Woman denied abortion dies in Galway.

[OwlsFan]

What might have happened had the medical experts and court felt that there was a significant chance the unborn would have survived with health? Might the deceased woman still be hooked up to the life-support machine?

I would have hoped so if I was that unborn child. I suspect the mother may well have wanted that as well.

[DannyInvincible]

That would have entailed the prolonging (for another 20-or-so weeks) and significant worsening of a situation already described by the over-seeing doctors as "going from the extreme to the grotesque" and getting into "experimental medicine". The state would essentially have been withholding the rotting corpse of a dead woman from her grieving family (against their will) and a dignified farewell. The following exceptionally grim description of the situation was outlined in an article in the Irish Independent prior to the court's decision: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-30859431.html

Dr Frances Colreavy, an expert in intensive care medicine from the Mater Hospital, said she had concerns about the current situation being prolonged.

“I would describe it as experimental medicine,” she said.

She examined the woman yesterday and found her face to be puffy. There was an oozing wound to her head and a possible infection to her abdomen.

“On examination, the lady who is deceased about three weeks does not look well. There is a photograph on the windowsill in her room of her and her two children, but there is no resemblance,” said Dr Colreavy.

Make-up was applied to the woman’s face as her two young children, were visiting her yesterday for the first time since she had become brain dead.

“The little girl, when she saw her for the first time, was very distressed,” said Dr Colreavy.

...

She outlined how she observed six different syringe pumps beside the hospital bed and how the woman was being given a range of antibiotics to combat infections.

...

She said there was a huge problem with fluid therapy. The woman’s bowels have to be stimulated, a wound to her head needs continual dressing and she needs to be turned regularly to avoid pressure sores.

...

The doctor outlined that when the woman was moved from a hospital in Dublin to her current hospital, she was showing signs of pneumonia.

Referring to the wound to the head, she said the woman was also being treated with an MRSA drug and had neurosurgical meningitis.

She said she did not want to upset members of the family present, but the “brain is rotting” and there was “evidence of fungus growing” on part of the brain.

Dr Colreavy said the woman’s abdomen was “unlike any” she had ever seen.

There were blue, red and purple colouring along the stretch marks, which suggested there may be an infection.

An MRI would be required to investigate this, but the facility is not available at the hospital.

A chest X ray indicated huge amounts of fluid inside or outside the lungs.

To be honest, I'm not sure how anyone, never mind her family (with legal rights), could find such a grave and tragic situation palatable. Indeed, I don't think anyone did.

[Spudulika]

The description is beyond graphic. When I first read it (with bias) I thought, they're hamming it up, but there was probably photos, video etc, and it was verified and legal, so it was just so. The whole case played out in the worst way and as human being you can only have sympathy for the surviving family.

When I first heard of the case I wondered why not carry the child to term, the child would be a legacy etc, and I also had the experience of seeing my own Dad in a coma and being told that he was 99% dead, yet after 2 months he was skypeing with me and my son, and lived on another year, long enough to see Dublin win the All-Ireland and Dundalk stabilise. But this case, it goes beyond pain.

[DannyInvincible]

It has been confirmed that a referendum on whether or not to repeal the Eighth Amendment is to take place in May or June of 2018: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7968256.html

[The Fly]

I notice the author uses that familiar trick of placing it alongside the same-sex marriage referendum under the banner of progressive social change.