See this nice woman? Savita Halappanavar, age 31, Irish dentist. Now dead, because Ireland bans abortions.
Savita Halappanavar (31), who was a dentist, was 17 weeks pregnant when she died from septicaemia, according to an autopsy carried out two days after her death on Oct 28. Her family said she asked several times for her termination as she had severe back pain and was miscarrying but doctors at University Hospital Galway refused on the grounds that abortion was illegal in Ireland.
Her husband Praveen Halappanavar said he was certain that his wife would have still been alive if the termination had been allowed.
It was her first pregnancy, he said, and she was “on top of the world” before she started suffering back pain. When the pain persisted, she asked her consultant if she could be “induced” but was told “no”.
“They said unfortunately she can’t because it’s a Catholic country. Savita said to her [consultant] she is not Catholic, she is Hindu, and why impose the law on her. But she said, ‘I’m sorry, unfortunately it’s a Catholic country,’ and it’s the law that they can’t abort when the foetus is [alive],” he said [Hasan Suroor, "Indian Woman Dies After Being Refused Abortion," The Hindu, 2012.11.15].
In 1983, "well-funded religious right pressure groups" pushed personhood for embryos into Ireland's constitution. That personhood amend reads thus:
The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right [Constitution of Ireland, Article 40, Section 3].
Political pressure has stopped Irish politicians from enacting any legislation to secure and clarify that "due regard to the equal right to life of the mother." The most recent rejection of such clarifying language came just last April, when one Irish legislator complained that most unwanted pregnancy comes from "fornication":
During the resumed Dáil debate, she said she was against abortion in any form. “The grace of God is so liberating and provides so many options to get the best out of life despite our fallen nature, and we all have that.
“Having said that, it is an ideal to aim for. In an ideal world there would be no unwanted pregnancies and no unwanted babies, but we are far from living in an ideal world. An honest and a scriptural view is that things are getting harder for people, so what then for the weak in our society?
Ms Mulherin continued: “Abortion as murder, therefore sin, which is the religious argument, is no more sinful, from a scriptural point of view, than all other sins we don’t legislate against, like greed, hate and fornication. The latter, being fornication, I would say, is probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country” [Michael O'Regan, "Fornication the 'Cause of Unwanted Pregnancies', The Irish Times, 2012.04.20].
Savita Halappanavar and her husband were not fornicating (as if such a label had any place in law).
Faced with a tragic turn to her very wanted pregnancy, the best Savita and Praveen could have gotten out of life was to abort the dying fetus and save Savita's life. In mortal agony, Savita asked for that help. Doctors refused, because of a far-too-vague law built on pious grandstanding. Praveen Halappanavar thus lost his child and his beloved wife.
South Dakota's Congresswoman and various legislators make the same pious noise about life beginning at conception. That noise just killed a woman in Ireland. Let's not make any more that noise in Congress or during the upcoming South Dakota Legislative session.
Outrageous.
I do not personally know any activists in my world of pro life who would support what this woman went through. I do know a couple of gals who went through hell in their pregnancy because that was how they believed though.
I am left wondering if there is more to this story. Were those doctors really so cowardly that they would not break a law to save a life?
Unintended consequences of overzealous idealism. (Well, hopefully unintended.)
That overzealous idealism has made it very dangerous for more practical thinkers in the GOP and conservative movement. Anything but scorched earth is considered being pro-choice.
They knew, without a doubt, that these situations would arise and they would choose death for this woman...and then they lost the nonviable fetus as well.
Considering that these zealots made the choice for this woman to die just adds to my belief that most of the so-called pro-lifers absolutely need to be renamed.
Maybe pro-gestation...because their absolute view of life seems to end there.
A tragic case to be sure and I will pray for healing for the families involved.
But how many women and children are slaughtered by abortionists where it is "legal" to assume the role of God in determining who lives or who dies? How many lives are saved each year in Ireland by the banning of the murder of innocent children?
Ed, that is a nice TV you have. And those finger diddly things with cheese were really good. Thank you sir, but you are still insane.
Tragic and avoidable. Somebody played God with that woman's life Ed, but that's OK? Probably would have been better if someone had played Doctor.
Ed, what do you hear about having a personhood bill proposed in Pierre this year?
This case shows why exceptions allowing abortion in limited circumstances, such as to save the life of the mother, are still not sufficient to have saved this woman. Her life was not at risk when she fetal demise began. Since her water had broken, there was a risk of infection - a threat to her health, not an immediate threat to her life. And despite this risk, despite her great pain, despite the known non-survivability of the fetus, there was still a fetal heartbeat and under the personhood law in Ireland, an abortion could not be performed. When the infection spread and she became septic, she finally had a life-threatening condition and it was too late. No "exception for the life of the mother" would have changed what happened. Exceptions for the health of the mother might have - depending on how many second opinions from other physicians or what court approval would be required and how long it would take to accomplish this. What would prevent this from happening is a worldview that sees a fetus as the beginning of a life, but not as a "person" whose legal rights equal or supersede those of the woman who bears the pregnancy and gives that life it's potential. Since the fetus is not a child, abortions do not "slaughter children." And since abortion at any stage of the pregnancy is safer than childbirth, neither is it a a cause of "slaughtering women."
Thanks Barbara, but it also shows the danger of blind ideologues and how, in their scorched earth view, they are incapable or unwilling to think of the intended and unintended consequences.
In this case, they decided that they should play God in the premeditated death of this woman. Then they have the nerve to no feel sorrow, but say that they will pray for healing...which comes off as saying we will pray that you think like us and accept our ruling.
No response needed Ed, you've got a secession to plan and a global media empire to run.
Barbara is right on the money. Supporters of abortion bans would point to the supposed exceptions in Ireland's constitutional language as proof that women won't die unnecessarily. Savita Halappanavan's preventable death is a profound counterexample.
Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers should lose tax-exempt status:
http://www.politicususa.com/campaigning-pulpit-wing-churches-lose-tax-exempt-status.html
Ed, what Bob said and with what Cory so inelegantly deleted: add emergent acute prostatitis.
Yes, women are expendable in red states:
http://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom-religion-belief/it-was-all-their-hands-and-they-just-let-her-go
Planned Parenthood President: politics killed Savita.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cecile-richards/savitas-death-was-not-an_b_2161151.html
Cory, how about posting some pictures of those who die in abortion mills?
The photos you request are not morally equivalent to the photo that heads this post.
Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers: fetuses not legal persons.