Thread by @wendylyon

(Thread) Last week I spoke at a @DroghedaT4Y public meeting about the 8th amendment's impact on a pregnant woman's right to consent to medical treatment. I read out the orders the HSE asked the High Court to make against Mother B.

I was asked by @Elainemathews09 if they could be read anywhere. So I'm sharing the most noteworthy now.

The first was an order to have the proceedings heard in camera (so they could not be reported). We consented to this for Mother B's privacy. But after we won the case, the HSE fought (unsuccessfully) our application to have this order lifted.

At that hearing, the HSE openly admitted it didn't want the proceedings reported because it didn't want the case to serve as a precedent: it wanted to be able to bring other women into court in future, to try to force them into unwanted c-sections.

HSE's senior counsel also insinuated there was something sinister about Mother B's desire to allow other women benefit from the judgment.

The second order the HSE sought was to permit the hospital staff to deliver her baby by way of c-section and carry out related procedures for this purpose "including but not limited to":

* inducing her labour
* providing with sustenance/medication/hydration
* blood sampling, monitoring, ECG/CTG
* sedating/anaesthetising

I'm gonna need a whole tweet for the next one ...

"Using such reasonable and proportionate force and/or restraint to the extent to which it may reasonably be necessary and in the best interests of the defendant and/or her baby, to be conducted by appropriate personnel trained in therapeutic management of aggression and violence"

* and furnishing appropriate care and treatment to ensure her dignity.
Yeah. Dignity.

They also sought an order allowing them to "take all proportionate and reasonable measures to prevent [Mother B] from absconding from the said Hospital", and to ...

"seek the assistance of An Garda Síochána to immediately search for, arrest without warrant, detain in their custody for a reasonable period of time and to return as soon as practicable" to the hospital in the event she "absconds".

Finally, they sought an order prohibiting anyone from "interfering directly or indirectly with the carrying out of the treatments provided for herein". This was aimed at her doula. They wanted her alone and unsupported.

I'm just gonna leave this with a screenshot from the HSE's National Consent Policy. This is yet another reason why we need to #repealthe8th.