Woman 'denied a termination' dies in hospital

[Bezant]

Agreed. I suspect that at least one if not two are trolling.

 

[pepipop]

This is a study on the catholic ethics concerning abortion when a heart beat is still present. I can only assume that no infection was present before the fetal heartbeat stopped and was a post complication. However, it does seem, without further knowledge of the case, from the study below that the pregnancy could have been terminated sooner and would still have adhered to Catholic ethical procedures.

**When There’s a Heartbeat: Miscarriage Management in Catholic-Owned Hospitals

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/**PMC2636458/

*GENERAL MISCARRIAGE MANAGEMENT

According to the generally accepted standards of care in miscarriage management, abortion is medically indicated under certain circumstances in the presence of fetal heart tones. Such cases include first-trimester septic or inevitable miscarriage, previable premature rupture of membranes and chorioamnionitis, and situations in which continuation of the pregnancy significantly threatens the life or health of the woman.*

*OVERVIEW OF CATHOLIC POLICY

In Catholic-owned hospitals, physicians must request approval to terminate a pregnancy for any indication from the ethics committee, which interprets and enforces the directives. Such consultations can be done quickly over the phone with an on-call representative of the committee, typically a priest or nun, if the medical situation is urgent. *

However, the manual of Catholic hospital ethics committees, used to help them interpret and apply the directives, warns, “The mere rupture of membranes, without infection, is not serious enough to sanction interventions that will lead to the death of the child.”6 By contrast, writing in a leading Catholic health journal, other Catholic health ethicists offer a more liberal interpretation of Directive 47: uterine evacuation is indicated if abortion is inevitable and delay will harm the pregnant woman.1

Therefore, the former—and arguably more authoritative—source approves of uterine evacuation only after a woman becomes sick, and the latter approves of it as a measure to prevent sickness.

 

[Ridgerunner]

“By the 36th week there is usually around a liter of amniotic fluid, but by this time it is made up for the most part from fetal urine.” gynob.com/amniotic.htm

I think that by 17 weeks a good bit of it is urine.

Technically true inasmuch as the baby swallows the fluid, then excretes it. But it’s not the same stuff as “urine” as we think of it. nature.com/jp/journal/v25/n5/full/7211290a.html

 

[Marc_Anthony]

i’m not sure what to call it. But it is outrageous and crazy.

No matter how many times you repeat, it’s still unsubstantiated and untrue, not to mention extremely rude.

If my wife is pregnant i’ll take care not to visit any catholic countries.

And if my wife is pregnant I won’t be going to any doctors who’s idea of treatment in an emergency is an abortion.

 

[sophion]

And if my wife is pregnant I won’t be going to any doctors who’s idea of treatment in an emergency is an abortion.

hey i wont either. at least we agree.

---

but in this the fetus is already as good as dead. said the doctors.

 

[Do_Good_Then_Go]

The article never really tells us why the woman became septicemic, why antibiotics were put off as long as they were, why they failed or even why E Coli (normally only found in the digestive tract or in unsanitary conditions0 was prominent among the bacteria in her bloodstream. How did it get past the blood barrier between mother and baby? Was there another, undiscovered and/or untreated source of infection?

If the septicemia was due to the baby becoming necrotic (which we’re not told) how did they find a heartbeat? Was the placenta perhaps necrotic? We don’t know.

The article does not explain why induction could not be performed if the physicians felt the baby could not survive whether they did or didn’t do it, and particularly when it was concluded that she was mid-miscarriage anyway.

I am not a doctor, but I intend to ask one about this. There are things here that need answers that are not in the article.

The article’s chosen answer is “The cause is the Catholic Church”, without ever exploring the physical cause or causes.

E coli is a common cause septicaemia.

Whenever the membranes have ruptured (as must have been the case here if amniotic fluid was leaking) there is a risk of intrauterine infection and this can result in maternal sepsis - it’s a known complication and unfortunately deaths do occur. The longer the membranes have been ruptured, the greater the chances of infection.

I agree there are unanswered questions and a news report never gives all the facts. However the fact is, maternal sepsis and death can and does occur. The vagina is not sterile and once the membranes have ruptured there’s an easy path for bacteria from the skin and surrounding areas to enter the uterus even in the most hygienic and sanitary conditions.

 

[Bezant]

No matter how many times you repeat, it’s still unsubstantiated and untrue, not to mention extremely rude.

And if my wife is pregnant I won’t be going to any doctors who’s idea of treatment in an emergency is an abortion.

Not worth it.

 

[maryjk]

I have known people whose water broke and depending on the stage, the doctor might wait but if there was any sign of infection they would act to deliver the baby because a broken bag of water places mom and baby at high risk of infection. Unfortunately, antibiotics alone would not do the job. That’s the advice they gave those mothers.

What I don’t get is, if the reason for not delivering is that the baby would die, how is leaving the mom ill and untreated going to change that? Seems to me the baby dies either way: by action or inaction; difference is, the mother dies too with inaction. I understand the prohibition of direct killing of course, but I do question as you seem to, whether delivering the baby would qualify as direct killing.

My water broke, I was 3cm dilated.

They did an ultrasound to see if I was replacing the fluid. Since I was, they put me in the hospital, with IV antibiotics. I was told that I would remain there, being tested for infection regularly, until I gave birth. I was on bed rest, with my hips higher than my head.

If I had not be replacing the fluid, they would have delivered then.

I ended up delivering that evening, just 6 hours later. (Our baby lived and he is a six foot tall young man.)

Without all of the information in the OP, we can only guess what happened and why. It could have been that the woman was so sick, she was going to die anyway and delivery would have brought death faster. I don’t know the laws in Ireland, but in the US, the hospital can’t defend itself to the media due to privacy laws.

 

[Ridgerunner]

E coli is a common cause septicaemia.

Whenever the membranes have ruptured (as must have been the case here if amniotic fluid was leaking) there is a risk of intrauterine infection and this can result in maternal sepsis - it’s a known complication and unfortunately deaths do occur. The longer the membranes have been ruptured, the greater the chances of infection.

I agree there are unanswered questions and a news report never gives all the facts. However the fact is, maternal sepsis and death can and does occur. The vagina is not sterile and once the membranes have ruptured there’s an easy path for bacteria from the skin and surrounding areas to enter the uterus even in the most hygienic and sanitary conditions.

The key thing here is that there are unanswered question. “The Catholic Church” is not “medical causation”. Never is medical causation established in the article.

 

[sophion]

does that mean most of you agree that the doctors did the right thing.

“ma’am we aint touching your baby. this is a catholic country and we will have to wait for the baby to die as we projected. Meanwhile just bear your excruciating pain and hope and pray you are strong enough to survive this.”
​

 

[ccmnxc]

does that mean most of you agree that the doctors did the right thing.
“ma’am we aint touching your baby. this is a catholic country and we will have to wait for the baby to die as we projected. Meanwhile just bear your excruciating pain and hope and pray you are strong enough to survive this.”

If any of the doctors were quoted in any of the articles in this way, I’d like to see it. Otherwise, you are putting the words in their mouth, which shows how you’re willing to sacrifice honesty to push an agenda.

 

[Bezant]

 

[Linusthe2nd]

And from what hospital are you from, Doctor?

look for excuses instead of dealing with the problem. amazing.

Your comments are ignorant, biased, and higly offensive. Just exactly what is your purpose for being on these forums? It certainly isn’t to learn anything.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

What you guys think about this? Is abortion should be done in this case?
montrealgazette.com/news/Ireland+probes+death+critically+woman+denied+abortion/7546683/story.html

The woman received poor medical treatment. But neither that nor any other situation would justify an abortion. This is just another of those " hard " cases the pro-abortionists cite as an excuse to justify wholesale murder.

To take an innocent life is always grave matter. In the case of abortion it is also automatic excommunication.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

My water broke, I was 3cm dilated.

They did an ultrasound to see if I was replacing the fluid. Since I was, they put me in the hospital, with IV antibiotics. I was told that I would remain there, being tested for infection regularly, until I gave birth. I was on bed rest, with my hips higher than my head.

If I had not be replacing the fluid, they would have delivered then.

I ended up delivering that evening, just 6 hours later. (Our baby lived and he is a six foot tall young man.)

Without all of the information in the OP, we can only guess what happened and why. It could have been that the woman was so sick, she was going to die anyway and delivery would have brought death faster. I don’t know the laws in Ireland, but in the US, the hospital can’t defend itself to the media due to privacy laws.

You were blessed.

My wife’s water broke at 26 weeks. They sent us to Boston where they were able to delay for another week, but she wasn’t able to replace the loss fluid, due to the damaged cervix from the delivery of our first child. They had to do a C-Section and the doctor Baptized my son in the operating room. He’s 35 now, but has cerebral palsy as a result of his premature birth.

Jim

 

[Ridgerunner]

Without all of the information in the OP, we can only guess what happened and why. It could have been that the woman was so sick, she was going to die anyway and delivery would have brought death faster. I don’t know the laws in Ireland, but in the US, the hospital can’t defend itself to the media due to privacy laws.

I agree that we can only guess. The article doesn’t give enough information to know exactly what happened, what could have been done and what couldn’t have been done. It never tells us why the mother was septicemic or what early measures they took or didn’t take. “The Catholic Church” does not equal medical causation. Medical causation is not established in the article.

It does seem the article’s purpose is to affect public attitudes toward the legalization of abortion in Ireland, and not much else.

 

[St_Francis]

It seems indeed to be the main issue in this case, as practitioners describe it here in comments:

thejournal.ie/savita-death-abortion-x-case-ireland-673744-Nov2012/
Diarmuid Brennan:
I can’t understand the doctors on this one, the woman was having a miscarriage the baby was never going to survive, yet they hadn’t the balls to do the right thing! Costs in the loss of both lives! There needs to be accountability!!

Reply from James Connolly:
Being a nurse of anaesthesiology in a maternity hospital I can tell you your opinion is misinformed. When this lady turned up in hospital she was experiencing back pain, leaking of amniotic fluid and bleeding. These are signs that a miscarriage is about to take or is taking or has taken place. From start to end of miscarriage varies greatly from case to case. When this lady presented she was having a standard miscarriage, the signs were that she would terminate the pregnancy naturally, which is what is done normally. This, along with the presence of foetal heartbeat means you cannot artificially terminate pregnancy in Ireland. By the time artificial termination would have been legal, this lady was already severely ill, and as was demonstrated, even with the artificial termination of pregnancy, she still passed away. We, as clinicians, doctors, midwives, medics need laws, not guidelines.

James Connolly:
Just to provide a background to the medics action in respect of providing pain management: As there would appear to have been a foetal heartbeat present the foetus was still viable (horrible word — apologies). The foetus remains viable until essentially a heartbeat is no longer present. As such, medics have to treat the mother as though a healthy foetus is going to be given birth to, resulting in reduced pain management, reduced strength of pain management leading to reduced efficiency of said pain management. That along with the fact that pain arising from miscarriage is something monumentally painful for any woman who has experienced such a thing.

And moreover:
thejournal.ie/savita-youth-defence-abortion-674078-Nov2012/
James Connolly:
Had she turned up to a hospital in a state whereby abortion were legally available with the symptoms she was showing (bleeding, amniotic fluid leaking, sore back), she would have been offered termination upon presentation at that hospital. Had she refused such a procedure which is her right she would have had termintation of the pregnancy recommended a period of time later, had the miscarriage still not carried through. Had she refused this, which is still her right, emergency termination of the pregnancy would have taken place thereafter, upon the delayed passing of the foetus. In this case had she waited until it was an emergency to terminate the pregnancy, she would already have been septic, her organs would already have been going into shut down, and any intervention as a result of the delayed termination of the pregnancy would most likely have still resulted in the death of both mother and baby.
In Ireland, it is illegal to offer termination of pregancy as a standard procedure. It is also illegal to offer abortion as a semi-elective procedure. You cannot under any circumstances carry out a termination of pregnancy until it is a fully blown emergency. In the case of miscarriage, waiting until the situation is emergent, rather than elective/semielective, is dangerous, and as is now seen, fatal to the mother.

Reply from Rusty Balls:
James, I discussed this earlier today with a relative who works in the medical profession, she basically said everything you just did. She told me that when she worked in a major maternity hospital she saw this exact situation happen quite often, where an expectant mother would have a miscarriage over a period of days and develop septicemia. She described how they could do nothing once there was a foetal heartbeat except try to make the patient as comfortable as possible and treat the septicemia with antibiotics. She said for all the times she saw this happen, all the patients survived. She maintained that, despite what Senator Ronan Mullen says see the article - he says that the doctors should have induced delivery ], no doctor is ever going to cross any legal boundaries in this area and risk their career and possibly a criminal prosecution.

I think that both Catholic moral teaching and medical teaching and the law should be *clarified *to explain exactly how the principle of double effect works, and also to clarify the meaning of the words abortion and termination of pregnancy.

In everyday life, people think abortion means an operation which directly attacks the child and causes its death. However, in the medical world, abortion simply means an end to pregnancy, as when it is used in “spontaneous abortion,” which everyday people call miscarriage.

Apparently, *hormonally *inducing or hastening labor in this case, given the facts known about it, was not considered as the doctors thought it would be against the law–whether it would be or not is unclear; however, I would argue that this procedure would fall under the principle of double effect, as have others. And this sort of thing needs to be clarified under anti-abortion laws.

 

[brandymmiller]

Im curious here?..

Before my wife and I married we were counseled by a priest and asked the question “If your house was on fire who would you save, your wife or children?” Well both my wife and I answered our children…but to our surprise, we were told that it is best that we would save the spouse because of the possibility of conceiving again.

Wouldn’t the situation with the pregnant mother condone the aforementioned scenario? I mean if it came to a life and death situation, wouldn’t saving the mother, even though she would be completely and utterly, emotionally devastated, be just cause in hopes of conceiving another time? What are your thoughts folks?

That priest was WRONG!! Any parent will tell you that saving your children comes first - they are your future. Sacrificing the life of your child to save your own is the basest kind of cowardice there is.

 

[thewanderer]

I think that both Catholic moral teaching and medical teaching and the law should be *clarified *to explain exactly how the principle of double effect works, and also to clarify the meaning of the words abortion and termination of pregnancy.

In everyday life, people think abortion means an operation which directly attacks the child and causes its death. However, in the medical world, abortion simply means an end to pregnancy, as when it is used in “spontaneous abortion,” which everyday people call miscarriage.

Apparently, *hormonally *inducing or hastening labor in this case, given the facts known about it, was not considered as the doctors thought it would be against the law–whether it would be or not is unclear; however, I would argue that this procedure would fall under the principle of double effect, as have others. And this sort of thing needs to be clarified under anti-abortion laws.

Right, the problem is with directly killing the infant, not with speeding up its delivery/removing it from the womb. Neither of those are intrinsically wrong, but directly killing an innocent child is.

 

[St_Francis]

They knew, at a time.when they could have saved the mother, that the baby was going to die. What kept them from saving her life was the law mandated from politicians that they could not remove the baby while it had a foetal heart beat. How can this be such a difficult moral dilemma?

What is difficult for me personally is that Catholicism, praying to Jesus and allowing myself to love him and Mary saved me from suicide, when I felt I was going to do myself and everyone a favor my “cutting my losses”. If the Pope doesn’t set this straight, then am I to believe that God views my life and the happiness of my family as less important than that of a baby who will die before anyone knows them? A baby who has no chance to do good and bring others joy. A person with deep mental retardation can do good in this world. This baby had no hope of it. Are we going to disregard science so much as to deny it?

This disturbed me quite a bit, not least because Im at a much higher risk of miscarriage than most women should i get pregnant. I know how desirable it feels to stand so firm on your faith convictions that you see issues like abortion in terms of black and white , but to not save a woman’s life, who had already touched so many other lives(like the poor husband who had to bury her! Her own parents and family, those she touched in her work), for a baby that was likely to die soon anyway?? This honestly is what fuels the little doubting voice in my mind on the way to converting to Catholicism. I know the Catholic Church officially says that abortion is not a sin where the mothers life is in danger, but in places where the Catholic religion reigns supreme like in the Irish Republic in this case, and another similar case I heard about recently in a Latin American country, this kind of militant stance seems to stand.

I read about the case in Latin America, where cancer treatment was delayed for a few weeks while the doctors tried to sort out the legal aspect, and this case.

In both cases, treatment could have been given to the mother earlier and would have been moral according to the principle of double effect.** This is what the Catholic Church teaches. **In each case, it might have been that despite treatment, the mother would have died, because that sometimes does happen, that patients die despite treatment.

It is good that you are taking your conversion seriously and trying to learn all that you need to know to make a good decision and hopefully act as a good Catholic–that is very commendable! But I would caution you about taking too seriously what you read in the newspapers and comment columns, because very often people are emotional about something or even have an agenda of their own, and say things which indicate a lack of understanding about Catholic teaching.

These issues have been clarified within the Church over the course of hundreds of years. The problem is that not everyone is well-versed in what needs to be taken into consideration and then when they are faced with a situation like this one or the one in Latin America, they do not know what to do. An emergency situation is *not *the time to do research! The moral teachings needed should have been taught to the doctors in both (actually all!!) countries so that they would already know what to do when the emergency occurred.

The Church understands that every life is important and does not expect anyone at all to die for the sake of another. If you are at a higher risk of miscarriage, you might feel the need to get in touch with a priest or moral theologian who will be able to advise you should you face that situation, and you might want to contact some people like the Pope Paul VI Instititute for information so that you yourself are educated a bit in how this all works.