Woman 'denied a termination' dies in hospital

[fix]

My mother died at a young age from a very rare cancer. When she was diagnosed, they had a new treatment option that was very risky. They presented her with 2 options; take the treatment and she could die the first time it was administered, but then again, it could extend her life. Or, refuse it, in which case she was given about a year to live.
My mom chose the year they felt she was almost certain to survive. It was weighing risks and benefits.

Sorry to hear about your mom’s death. I am sure everyone here will pray for her.

 

[littlechicken]

I think when talking about these complex issues we have to be careful to define our terms well. A child is never pathology. Treating pathology is fine, but the presence of the child is not pathology. Some other process involved is patholgical, not the baby growing in the womb.

Just like the presence of the child in the tube is not pathology. It is the deterioration of the tube that is pathologic and that is what requires treatment.

Direct abortion is never medical treatment.

I would think whatever was causing the miscarriage would be the pathology. They still haven’t given that reason. Of course, sometimes they can’t find the reason.

 

[littlechicken]

Sorry to hear about your mom’s death. I am sure everyone here will pray for her.

Thank you, it was well over 2 decades ago. I know I come across as quite uh,… young sometimes, but it seems to be this place that does it to me , but also, I have some cognitive decline as well.
Prayers for her are deeply appreciated. She suffered a lot in life.

 

[thewanderer]

I think when talking about these complex issues we have to be careful to define our terms well. A child is never pathology. Treating pathology is fine, but the presence of the child is not pathology. Some other process involved is patholgical, not the baby growing in the womb.

Just like the presence of the child in the tube is not pathology. It is the deterioration of the tube that is pathologic and that is what requires treatment.

Direct abortion is never medical treatment.

You seem to be reducing the principle of double-effect to specific cases, the principle of double-effect is not something that only applies in certain areas, it is one of the fundamental principles of morality. It is not restricted to medical treatment of pathologies.

 

[CrimsonThorn]

oh i agree. brain damaged people are still alive both physically and mentally.

but thats got nothing to do with the point.
i am talking about the absence of the persona. like in 17 week old fetuses. or in totallly brain dead subjects.

Only its got nothing to do with their personas and everything to do with their LIFE.

Though a plant has no personality, it is very much alive. Putting an end to that plant’s life is killing it, plain and simple. Same for a fetus or braindead patient. Who are we to decide who ges to live and who doesnt? Scary memtality, Adolf Hitler had it.

 

[thewanderer]

wow isnt it a wonder that all those medical staff in Galway hospital didnt think of that?
what with her screaming in agony for 3 days.

Well, if they were using the Catholic religion as their guide than they most certainy should have already known this beforehand, this is one of the fundamental principles of Catholic morality and it would have been horrible neglect for them to leave her there without such necessary treatment, if indeed they did so purely from a mistaken concept about morality. If it was because of the law being unclear then the law needs to be clarified so that this will not happen again, if it was because they followed medical procedures as an ethical medical practice would demand of them then this is nothing but a tragic, but unavoidable death. We don’t know the facts about which it is, but whichever way you cut it trying to pin this on religion or the refusal to perform a direct abortion is wrong. Whatever way you cut it neither of these was at fault.

 

[R_C]

ok yeah, but I was mostly referring to this part of your post:

You do not murder in order to stop murder. You do not do evil in order to stop evil.

If someone was killing you, I would want to save you…and i wouldnt just watch and do nothing and let someone harm you for the sake of “not doing evil”

So, in regards to this case, if a baby is dying, and will kill its mother in the process, do we stand by and watch BOTH die? Or do we save who we can?

Again: the killer is guilty, the baby is innocent. The baby is not killing the mother: by the very nature of the relationship between a mother and an unborn child, their life is sort of one, they are truly one flesh. Which is why I do not think your reasoning can be applied to the circumstance at hand.

 

[Gorgias]

i’m sorry but there is nothing in definition or symptoms of Alzheimer’s that people become completely brain dead. even in worst cases they still retain some of their old self. some memory. will.

Actually, one could make the argument that late stage Alzheimer’s takes on the characteristics of those in a permanent vegetative state.

And, if you’re going to argue your case, you really should use more precise language than “brain dead”: there’s a range of symptoms that are covered by a colloquial use of that term, and your assertions do not hold across the spectrum.

Finally, I’d argue that what late stage Alzheimer’s patients ‘retain’ is exactly what they share with a 17-week old baby in the womb: the inherent dignity of human life. For precisely that reason, then, the life of neither of these can be cast aside arbitrarily.

 

[juandimaunahan]

Only its got nothing to do with their personas and everything to do with their LIFE.

Though a plant has no personality, it is very much alive. Putting an end to that plant’s life is killing it, plain and simple. Same for a fetus or braindead patient. Who are we to decide who ges to live and who doesnt? Scary memtality, Adolf Hitler had it.

the hitler card

Fact: we kill plants and animals all the time. i’m sure you do as well. killed insects just because they are annoying.

So who are we to decide? We who are the only ones capable of deciding.
Savita should have been given the right to decide to abort her pregnancy.
She was the one who was in agony. NOT YOU.

 

[juandimaunahan]

Actually, one could make the argument that late stage Alzheimer’s takes on the characteristics of those in a permanent vegetative state.

And, if you’re going to argue your case, you really should use more precise language than “brain dead”: there’s a range of symptoms that are covered by a colloquial use of that term, and your assertions do not hold across the spectrum.

Finally, I’d argue that what late stage Alzheimer’s patients ‘retain’ is exactly what they share with a 17-week old baby in the womb: the inherent dignity of human life. For precisely that reason, then, the life of neither of these can be cast aside arbitrarily.

prove it.

 

[juandimaunahan]

Well, if they were using the Catholic religion as their guide than they most certainy should have already known this beforehand, this is one of the fundamental principles of Catholic morality and it would have been horrible neglect for them to leave her there without such necessary treatment, if indeed they did so purely from a mistaken concept about morality. If it was because of the law being unclear then the law needs to be clarified so that this will not happen again, if it was because they followed medical procedures as an ethical medical practice would demand of them then this is nothing but a tragic, but unavoidable death. We don’t know the facts about which it is, but whichever way you cut it trying to pin this on religion or the refusal to perform a direct abortion is wrong. Whatever way you cut it neither of these was at fault.

or they knew that removing the fetus was technically the same as aborting it.
fact is they used the catholic card and left the fetus in there until it died 3 days later.

 

[CrimsonThorn]

the hitler card

Fact: we kill plants and animals all the time. i’m sure you do as well. killed insects just because they are annoying.

So who are we to decide? We who are the only ones capable of deciding.
Savita should have been given the right to decide to abort her pregnancy.
She was the one who was in agony. NOT YOU.

Plants and animals were made for consumption and God has given us the authority to cnsume them. I was making an analogy that absemce of persona does not mean absence of life.

Your ideas are still very flawed. So because a person is in agony, that gives the person authority? The Jews supposedly caused Hitler and their society agony, so I guess you think he had every right to exterminate them.

 

[thewanderer]

or they knew that removing the fetus was technically the same as aborting it.
fact is they used the catholic card and left the fetus in there until it died 3 days later.

And my point is that if they used the Catholic card, as you claim, then they were wrong to do so, as that is not what the Catholic Church teaches. Just because you fail to see the distinction between these actions does not mean that such a distinction does not exist. Plenty of people fail to recognize important and valid distinctions all the time. You have as yet made no attempt to show where my explanation of the principle of double-effect is wrong, instead you used rhetoric to try and belittle my understanding of reality. Such is not appreciated and is also not really being intellectually honest. I’m sorry, but belittling a worldview which you make no real attempt to understand does not make you right, it makes you narrow-minded. I realize you do not hold this same world-view, but there is no call to attempt to belittle it the way you have here while at the same time displaying complete ignorance of what the worldview actually is. You might want to rethink your aproach to understanding reality.

 

[thewanderer]

or they knew that removing the fetus was technically the same as aborting it.
fact is they used the catholic card and left the fetus in there until it died 3 days later.

And my point is that if they used the Catholic card, as you claim, then they were wrong to do so, as that is not what the Catholic Church teaches. Just because you fail to see the distinction between these actions does not mean that such a distinction does not exist. Plenty of people fail to recognize important and valid distinctions all the time. You have as yet made no attempt to show where my explanation of the principle of double-effect is wrong, instead you used rhetoric to try and belittle my understanding of reality. Such is not appreciated and is also not really being intellectually honest. I’m sorry, but belittling a worldview which you make no real attempt to understand does not make you right, it makes you narrow-minded. I realize you do not hold this same world-view, but there is no call to attempt to belittle it the way you have here while at the same time displaying complete ignorance of what the worldview actually is. We all tend to fall into the trap of holding our own opinions too highly and belittling others because they are different rather than actually trying to understand the other opinion and explaining clearly and politely what causes one to think differently. It happens to all of us from time to time, but it is our responsibility to try to recognize it when it does happen and take a step back and readjust our approach on the matter. I hope that you will be able to follow this course if this conversation continues.

 

[Ghosty]

The point of the ectopic preg issue is that removal of part, or all of, the tube is done to treat pathology. It is not done to kill the baby. The diseased tube is the object of treatment.

What is the object of delivering a baby knowing that it cannot survive? What pathology is treated?

Pre-term labor with a broken amniotic sac is the pathology. The woman’s womb is open, the child is exposed, in a warm, moist non-sterile environment. Infection for the mother and death for the child is a when, not if, without medical intervention or delivery of the child. To my knowledge you can’t reverse labor, just slow or temporarily halt it, but with a broken sac that’s not doing the kid any favors.

In such a case it seems that delivery of the child is the best chance it has, even if that chance is statistically zero. I can’t believe that it would be immoral to take a child out of a compromised womb and at least try to help it. The added help to the mother could almost be secondary in a moral consideration.

Peace and God bless!

 

[juandimaunahan]

I was making an analogy that absemce of persona does not mean absence of life.

oh i agree.

unfortunately life alone is sometimes not enough. take for example the case of the brain dead. Whats the point of spending a fortune just to keep it alive? Resources that can be used to sustain or save others instead. recovery is impossible for the brain dead.
and in this case about Savita, that ‘life’ was unviable. Why cant you just cut its life just a little shorter and in the process save Savita all that pain and give her a fighting chance to live and have more babies?

Your ideas are still very flawed. So because a person is in agony, that gives the person authority? The Jews supposedly caused Hitler and their society agony, so I guess you think he had every right to exterminate them.

how the hitler card again. you really think the jews caused them agony?

 

[MichaelNamb]

Again: the killer is guilty, the baby is innocent. The baby is not killing the mother: by the very nature of the relationship between a mother and an unborn child, their life is sort of one, they are truly one flesh. Which is why I do not think your reasoning can be applied to the circumstance at hand.

There is no law, nor have I ever heard anyone propose such a law, which prevents you from defending your own life against an innocent person who is still trying to kill you.

Let’s say I am a doctor, and I have a patient who received a serious head injury. This brain trauma causes said patient to become paranoid and delusional. I go to see my patient, and in his delusion, he violently attacks me with the intent to kill me. I know about this man, I have had extensive talks with his family. I know that he is a moral, wonderful, much loved man, and I know that his violence against me is through absolutely no fault of his own or due to any moral failing. I still would not hestitate to defend my life even if it meant killing the man. Same if, instead of a grown man, it was a brain injured child who obtained some sort of weapon and could only be subdued through deadly force. It would not be illegal for me to defend my life with deadly force simply because the person threatening my life is innocent.

I do not understand why people put so much emphasis on whether or not the fetus is a person. That is irrelevent. The fact is that, aside from pregnancy, there is no other human relationship in which one human is physically attahced to another human being, dependent upon that attachment for survival, and, through that attachment, can (albeitn inadvertantly) threaten the safety of the person they are attached to. Saying we can’t kill a fetus for the sake of the mother because we don’t kill a person to take their heart to save another person is not a comparable situation, because the person we would be stealing the heart from is not involved in a symbiotic relationship with the person who requires the heart. Pregnancy is a unique human relationship and it makes no rational sense to compare it to other human relationships

The closest thing we have to such relationships is organ donation, and we certainly don’t force people to risk their health by giving up their kidney for another person, even their own child.

People here are saying the baby is equal in worth to the mother. But her family did not feel that way. Her husband and parents have made statements to the press which clearly say that (even though this was not the situation at hand, as the child was doomed either way), if forced to chose, they would chose to save the mother rather than the fetus. Her mother has lamented the fact that someone would even consider saving a fetus at the expense of her daughter’s life. It was clear that to her family, a fetus was not equal in worth to their daughter. It is very interesting to read the Indian press on this issue. It is very clear they find it incomprehensible that Irish Catholics view a fetus to have the same worth as the mother, and do not share your view that a person with a life, with hopes, dreams, desires, a family, a job, dependents, memories, etc is equal in worth to a fetus that is not even aware that it exists yet. I personally do not share that view either. I have seen families who suffered miscarriages, and while this was very sad, it simply did not compare to the devastation of losing an already born member of the family, like a child or parent. I do think of a fetus as a person, but they are a unique category of person, in that they do not yet exist outside of another person’s body. I do think that unique category means they are due less consideration to a person who is already born. This does not mean they deserve *no *consideration, but it certainly means that I think they deserve less consideration than that of their mother.

Regarding the argument that performing a surgery may have been more dangerous than her miscarrying naturally: First of all, even after the fetus died, she did NOT miscarry naturally, in that the fetus did not just pass from her body. It had to be removed. So either way, she had to undergo a procedure. Secondly, the main risk of surgery is infection. But with surgery, doctors can take measures to keep the surgical area as sterile as possible. With this woman’s case, with the membrane ruptured and no barrier between the fetus and the outside world and she dialated, that is a huge risk of infection, and one that cannot be controlled and sanitized, as with a surgical wound. Thus while a procedure to terminate the pregnancy certainly presented its own dangers, they were statistically far less likely than the dangers in having a woman dialated and miscarrying for days. I work in the medical field, have discussed this case with many colleagues, and I have seen many, many quotes from high profile doctors in the news regarding this case, who have experience with this exact sort of scenario. I have not heard or seen a single doctor who did not strenuously argue that ending the pregnancy right away would have been the safest decision in such a case.

It is looking more and more, however, as if Irish law did not forbid inducing labor, as the hospital claimed. If that is the case, then the Catholic Church should not be blamed in the death, the hospital should be blamed for misinterpretation of the law. I hope the hospital receives severe reprecussions if that is the case. However, if an investigation reveals that lack of legislation clarifying abortion law contributed to the death, than that should be addressed.

 

[juandimaunahan]

And my point is that if they used the Catholic card, as you claim, then they were wrong to do so, as that is not what the Catholic Church teaches. Just because you fail to see the distinction between these actions does not mean that such a distinction does not exist. Plenty of people fail to recognize important and valid distinctions all the time. You have as yet made no attempt to show where my explanation of the principle of double-effect is wrong, instead you used rhetoric to try and belittle my understanding of reality. Such is not appreciated and is also not really being intellectually honest. I’m sorry, but belittling a worldview which you make no real attempt to understand does not make you right, it makes you narrow-minded. I realize you do not hold this same world-view, but there is no call to attempt to belittle it the way you have here while at the same time displaying complete ignorance of what the worldview actually is. We all tend to fall into the trap of holding our own opinions too highly and belittling others because they are different rather than actually trying to understand the other opinion and explaining clearly and politely what causes one to think differently. It happens to all of us from time to time, but it is our responsibility to try to recognize it when it does happen and take a step back and readjust our approach on the matter. I hope that you will be able to follow this course if this conversation continues.

there is nothing wrong with the principle of double effect. what you fail to realize is that the fetus AT THAT YOUNG AGE can not be removed without causing an abortion. the catholic doctors knew that, thats why they had no choice but to wait until it dies on its own. Thanks to the catholic influenced abortion laws, the unviable fetus was given a higher priority over Savita’s life.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I honestly think that either the Priests for Life stance is being misunderstood, or they are simply wrong on this matter.

We know that ectopic pregnancies can be morally treated by removing the tube and child, which will certainly kill the child more surely than pre-term labor ever could.

Do we have any links to the stance of Priests for Life?

Peace and God bless!

My daughter at 18 weeks of pregnancy was told and shown via ultra-sound, that her baby was dying. They said she would not make it through another two weeks and recommended an abortion. They told her she could wait but would have to decide very soon.and they would induce labor, and she would deliver a still-born, because he would not survive birth.

So, I contacted Priest for Life and they told me that they could not induce labor, if the baby could not survive birth, that this would be directly killing him.

However, three other priest, including our pastor said it would not be an abortion and licit.

Well anyway, to make a long story short, my daughter had to be induced at 20 weeks because the baby heart was no longer beating and other complications were setting in.

Anyway, she’s had two healthy boys since, thank God.

Jim

 

[maryjk]

Pre-term labor with a broken amniotic sac is the pathology. The woman’s womb is open, the child is exposed, in a warm, moist non-sterile environment. Infection for the mother and death for the child is a when, not if, without medical intervention or delivery of the child. To my knowledge you can’t reverse labor, just slow or temporarily halt it, but with a broken sac that’s not doing the kid any favors.

In such a case it seems that delivery of the child is the best chance it has, even if that chance is statistically zero. I can’t believe that it would be immoral to take a child out of a compromised womb and at least try to help it. The added help to the mother could almost be secondary in a moral consideration.

Peace and God bless!

Yes, you can slow it. Yes, if it is slowed, they will wait until the baby comes on it’s own. The mother is hospitalized, and the waiting begins. I was told they would wait as long as they could. But I would have blood tests daily to check for infection.