by Grania

An Irish High Court has ruled that the clinically dead pregnant woman who has been kept on life support against the wishes of her family may be removed from those machines. Fortunately no-one wishes to appeal this decision, so her family, who already have suffered the trauma of losing a loved one will now be able to grieve in privacy.

However, much as I am relieved that this grisly case has ended this way, the pronouncements of the court give no comfort or reassurance. This appalling situation, and others like it, will happen again. The Irish government has stated that they do not intend to do anything about the state of abortion law in Ireland, and therefore a teenager raped by an uncle will be forced to bear his baby unless she can find a way out of the country to secure a termination; and a suicidal rape victim will be restrained until she can be delivered by C-section. A woman whose fetus is diagnosed with a severe abnormality will likewise be compelled to bear it or find the means to leave the country.

The outcome in the court is largely thanks to the testimony of the doctors, all seven of whom agreed that there was no prospect for the baby to be born intact. This is in no small part because the body is starting to decompose and infections are setting in. It is almost unthinkable that in a modern country medical staff have to actually contemplate doing something as absurd as maintaining a decomposing corpse for fear of prosecution under the country’s abortion law.

What the lawyers had to say gives one pause:

“Lawyers instructed to represent the interests of the woman argued the treatment should continue. It was argued, given she was a full-time mother devoted to her children, she would have wanted to allow every opportunity for the unborn to get to a position where it would be viable.”

Unless the lawyers managed the world’s first ever successful seance, one can only wonder at how they arrived at that conclusion.

“Lawyers representing the interests of the unborn also argued, given the woman is clinically dead, the unborn’s right to life surpassed her right to a dignified death.”

As grotesque and inhumane as this sounds, legally they are correct. Ireland will continue to be a country where pregnant women can expect the most bizarre, obscene and brutalizing treatment should anything happen that makes them wish to obtain a termination.

This is exactly what happens when a government legislates not for the benefit or well-being of its people, but to conform to religious ideology.