Unborn child ‘has no hope of survival’

A leading medical expert has branded as "grotesque" the prospect of continuing to maintain a brain-dead pregnant woman on life- support while the unborn child she is carrying has almost no hope of survival.

Peter McKenna, clinical director at the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, was giving expert evidence to a specially convened three-judge Divisional Court which heard the young mother of two had chosen a name for her unborn baby and was looking forward to the birth.

“We are all in uncharted waters,” he told the court. “I can see we are where we are, but I don’t think that is a justification for continuing any further.”