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Brain-Dead Woman 'Gives Birth'

By Wendy Kaplan Ampolsk
August 30, 2005

A few weeks ago, the media was all over a touching story: A 26-year-old pregnant woman, suffering from a fast-moving malignant melanoma, tragically died when the tumor attacked her brain. Unlike the Terri Schiavo case, the woman's grieving husband and family all accepted that she was dead. But, believing that she would have wanted them to save her baby against all odds, they arranged for her to stay on life-support until the fetus was viable enough to be taken from its brain-dead mother.

The woman's body was kept “alive” for 3 months until the cancer, which was also growing due to the life support, ravaged the body and threatened to harm the fetus. At that time, the baby was removed from the mother's body, which was allowed to finally die along with the brain. Delivered at 29 weeks, the baby is reportedly healthy and doing well; any implications of the mother's disease to the baby are not yet known, but, according to the media quoting the doctors, it seems unlikely.

Happy Ending or Ethical Nightmare?

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