Word News -- A young pregnant woman who has been clinically
dead for three weeks now will be taken off life support after a three-judge
bench found that there was no chance of giving birth to a live baby.
The brain dead woman has been deteriorating fast and, according
to the court, “the prospect for the unborn is nothing but distress and death.”
Conor Dignam SC and Cormac Corrigan SC, representing the interest of the unborn
and the woman, respectively, told the court they will not appeal the ruling.
The woman in question is 18 weeks pregnant and was 15 weeks
into gestation when doctors declared her clinically dead on 3rd of December
in Dublin Hospital. Her condition was occasioned
by a brain injury she suffered at another hospital just outside Dublin on
November 29th. She had been
admitted at the hospital after checking in for severe headaches.
Doctors at the Dublin hospital were concerned about the
legal implications of her pregnancy, arising from the legal provision to maintain
the right to life of the unborn and, therefore, had placed her on somatic life
support treatment.
Her father, her partner and the extended family made an application
to the court seeking orders to stop the somatic life support in order for them
to accord her a dignified burial. Her father cited how distressed her eldest
daughter had been when she visited her mother.
During the case, seven doctors provided evidence to the
court and none of them expressed the need to continue treatment or if there was
any chance of the baby being born alive if the treatment continued. The court
was informed of how her condition was fast deteriorating--She had an open wound
on the head, with infections and a rotting brain.
The court based its decision on prevailing medical evidence
that shows poorer prognosis of the unborn child if the mother suffers brain death
in early gestation. Thus the court was satisfied that it was in the best
interest of the unborn child to authorize the withdrawal of life support in
this “tragic and unfortunate” case.
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