‘Nothing but death’ in future for baby

Artificial life support for a brain dead woman and the unborn baby in her womb is to be switched off by order of a three-judge divisional court of the High Court.

High Court President Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said he and his colleagues, Ms Justice Marie Baker and Ms Justice Caroline Costello had concluded that, in the best interest of the 18-week-old foetus, they should authorise withdrawal of somatic support at the discretion of the medical team.

“This unfortunate unborn has suffered the dreadful fate of being present 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,” the judges stated in their reserved judgment.

They accepted the evidence of medical witnesses that normal bodily parameters were being maintained within extraordinarily fine limits and that, in this case, there was no real prospect of maintaining stability in the womb having regard to the degree of infection, fluctuating temperatures in the woman’s body, the difficulty in maintaining a safe blood pressure, and the amount of toxic medication being administered to the woman which was not licenced for pregnancy.

“The somatic support being provided to the mo-ther is being maintained at hugely destructive cost to both her remains and to the feelings and sensitivities of her family and loved ones,” the judges stated.

“The condition of the mother is failing at such a rate, and to such a degree, that it will not be possible for the pregnancy to pro-gress much further or to a point where any form of live birth will be possible... While the unborn child is not yet in distress, it is facing into a ‘perfect storm’ from which it has no realistic prospect of emerging alive. It has nothing but distress and death in prospect.”

The court determined that to maintain and continue the present artificial support for the woman would deprive her of dignity in death and subject her father, her partner, and her two children to unimaginable distress in a futile exercise which only arose due to medical specialists’ fear of potential legal consequences.

Highly experienced medical practitioners with the best interests of both the woman and the foetus in mind did not believe there was any medical or ethical basis for continuing with a process described as verging on the grotesque.

Mr Justice Kearns said the judges were satisfied that, in the best interest of the unborn, the court should authorise the withdrawal of ongoing treatment being provided to the woman in a tragic and unfortunate case.

The court considered that the case had raised issues of great public importance and granted the father, the legal representatives of the woman, and those of the unborn, legal costs against the HSE.

The woman has been admitted to a hospital outside Dublin suffering from headaches and nausea, where she suffered a fall and had been urgently intubated after she was found to be unresponsive.

She was taken to a Dublin hospital on December 2 but the next day was declared brain dead and was transferred to a hospital outside Dublin, where she was put under intensive artificial care pending clarification of the legal situation.

During their deliberations, the court took into consideration the dignity and respect due to the woman even in death.

“Such an approach has been the hallmark of civilised societies from the dawn of time,” the court said. “It is a deeply ingrained part of our humanity and may be seen as necessary both for those who have died and also for the sake of those who remain living and who just go on.”