Replies

In this case, it was the government who mandated that she be kept on life support and the family who took issue with that. I am trying to understand who a woman who is dead can sustain the life of an unborn infant re: provide the nutrients the baby needs to grow and survive.

we should be focusing on the womb transplants that just happened in sweeden (switzerland?). Imagine a father being able to sue for custody of a womb and fetus which is going to be aborted anyways.

THAT will have real change on the abortion debate.

This case was a undevelping fetus which was not going any further. Battles must be selected, we should not fall into unforced errors.

Okay, here is the basic requirement for a gestating child: the life support system (the mother in normal circumstances) must assimilate nutrients such that they can circulate in the blood stream of the life support and be exchanged through the placental framework; the life support system must be able to filter out and remove from the circulatory system of the life support system the 'waste' generated from gestation AND from the process operation (certain early experiments done in Japan using artificial amniotic sacs and extra-goat gestational support did not succeed because the tubing of the circulatory system of the life support leeched into the fluids and stunted muscle development of the alive goat fetus; the Japanese researchers have succeeded in keeping a goat fetus alive and growing for seventeen weeks, to natural birth age, with at least one goat fetus); the life support system must be able to bring oxygen to the placental membranes and remove carbon dioxide from the placental membranes.

Given the above requirements, was the 'dead' mother able to function in those ways so that the alive unborn child can continue to build its own body/s[acesuit for life int he air world? Answering that question is to some degree subjective, wouldn't you agree?