A brain-dead pregnant Irish woman was taken off life support on Dec. 26 in wake of a Dublin High Court ruling that found that the unborn child would not have a chance of surviving. The woman, who was in her late 20s and already had two young children, was declared brain-dead on Dec. 3, four days after suffering a serious head injury because of a fall. Her parents had requested that she be taken off life support, but doctors refused, saying that they could be prosecuted for negligence or murder under Irish law for failing to protect the life of the fetus.
According to the ruling by Justices Nicholas Kearns, Marie Baker, and Caroline Costello, the child was facing “a ‘perfect storm’ from which it has no realistic prospect of emerging alive. It has nothing but distress and death in prospect,” while the mother’s life support was “being maintained at hugely destructive cost to both her remains and to the feelings and sensitivities of her family and loved ones.” They did, however, suggest that the ruling would be different if the child was closer to delivery, as the rights of the child “must prevail over the feelings of grief and respect for a mother who is no longer living.”
The ruling used the testimony of seven doctors who said it would be impossible for the fetus to survive for two months – the time at which an attempt would be made at safely delivering the child because the woman’s body was becoming a hostile environment for the child.
“There is no obligation to use extraordinary means to maintain a life. That applies both to the woman and to the child,” said Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin before the ruling was made. “A woman isn’t simply an incubator. The relation between a woman and a child is a relationship, and it is very clear that one has to examine at what stage is this fetus, what are the possibilities.”
“While it is very difficult for the families concerned that cases like this sometimes end up in court, the fact is that it is a sign of a healthy democracy that life and death issues are taken seriously and appropriately determined,” said Dr. Ruth Cullen of Pro Life Campaign, an Irish pro-life group. “It is crass and unseemly the way some people are using this sad case to push for repeal of the Eighth Amendment, which offers the only remaining legal protection for the unborn in Ireland.”
“Why not use it to save … a life before throwing it away?” writes pro-life libertarian blogger Tim Worstall about the woman’s body. “That is, after all, entirely the logic of cadaveric organ transplantation, that bits we no longer need because we’re dead enable others to carry on living.” Worstall continued: “Remember, there is no woman left here who has rights. There’s only the fetus subject to a kill it/don’t kill it decision.”
On Dec. 18, in a similar case, a baby was delivered by Caesarean section from a brain-dead Italian woman on life support during her 32nd week of pregnancy. The woman from Milan had a massive brain hemorrhage during her 23rd week. Doctors at San Raffaele Hospital kept the woman alive while feeding the baby through a tube put into the mother’s abdomen.
In February of last year, baby Iver Cohen Benson was born healthy at 28 weeks. His mother, Robyn Benson from Victoria, B.C., who became brain-dead from a hemorrhage when she was 22 weeks pregnant, was kept on life support to give the child more time to develop. Her husband, Dylan, wrote on his blog that he decided to keep his wife alive because he believed that is what she would have wanted.
A different case in Texas ended more tragically. Marlise Munoz was declared brain-dead, but kept on life support to protect the life of her unborn child in accordance with Texas law. Her husband, Erick, obtained a court order from Justice R.H. Wallace Jr. in January 2014 to remove the mother and her 22 week-old child from life support. “As I understand the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court that if this fetus were not viable (and) Ms. Muñoz were alive … she could abort the child,” said Judge Wallace to the courtroom.
