Woman 'denied a termination' dies in hospital

[mharren]

**Given the facts we know, ** I disagree. The mother came to the hospital in the midst of a miscarriage on Sunday, but showed no signs of infection until Wednesday night. Since the doctors thought on Friday (the day after the baby had died and the mother been operated on) that the mother would recover from the very serious reactions she was having to the infection, it seems that before the baby died, they never thought her condition to be life-threatening.

Remember that this is in Ireland, where the law at least tried to mandate that *Catholic *medical ethics be followed rather than in the US.

In one of the numerous things I have read related to this case, it seemed that the infection arose because of the length of labor rather than from the baby. When she arrived at the hospital, she showed no signs of infection.

I am aware this occurred in Ireland but seeing as I wasn’t educated in Ireland and I don’t practice in Ireland I am applying Canadian medical ethics. And while she may not have shown signs of infection upon admission we do know that this type of situation shows a very high risk of inducing infection. Infection does not arise from labour unless tears in the woman’s tissue are exposed to infectious matter, such as dead tissue, this is why I suspect at least some part of the baby’s body or the extra-embryonic tissue was dead already. Without an autopsy on both sets remains no one can be certain.

Septicemia is extremely hard to treat, especially if it isn’t done so at the first signs of infection. Exposure to an organism this woman’s body was trying to reject over several days in addition to surgery would have greatly reduced her immune system. It’s not surprising that she died. She could still have died even if the child had been removed immediately, but I suspect it would have been far less likely.

Let me just add that we won’t know how to make a 17-week child viable unless some experience is had in trying to help them outside the womb. We can’t go around inducing labor at 17-weeks to practice lifesaving medical techniques, but we can make efforts when the unfortunate circumstances arise. There was a time when 22 weeks would have been universally inviable, but with experience and advancements we pushed back viability. I see no reason to simply stop at an arbitrary gestation date and call everything before that inviable.

I’m not saying this applies in this terrible, heartwrenching case. I just think we may be shooting ourselves in the foot. My prayers go out to this woman, her lost child, and her family.

I agree. At the very least (and perhaps medically selfish least) we could have had the opportunity to document attempts to treat a very premature child in this instance. Week 17 is roughly the time of ‘Quickening’ which used to be when the fetus was considered to be ‘a person’. The biggest problem with supporting a baby at this stage would be the underdevelopment of the lungs and the surfactant needed for them to ‘hold their own’. With current medical technology I’m sure the child would have succumbed but prolonging the life might have been worth it for the family to mourn and have whatever time they could with the child, if that was important to them.

Either way, the most important thing is that a family has suffered a terrible loss and that we can pray for the mother and child to have peace in heaven. I’ll stop being medically fascinated by this now.

Regards,

• Mharren

 

[Ghosty]

FYI, a 17 week old fetus can not survive birth. That is, they can not survive the delivery process, much less outside the womb.

Been there done that, sad to say.

Jim

I’m not sure this is true. I’ve seen one infant that was near 17 weeks that was alive for a very short time after birth. It had trauma, and didn’t survive obviously but it was alive after birth. Coulda fit in my hand.

I don’t know the exact gestational age, though, so you may be right.

Peace and God bless!

 

[juandimaunahan]

very interesting discussion you have here. i think the lesson here is if a pregnant women is in serious (not necessarily critical and life threatening YET) medical condition and that her fetus had become unviable then abort it for the sake of the woman’s health. religion must not interfere in politics and must certainly not restrict doctors from doing their job.

 

[thewanderer]

very interesting discussion you have here. i think the lesson here is if a pregnant women is in serious (not necessarily critical and life threatening YET) medical condition and that her fetus had become unviable then abort it for the sake of the woman’s health. religion must not interfere in politics and must certainly not restrict doctors from doing their job.

If by abort you mean remove the child from the mother than I agree with you, if by abort you mean intentionally kill the child then I disagree strongly. Religion is not interfering with the saving of the mothers life in such a case.

 

[juandimaunahan]

If by abort you mean remove the child from the mother than I agree with you, if by abort you mean intentionally kill the child then I disagree strongly. Religion is not interfering with the saving of the mothers life in such a case.

religious cause just killed Savita. why do you place more value on an unviable fetus at the expense of someone that can be saved?

if you cant bear killing a hopeless fetus then cases like this is bound to happen again.

 

[Mar044]

i hate cnn, the report one sided issue,

they don’t even say what the complications were on how the woman died…

 

[mharren]

I think the ‘moral’ of the story (or at least this discussion) is that there are more options available besides just risking the mothers life or aborting a child. Physician’s need freedom to be creative and unfortunately funding, that may have played a factor in these unfortunate deaths.

I do, however, agree that religion and medicine really shouldn’t mixed when it comes to procedural policies. There is reason we must take medical ethics while training to become physicians and nurses and other allied health care professionals and just like entering the Church and accepting her ethics, we should enter the health profession ready to accept her ethics, if we cannot reconcile our personal or religious ethics with our professional ethics than we need to consider whether or not we can practice medicine in a way that we won’t be conflicted.

For instance, in Canada it is illegal for a physician to refuse an abortion to a patient who requests it (and is still <20 weeks pregnant), however, Physician’s are people and have rights in Canada and therefore are not required by law to perform an abortion. By law they must refer the requesting patient to a physician that does perform abortions or to a referral service that can counsel the patient about abortion and redirect the patient to a physician on their list that will perform the abortion. Physician’s that are likely to be confronted with a patient requesting an abortion are General Practitioners, Family Physicians, OB/GYN’s, Pediatricians, Psychiatrists (obligated to refer to a physical physician), General Surgeons, Public Health Physicians, Oncologists, and Emergency Physicians. There are plenty of other Physician specialties where a physician should be able to avoid the issue all together. If a physician really wants to avoid ethical predicaments, become a diagnostic radiologist! However that too could lead to examining a sonogram and reporting the detection of a birth defect.

HCP’s need to be able to do their jobs though, and their jobs are first and foremost the preservation of life and health, and whether we like it or not, the life of the mother is always considered to be of higher importance in medical ethics than that of the unborn child.

Regards,
-Mharren

 

[thewanderer]

religious cause just killed Savita. why do you place more value on an unviable fetus at the expense of someone that can be saved?

if you cant bear killing a hopeless fetus then cases like this is bound to happen again.

I’m sorry, but how would directly killing the infant and then removing it help save her life anymore than just simply removing it? Was it really important to her health whether or not the child was alive when removed? I don’t think so so I really don’t understand your accusation. I said that it is of course perfectly moral to remove the child from the mother under such circumstances (due to the principle of double effect). How is what I am saying condemning women to die?

 

[juandimaunahan]

I’m sorry, but how would directly killing the infant and then removing it help save her life anymore than just simply removing it? Was it really important to her health whether or not the child was alive when removed? I don’t think so so I really don’t understand your accusation. I said that it is of course perfectly moral to remove the child from the mother under such circumstances (due to the principle of double effect). How is what I am saying condemning women to die?

at 17 weeks removing the fetus is equivalent to killing it. its like taking a man off life support. youll be guilty of murder. but hey everything is in the mind, so just think about ‘removing’ it instead of ‘killing’ it. if that helps. even though its technically the same thing

 

[Pitcharan]

Was it fear of the Law that overruled Medical wisdom?

Excerpt from a news report (ibnlive.in.com/news/activists-say-blame-doctors-not-religion-for-indian-womans-death-in-ireland/305763-3.html)

“We would like to be able to practice medicine in a safe environment legally. The current situation is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us. If we do something with a good intention, but it turns out to be illegal, the consequences are extremely serious for medical practitioners,” Dr Peter Boylan of the Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said.

 

[thewanderer]

at 17 weeks removing the fetus is equivalent to killing it. its like taking a man off life support. youll be guilty of murder. but hey everything is in the mind, so just think about ‘removing’ it instead of ‘killing’ it. if that helps. even though its technically the same thing

No, the point is that it is not actually technically the same, which is why one is ok given serious enough circumstances and the other is never ok. You make it sound as though you think you are pushing me into a corner and forcing me to twist my understanding of things but that is not at all true.I have made this same distinctions several times throughout this thread, and I made it already in the very post where I originally responded to you. These actions are not the same, there is a subtle distinction between them. Just because it is subtle doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

The action of inducing labour/c-section etc is not an action which itself directly kills anyone, it just moves them from one location to another, it is an action performed on many unborn children who survive it quite well all the time. This action is not the direct killing of a person. However an actual abortion (at least as I and many others here have used the word, I am not sure exactly how it is used medically) would be directly killing the child, which is never ok. I think you need to read up on the principle of double-effect. It is only actions which are intrinsically evil which can never be performed for any reason. If an action which is not intrinsically evil has multiple effects it is perfectly moral to act for the sake of a good effect, even if you know that there will also be a bad effect, so long as the good effect is serious enough/proportionate to the bad effect which one expects to occur. So in this case we have the action of ensuring the child is moved from within the mother to outside of the mother. This action is not in and of itself intrinsically evil. It is often a very good thing to do. However in the current scenario it would have a known effect of resulting in the death of the child. Because of this, this action would only be allowable if there will also be a good effect that it will cause which is proportionate to this bad effect, saving the life of the mother is most clearly a proportionate reason. On the other hand, directly killing an innocent person is objectively and intrinsically evil, it is never morally permissable. This is not something new, the two concepts “the ends do not justify the means” and “the principle of double-effect” are not new, they have been taught by the Catholic Church for a long, long time, and have been held as true by many very intelligent people. Please do not dismiss these distinctions as though I am just twisting words, this is not at all the case, though I understand that the subtle distinctions can at times make it seem that way.

 

[thewanderer]

As to the comparison about life-support… you do realize that there it is permissable for certain types of life support to be reomved under certain conditions? That it does not always constitute murder? You are showing a serious lack of understanding of the actual Catholic thought on these matters.

 

[oldcelt]

My bet is that Ireland will be altering its laws in the very near future.

John

 

[pepipop]

My bet is that Ireland will be altering its laws in the very near future.

John

Precisely, the ruling passed by the supreme court 20 years ago has not been actioned by any political party due to public opinion. The court ruling concerned case x, which in effect would allow abortion if the mother is deemed to be ‘suicidal’ after being impregnated, which is definitely, IMO, not a reason to abort a child. Needless, to say anyone could say they feel suicidal - how does anyone prove it.
Case X.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_v._X

*The case involved a fourteen year old girl (named only as “X” in the courts and the media to protect her identity) who had been raped by a neighbour and became pregnant. X told her mother of suicidal thoughts because of the unwanted pregnancy, and as abortion was illegal in Ireland (in both Northern Ireland and the Republic), the family travelled to England for an abortion. Before the abortion was carried out, the family asked the Garda Síochána if DNA from the aborted foetus would be admissible as evidence in the courts, as the neighbour was denying responsibility.

Hearing that X planned to have an abortion, the Attorney General, Harry Whelehan, sought an injunction under Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution of Ireland (which outlaws abortion) preventing her from having the procedure carried out. The injunction was granted by Mr Justice Declan Costello in the High Court.

The High Court injunction was appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned it by a majority of four to one (Hederman J. dissenting). The majority opinion (Finlay C.J., McCarthy, Egan and O’Flaherty J.J.) held that a woman had a right to an abortion under Article 40.3.3 if there was “a real and substantial risk” to her life. This right did not exist if there was a risk to her health but not her life; however it did exist if the risk was the possibility of suicide.

X had a miscarriage shortly after the judgement, before an abortion could be carried out. The man who got her pregnant was sentenced to 14 years in prison, which was reduced on appeal to 4 years.*

 

[_Abyssinia]

Savita: nothing in Catholic teaching prevented action to save her life

 

[pepipop]

Savita: nothing in Catholic teaching prevented action to save her life

Excellent report.

 

[fix]

I do, however, agree that religion and medicine really shouldn’t mixed when it comes to procedural policies. There is reason we must take medical ethics while training to become physicians and nurses and other allied health care professionals and just like entering the Church and accepting her ethics, we should enter the health profession ready to accept her ethics, if we cannot reconcile our personal or religious ethics with our professional ethics than we need to consider whether or not we can practice medicine in a way that we won’t be conflicted.

How can one have medical “ethics” without moral truth?

For instance, in Canada it is illegal for a physician to refuse an abortion to a patient who requests it (and is still <20 weeks pregnant), however, Physician’s are people and have rights in Canada and therefore are not required by law to perform an abortion. By law they must refer the requesting patient to a physician that does perform abortions or to a referral service that can counsel the patient about abortion and redirect the patient to a physician on their list that will perform the abortion. Physician’s that are likely to be confronted with a patient requesting an abortion are General Practitioners, Family Physicians, OB/GYN’s, Pediatricians, Psychiatrists (obligated to refer to a physical physician), General Surgeons, Public Health Physicians, Oncologists, and Emergency Physicians. There are plenty of other Physician specialties where a physician should be able to avoid the issue all together. If a physician really wants to avoid ethical predicaments, become a diagnostic radiologist! However that too could lead to examining a sonogram and reporting the detection of a birth defect.

So, your reasoning allows for no one of good conscience to practice medicine. Sounds like a tyranny.

HCP’s need to be able to do their jobs though, and their jobs are first and foremost the preservation of life and health, and whether we like it or not, the life of the mother is always considered to be of higher importance in medical ethics than that of the unborn child.

Regards,
-Mharren

Nice to know the baby has no rights and may be killed at will. How very ethical.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Savita: nothing in Catholic teaching prevented action to save her life

The problem here is that the author is saying that the doctors could’ve induced labor, which would thereby kill the fetus, and this would be acceptable according to Church teaching.

It is not, according to the Priest for Life. You can not cause the death of the fetus, by inducing labor or a C-Section when you know it will kill the fetus. To say that this would be licit, is a tap dance around the illicit direct killing of the fetus through a D&C.

But, we’re back to an unknown. The mother’s condition may not have allowed for induced labor. If she had a ruptured intestine, certainly having her push the fetus out, would not be possible.

So, should the Doctors have been allowed to perform the D&C, early on which would have saved her life?

That’s the debatable question here, not whether inducing labor or performing a C-Section should’ve been performed and it’s licit according to the Church.

Jim

 

[fix]

Now, the problem I have with this is, an unviable fetus is not the same as an adult human being, who has responsibilities to other people.

Which other lives are disposable?

 

[littlechicken]

I have been trying to keep up with all of this, and quite frankly, my head is spinning.

I am thinking of something someone told me one time, long ago, about double effect. The subject then was euthenasia. They explained in very simple terms, that if you have a patient who is suffering terribly, in a lot of pain, then it is okay to give that person pain medication - ***even though there is a very high probability that person will die from the medicine. ***So, if we give the person a medication to ease their discomfort, knowing full well that it will likely kill them, have we been complicit in murder if that patient dies?

To have induced labor, or expedicted it, would have resulted, most likely, in the child’s death. To know the outcome of something, doesn’t mean the outcome is intended, it simply means it is unavoidable.

I am not a theologian, so just putting it in my own simple terms.
God help us all sort this out.
littlechicken