MOSCOW, December 26 (Sputnik) –The Irish High Court has said doctors may switch off the life support machine of a pregnant woman who has been clinically dead since December 3, reports The Irish Times.
Members of the woman's family have expressed their demands to switch the equipment off to preserve the woman’s dignity. Her father, together with her partner and extended family, appealed to court for stopping the somatic treatment so they could bury her “with dignity”. Her father said she no longer looked like his daughter and the eldest of her two young children had been very distressed when she saw her mother last week, reports The Irish Times.
On Friday, the Irish High Court has said doctors may switch off the life support machine.
The court stated that there was no genuine prospect the somatic process would lead to the birth of a live baby, the court further stressed that even if the unborn child was born alive, it would be impaired to a greater or lesser degree.
The court also believed maintenance of the somatic support would deprive the mother of dignity in death and subject her father, her partner and her young children to “unimaginable distress in a futile exercise which commenced only because of fears held by treating medical specialists of potential legal consequences”.
So far, according to the Irish abortion law, abortions are illegal even if a mother were to have a “stroke, heart attack, epileptic seizure” resulting in a permanent disability.
Lawyers representing the interests of the woman argued the treatment should continue. It was argued, given she was a full-time mother devoted to her children, she would have wanted her child to live, reports The Irish Times.
But in conclusion the court said that decision will not be appealed because interests of unborn had been fully considered.
“This unfortunate unborn has suffered the dreadful fate of being in the womb of a mother who has died, and in which the environment is neither safe nor stable, and which is failing at an alarming rate.”
Dr. Peter McKenna, former master of Dublin's Rotunda Maternity Hospital, said if the treatment was not stopped immediately it would go 'from the extraordinary to the grotesque' as the woman’s blood was becoming increasingly toxic.
