P.P v. Health Service Executive was a 2014 case in the Irish High Court to rule on whether a pregnant woman (anonymised as "N.P.")

On 27 November 2014, a woman, twelve to fourteen weeks pregnant, was admitted to hospital with headaches and nausea.

On 22 December Kearns decided that the case was important enough for three judges to hear it: himself, Marie Baker, and Caroline Costello.

[8] In ruling for life support to be switched off, the court held that the woman's right to dignity and her family's wishes could take precedence because the chances of the foetus being born alive were infinitesimal.

The court rejected an argument that the Eighth Amendment applied only to Irish abortion law and thus ought not to be invoked in a non-abortion case.

The ruling also stated "when the mother who dies is bearing an unborn child at the time of her death, the rights of that child, who is living, and whose interests are not necessarily inimical to those just expressed, must prevail over the feelings of grief and respect for a mother who is no longer living."