LIFE AFTER DEATH

Julie Savigneau is 18, and she is pregnant by five months and one week when she is injured in a road accident. The foetus is left unharmed, but Julie falls into a coma. After two long weeks, Julie finally opens her eyes, and there is every reason to hope for a successful recovery. But after another two weeks complications set in : Julie’s heart begins to fail. On June the seventh, she is declared clinically dead. She is at this point six months, two weeks and five day pregnant. Her child is unharmed but the foetus is not yet viable. Its survival will from now on depend on the machines to which his mother is still connected. It leaves the doctors and the family with the agonising decision of whether or not to save the child. A very real ethical dilemna of our times, inspired by the true story of the “Erlingen Baby” in Germany.