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.”

The woman died on December 3, but has been maintained on life-support because of the constitutional protection for the unborn, the High Court heard. The woman, who is in her 20s, was referred to several times in the hearing as “brain dead”, “deceased”, “a corpse” and “like a dead body”.

Relatives wept as an intensive care expert said her body was no longer able to “obtain normal body tone”.

The court heard that at one stage the woman had make-up applied for a visit by her two children who had been brought to see her before she “joined the angels”.

Doctors are having difficulty maintaining her blood pressure and she also has a series of infections, Dr Brian Marsh told the court.

“It is my best judgment that sustaining [her] is not feasible for a long period of time,” said Dr Marsh, who described the foetus as existing within “a very abnormal environment”.

Consultant obstetrician Peter Boylan said he had no doubt the continuance of life-support was experimental. Legal advice had left doctors with little choice but to continue support.

Mr Boylan said the unborn was effectively in an intensive care unit in its mother’s womb. Care could be withdrawn from both, allowing the mother to be buried. He felt the case was entirely different from an abortion.

Lawyers for the HSE said it was not practicable to vindicate any right to life of the unborn child. The HSE believed the appropriate declaration was for the ending of life-support.

The father of the woman told the court, led by High Court President Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, it was distressing to witness his daughter on life-support knowing that she has died.

Judge Kearns, sitting with Ms Justice Marie Baker and Ms Justice Catherine Costello, extended the court’s sympathies to the woman’s family and partner.

“My daughter is dead,” the woman’s father told the court. “The chances of the foetus surviving is minimal. I just want her to have dignity and be put to rest.”

The court also heard from the father of the unborn baby who supports the family’s application to have life support withdrawn.

The judges will hear legal submissions today and the court will deliver a ruling on St Stephen’s Day.