In the UK, a comatose woman with COVID who had recently delivered her son via caesarean section should be allowed to die, a judge has ruled.
Mr Justice Hayden said that doctors should cease the woman’s life support treatment as it was no longer preserving her life but rather dragging out her death.
He said that the situation was “a tragedy of an almost unimaginable dimension” and was told there was “zero” chance of the woman making any meaningful recovery.
The woman (whose identity is withheld) was rushed to hospital a month ago while 32 weeks pregnant, after falling ill with COVID at home.
The judge was told that she had Addison’s disease, an acquired primary adrenal insufficiency from bilateral autoimmune damage to the adrenal cortex. The woman’s pancreas had ceased to function and one of her lungs had “died”, with a specialist saying that she had “essentially no normal lung function”.
The woman, who is of the Muslim faith, has a husband and a three year old son. Her husband and sister opposed the decision to withdraw life support as it was against their beliefs.
“To unplug the machine, this is for us like asking someone to kill us,” the woman’s sister said. “When God has written our death, that is when we will die.”
In an urgent court application, the judge took the case in a virtual hearing held late on Tuesday. The judge concluded that ending the woman’s life was in her best interests, adding that doctors had prepared a palliative care plan.
“This family is seeking a miracle,” he said. “This is a very young mother in circumstances of almost unspeakable sadness.”
Source: The Guardian
