A 31-year-old woman, Savita Praveen Halappanavar, has died in an Irish hospital after being denied an abortion to save her life. Link
She was suffering a slow miscarriage and getting sicker and sicker, but doctors refused to abort the pregnancy, telling her “This is a Catholic country”. Her cervix was open for several days. She was in agonising pain. Eventually she contracted septicemia and died.
Abortion has been legal in Ireland for 20 years when a woman’s life is in danger, following the Supreme Court decision in Attorney General v X. However, successive governments, fearing the wrath of the powerful (and very well-funded) anti-abortion movement, have refused to legislate for this decision and in the absence of clear guidelines on how to determine whether a woman qualifies, doctors have refused to take chances - lest they be prosecuted under 1861 legislation, which provides a penalty of life imprisonment for carrying out an abortion.
In the 2010 case ABC v Ireland the European Court of Human Rights found that the absence of legislation in this area rendered Ireland in breach of its Convention obligations. The government has dithered and delayed in responding to this decision. In the meantime, a woman is dead.
I’m so angry and sad. What kind of a country am I living in? Who are these people that could stand back and watch a woman die for the sake of a foetus that had no chance of survival anyway?
I can’t even write any more about this. It is barbaric and sickening. Ireland needs to be shamed internationally for this tragedy.
Very well, these doctors should be prosecuted for (at the very least) negligent homicide… Make it a contest between different laws. Maybe they were legally right, maybe wrong; let the court decide.
Also, they should be disbarred for ignoring the [del]Hypocritic[/del] Hypocratic Oath.
A victory for the anti-abortion movement. They got what they wanted; a woman was tortured to death in their name. They can slap each other’s backs and gloat about how they got one of the “sluts”.
Plenty are. Plenty more than who are willing to admit it out loud, but even some of those. The anti-abortion movement is about the hatred of women; of course they like it when a woman dies because of their policy. I think it was Randall Terry who said “every woman who dies is a victory for morality” back in the 80s.
I understand that there have been several more cases in Ireland, but this is the first one where the family has been willing to come forward.
Not in Ireland they haven’t. They’ve campaigned against legislating for these cases, claiming there is no such thing as an abortion to save a woman’s life.
I hope Savita’s husband sues these clowns for every last Euro they have.
Savita was septic, from a pregnancy that was ENDING. Sepsis leads to death. She might have had a chance if she didn’t have such useless doctors that don’t see sepsis when it’s in their faces.
Where the fuck, Scottmacdonald are you getting this utter bullshit about late-term-abortions?
A woman is dead, because some people are fucking useless. Savita is dead, because some people can’t see facts. Savita is dead, even though she tried to help herself and her unborn fetus.
What has any of your bullshit got to do with what the OP described? The procedure has been legal in Ireland for 20 years specifically for cases like Savita Halappanavar’s but because of the cowardice and half-baked religious notions of our supposed leaders the legislation to implement it has been in political limbo ever since. Even with the legislation in place Ireland would have some of the strictest abortion laws in the world so your “won’t someone think of the children” whataboutery doesn’t cut it.
And in case you wanna get nitpicky on the definition of religious people, Pro-Life Physicians identifies as a religious group. Students for Life frames themselves as a secular group, but I notice that the majority of people praising them on their Endorsements page are religious: members of clergy, heads of more openly religious groups, and self-identified Christians.
I’m pretty amused at the idea of all clergypeople ever ruling unanimously on anything, ever. But here, specifically on this topic, plenty of clergy-type folks have stated a la Joe Walsh that abortions for reasons of health are either not needed, or against God’s will. Here’s one quote from the Bishop of Spokane
It seems that there is also some dithering on the part of the EU, which apparently has failed to punish Ireland sufficiently to bring it into compliance with the law.
With a 5% Protestant minority? (compare the the USA’s 2% Jewish minority)
OT/Hijack, but of the precious few of the Easter Rising that General Maxwell didn’t shoot, if only Eamon de Valera hadn’t been among them then the victim in the OP and many, many other lives would be spared.
The European Court of Human Rights isn’t an EU institution. I’m not clear what sanction can be brought to bear against Ireland for not abiding by the judgement of that court. Does anyone know?
Anyway, it’s a horrible case, and there’s a ton of blame to go around: the cowardice of politicians not willing to stand up to the baleful influence of the Church, for a start. They wouldn’t even codify the decision made by their own Supreme Court 20 years ago.
That’s some real blame-the-victim stuff right there. And really, threatening or attacking staffers in a hospital isn’t going to get you anything except escorted out by security.
It’s all our fault. The politicians have been too scared or are too religious themselves to make the law that the country has already voted on and passed. The people should have made sure the politicans passed this law so that doctors would not have to make a call that could end their carreer.
I’m so angry about this. That poor woman. Dying in agony because of my country’s morallity. It’s beyond sickening.
If you are a Catholic fine, don’t have a fucking abortion, marry a person of the opposite sex and don’t use protection but fuck off and don’t push your morality on others. This baby was not going to live and they delayed because a heartbeat was still there.
Hopefully this will kick things off and force the change we need. Doesn’t help Savita one little bit but hopefully the next Savita won’t have to die in agony.
