Consultation - Coroner's investigations into stillbirths

[BoomBoomsCousin]

There's a thread in In The News on a government consultation on a proposal to have coroner's courts investigate all stillbirths for babies who are stillborn at 37 weeks or later.

The proposal is framed as responding to parental desire for independent investigation, but the consultation outlines a process that is not driven by parents at all, takes no account of parental desire for the process, would compel witness testimony and mentions nothing about the mother's right to medical privacy. It seems like a somewhat Orwellian response to a request for independent assessment of medical care.

I am concerned it could become a further mechanism for stripping pregnant women of autonomy and subjecting their behavior to public oversight and judgment.

Please take a look.

I am concerned it could become a further mechanism for stripping pregnant women of autonomy and subjecting their behavior to public oversight and judgment.

That was my first concern. If a Pence/Trump-type gets in, can this be used to criminalize and oppress women?

MrsTerryPratchett as the proposal stands, no. A new law would have to be created to hold women criminally responsible. A coroner's court doesn't make findings of criminal guilt, though they could perhaps find that crimes have been committed.

I think the issue is more that coroner's court findings are down to the individual coroner and they aren't experts in many of the things they make pronouncements on. So if you have a coroner who thinks the role of a pregnant woman is to do everything possible to facilitate the perfect health of the baby despite any cost to herself, you could get some pretty awful findings. Even if you just have someone who has a pretty middle of the road view on how women should behave, if the mother of a stillborn baby happens to have engaged in risky but legal behaviour, or illegal but very common behaviour, we could find that behaviour being commented upon in a public hearing after the loss of her baby.

And none of these findings would be subject to the normal safeguards of the scientific process that good medical research undergoes.

This crosses so many lines I'm not really sure where one ends and another begins.

Also it doesn't appear to be clear if all coroners to examine said babies are forensic pathologists or not. if they aren't forensic pathologists then they certainly aren't qualified to carry out these examinations.

In cases where parents would like their stillborn child to be examined it should be available but it should not be compulsory - if not desired by the parents it is an incredible invasion of privacy.

Stop coroner's don't even need to be doctors. A lawyer can become a coroner. I don't think coroners do the actual autopsies, though. They take reports from the pathologist who does the autopsy and consider them along with other evidence.