Conjoins and Legal Personality

[Kelly_Graham]

Tom, Tim and Ted are conjoined twins, each with their own heart, brain, lungs, arms and legs and other vital organs. They are joined at the neck. With complex surgical procedure, they can be separated successfully. However, the operation will kill the weaker twins, Tim and Ted, because their lungs and hearts are too deficient to oxygenate and pump blood through their bodies. Had Tim and Ted been born alone, they would not have been viable and they would have died shortly after birth. They are alive only because a common artery enables, Tom, who is the strongest of the three, to circulate life sustaining oxygenated blood for all of them. Separation will require the clamping and then severing of that common artery. Within minutes of so doing Tim and Ted will die.

Do such conjoins have legal personality in any law with reference to other such cases and authorities?

 

[Duranie]

Conjoined twins are so rare that I do not believe any laws exist. What you are asking about is completely hypothetical and I know of no case where conjoined triplets have ever lived outside the womb.

 

[Kelly_Graham]

But regarding legal personality?

This is a hypothetical situation but it is based on the case of Re A (children) (conjoined twins: surgical separation) heard in the COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION) [2001] Fam Law 18, [2001] 2 WLR 480, [2000] 3 FCR 577; [2001] Fam 147. The case concerned conjoined twins who were later separated, causing the death of the weaker twin.

What I'm interested to know is whether the use of artificial life support at birth in any way influences the being 'born alive' of that specific child. In other words, as the law requires that a child breathe of its own accord and show heart activity to be declared alive, does artificial life support have any influence on the legal personality of a child?

Purely hypoethetically of course. Just interested to hear the opinions of others as there seems to be little written on the subject due to its rarety as you have pointed out.