to have revised its draconian law on the matter.)

It's not really that simple. It would take a referendum to change it. I know that referenda on social issues don't really happen in the UK, but they are extremely divisive. And one thing is for sure, regardless of what the wording if the referendum could be, it would be career and reputation ending for whomever decides to do something. Petty and self interested, certainly, but as Charles Haughey once said (in a different context), there's no percentage in it.

Schoolaroundthecorner · 19/12/2014 21:07

(I realise the State probably does "care", but not enough to have revised its draconian law on the matter.)

The problem is the law didn't envisage this type of scenario but by giving equal, to all intents and purposes, weight to the life of the foetus this is the end result. The concept of abortion in Ireland is so fraught that various Governments have dodged the issue repeatedly or only changed things in extremely limited ways (the most recent change for example) which doesn't address the underlying issue.

SkudSikker · 19/12/2014 21:18

Garlic, why can't we have a real poll for every citizen?! if all politicians really care about, then they should find out where the line is, what would lose them votes. instead of those that shout the loudest (pro-lifers) controlling everything.

I'm Irish but for one thing I'm pro-choice. I'm not Catholic either for that matter. who is this bullshit on behalf of?! An ageing catholic population that exists most of all in TD's worst fears, but least of all on 'the street'.