At 17 weeks into her pregnancy she was admitted to hospital with chronic pain because she was having a miscarriage. There was no chance that the fetus would survive. In excruciating pain, Savita asked for an abortion. The hospital, University Hospital Galway in Ireland, refused. Why? There was still a fetal heartbeat, and as Savita and her husband were told, “this is a Catholic country”.
They then did nothing except force Savita to wait, “in agony”, for another two days until the fetus died. By that time, she had to be taken into intensive care, and then died a few days later of septicemia and E. coli infection.
Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland sums it all up best when he writes …
Shame on Ireland’s Catholic Bishops and our cowardly politicians. They could have protected the life of 31-year-old Savita Praveen Halappanavar, who tragically died last month in Galway after doctors denied her the right to abort an unviable foetus during a miscarriage.
Instead, while Savita was dying, the Catholic church was running an immoral propaganda campaign to mislead Irish people into believing that pregnant women will always get the medical care they need in Irish hospitals.
Rachel Donnelly, Galway Pro-Choice spokesperson, commented –
“This was an obstetric emergency which should have been dealt with in a routine manner. Yet Irish doctors are restrained from making obvious medical decisions by a fear of potentially severe consequences. As the European Court of Human Rights ruled, as long as the 1861 Act remains in place, alongside a complete political unwillingness to touch the issue, pregnant women will continue to be unsafe in this country.”
If you live in Ireland you can help
- Galway Pro Choice is screening two documentaries about abortion in Irelandin aid of the Abortion Support Network, in NUI Galway at 8.30 pm on Friday 16 November.
- Action on X is organising a march from the Garden of Remembrance to a candlelit vigil at the Dail at 4 pm on Saturday 17 November.
- Galway Pro Choice is organising a candlelit vigil in memory of Savita, at Browne’s Doorway on Eyre Square in Galway at 5pm on Saturday 17 November.
- Galway Pro Choice is organising a public meeting ‘Legislate for the X case now!’ in the Harbour Hotel, Galway, at 7.30 pm on Thursday 22 November.
This is what happens when you permit clueless religious gobshits (that is not an insult, but is instead a very accurate factually based statement) to impose their batshit crazy beliefs upon society – people die, real harm is inflicted.
“Abortion in Ireland is available only when the life of the mother is at risk. However, a lack of clarity in legislation has led to confusion within the Irish medical profession as to when a woman’s life is at risk—with the result that abortions are rarely, if ever, performed under any circumstances.”
Lack of clarity? Nonsense. In the 1992 Irish case of Attorney General v X, the Irish supreme court stated that:
‘the law in this State is that surgical intervention which has the effect of terminating pregnancy bona fide undertaken to save the life of the mother where she is in danger of death is permissible under the Constitution and the law. The danger has to represent a substantial risk to her life though this does not necessarily have to be an imminent danger of instant death. The law does not require the doctors to wait until the mother is in peril of immediate death.’
Just how dumb would you have to be not to understand that paragraph? It’s crystal clear.
See: http://www.xcaseprimer.blogspot.ie/
Much less of a fuss about this particular national scandal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/24/india-families-aborting-girl-babies
We have a cult of fetal worship in the USA, too, and this horrible death should be a wake up call for everyone. I sincerely do not understand how a “medical” establishment could stand by and allow this to happen.