Clashing of medicine and the law

This article is written with a heavy and disappointed heart, coming from a pro-choice medical student.  It has been released that a 16 year old girl from the Domican Republic died recently after being diagnosed with leukemia, but was denied chemotherapy because she was nine weeks pregnant.  Doctors were certain that the life-saving treatment would terminate her pregnancy, violating the constitution which prohibits taking the life of another.  Article 37, written and passed in 2009, states that 'the right to life is inviolable from the moment of conception and until death', and has been interpreted by Dominican courts as a mandate against abortion.  Any doctor that administered the treatment could be prosecuted.  The girls mother, Rosa Hernandez appealed to heath and government authorities to make an exception and save the teenager's life, 'My daughter's life is first. I know that [abortion] is a sin and that it goes against the law ... but my daughter's health is first.'.  Controversy among government officials and human rights groups arose over whether administering chemotherapy would be allowing an abortion to take place, because that was the guaranteed outcome.  Women's rights activist Lilliam Fondeur says the delay was 'unacceptable' and that the treatment should have been offered immediately.  Pelegrin Castillo, one of the engineers of the law behind the abortion ban, stated that the ban did not prohibit the patient from receiving chemotherapy but makes it illegal for doctors to carry out a termination in order to administer such treatment.

The young girl was eventually treated at the Semma Hospital in the capital city of Santos Domingo three weeks after being diagnosed and just after her second trimester had begun.  At this time the girl began to bleed, but the doctors still refused to interrupt the pregnancy.  Advocates report that she subsequently miscarried and began to hemorrhage.  The medical team was unable to stop the bleeding and she eventually died.

Now I about lost all faith in humanity after reading this next quote.  "Anti-choice activists continue to push the idea that a woman or teen refusing cancer treatment and dying to try to continue a pregnancy is the most beautiful sacrifice that could be made".  WHAT!?  Isn't the life of this girl MORE important than the life of an unborn child?  Not to mention the child will never be born if the woman carrying it dies.  Everyone should be entitled to treatment and doctors refusing to do the right thing because they're afraid of getting in trouble is just as shameful.  It's too bad that common sense wasn't used in order to save this poor girl's life. If this law could be changed, legalizing abortion for good reason (such as rape, incest, not being able to provide a good life for the child), this would eradicate the risk posed to other women seeking this 'secret' and now illegal procedure for unwanted pregnancies.

For more details and a video of Rosa go to: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/08/17/draft-16-year-old-who-wasnt-allowed-abortion-dies-complications-from-her-cancer