Incompatible with life

The term incompatible with life is used in circumstances of injury or developmental disorder that are considered to render life impossible.

Injury and death
Examples of the former include injuries such as decapitation or gross dismemberment. Other circumstances that are regarded as self-evidently incompatible with life include traumatic hemicorporectomy, decomposition, incineration, hypostasis and rigor mortis; in these circumstances, paramedics and other similar workers may be allowed to regard a person as dead in the absence of a physician.

Fetal abnormality
The latter includes very severe developmental disorders in which essential structures or biological functions necessary for the preservation of life are not formed; they may result in spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, or neonatal death. Examples of conditions generally considered incompatible with life include Potter's syndrome and anencephaly. Where disorders incompatible with life are found before birth, patients may elect to have an induced abortion.

The definition of which conditions are incompatible with life can change as medicine advances, such as where medical techniques have made it possible for some people born with some conditions generally regarded as incompatible with life such as Potter's syndome to survive. There have even been extremely rare cases of short-term survival into infancy with conditions as severe as anencephaly. However, others remain beyond help.