Argument 1: The Mother's Right To Die

Argument 1: The Mother’s Right to Die.
The issue in this case is that the mother under the constitution has two Articles ensuring her rights, they are Article 40.3.1 and 40.3.3. Article 40.3.1 states; “[t]he State guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate the personal rights of every citizen.” This can be interpreted as that the mother has a personal right to die with dignity. Article 40.3.3 ensures the “…regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to defend and vindicate that right.” This article ensures that the mother’s rights should also be taken into consideration, and should not be breached because of her unborn child, as they each have equal rights under the constitution. In In
However, under Article 40.3.3, the court must allow the child a chance to the life it has under the constitution. If compared with other cases the child may have a significant chance of being born. The unborn child in this case is at 20 weeks gestation, only 4 weeks away from the minimum weeks needed for a definite viable delivery. In the PP Case, the unborn child was 15 weeks gestation, 5 weeks less than the child in the case on hand. The unborn child could have a greater outcome than the unborn in the PP Case, as a medical paper on “Maternal Brian Death” was mentioned in the cross examination of a counsel for the HSE, “…which he noted that successful delivery of a live foetus had never been reported where pregnancies were less that sixteen weeks gestational age at the time of maternal brain death.” If we apply the medical paper to our case at hand, it can be argued that because the mother’s brain death happened 4 weeks later than the 16 weeks noted by the counsel, the unborn child has a significant chance of being viable. Therefore, the mother should not be taken off life support as the child has a significant chance of being