Reply to Georgia's anti-abortion law forcing brain-dead woman to remain on life support

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I don't see why that is a problem. Look at the fact that they've learned to exclude treatment for ectopic pregnancy from ani-abortion laws, and the Catholics allow such treatment. Because the death of the embryo or fetus is simply incidental to treating the patient, so it does not count. If you can hold out that stopping life support is ethical medical treatment for the mother, I would think that would be legal. [/quote]

I am not a lawyer but... I'm pretty sure the reason you can ethically stop life support for someone who is brain dead is because "death" can legally be defined as, well, however you define bread dead. (I am also not a doctor...I assume there are clinical signs like, um, no brain waves or whatever?)

Anyhow, if the woman meets the legal definition of dead then she is dead, right? So as long as the doctors certify she is brain dead, it's OK to remover her from life support.

But everything else is in legal limbo in GA.  They have a law that says you cannot end the life of a fetus once it has certain signs (a heartbeat?). The fetus DOES have a heartbeat. So how, in the law, can you say with certainty that a doctor won't be charged with a crime if he does something 1) that will CERTAINLY end the life of the fetus and 2) is being done for no other reason whatsoever (i.e. health of mother is in no way at stake?)

Your ectopic pregnancy exclusion is different, because 1) hopefully the embryo isn't developed enough to have a heartbeat and 2) removing it SAVES the life of the mother. 
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