The Dublin’s High Court ruled in the PP v. HSE case that the life-support machine may be switched off in the case of a brain-dead pregnant woman who is 18 weeks pregnant. The doctors would keep her alive on a life-support machine, against the wishes of her parents, due to the absence of a clear legal status on the 18 weeks’ fetus. One should remember that the Constitution of Ireland considers that the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child are of equal value.

             According to the BBC, the lawyers of the unborn child declared to the court that it must be satisfied that there was no real possibility of the foetus surviving before allowing the machine to be turned off, as it needed two more months of development in order to become viable. The Court held that to “maintain and continue” the present support would “deprive the woman of dignity in death” and added that “it would subject her father, her partner and her young children to unimaginable distress in a futile exercise which commenced only because of fears held by treating medical specialists of potential legal consequences”. The woman, who had two more children, was removed from the life-support machine and was declared dead on December 26, 2014.

Source: www.theguardian.com/uk