The treatment was stopped and she was advised to return for more treatment after her baby was born.

The cancer spread quickly, killing both the fertilised ovum and the mother.

Pro-life?

-Do you have any details on that or is it just something you heard somewhere? Did the *hospital* stop the treatment or did the woman decide not to have it?

The Catholic Church does not oppose any urgently required treatment on a pregnant woman, even if it will result in the death of her child.

-The hospital stopped the treatment. At least the recent statement from the bishops clarifies their stance. No rights for the mother or child
(born).

-My own mother died for such theological reasons. I remember her asking me to go down to the chemists and BEG for codeine. I'm so angry that I am lost for words.

-I wonder are we getting the full story there, seems a bit strange that the husband requested the caesarian, I would have thought that the wife was the one who should have requested it.

Anyway, leaving that issue aside, there's a basic issue here of doctors and nurses having the right to refuse to take part in abortions on grounds of conscience - I don't know the exact position in Ireland but that right is written into Abortion Law in the UK.

I'd imagine it would have been hard to find staff in a Catholic hospital at that time (early 80's) who would carry out the operation as it wasn't a case of the child dyeing as an indirect result of medical treatment, it was a case of effectively aborting the child to allow treatment to be carried out. I also wonder whether it would even have been legal at that time.

BTW, the whole area of the rights of doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in medical treatment on conscience grounds has become a major controversy in the UK http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article3010201.ece

Some radical Islamic student doctors in the UK are refusing to deal with alcohol-related diseases or STD's or even examine patients of the opposite sex though leading Islamic religious leaders have criticised them for it. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article2603966.ece