Two investigations are under way into the death of a woman who was 17 weeks pregnant, at University Hospital Galway last month.
Savita Halappanavar (31), a dentist, presented with back pain at the hospital on October 21st, was found to be miscarrying, and died of septicaemia a week later.
Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar (34), an engineer at Boston Scientific in Galway, says she asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. He says that, having been told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, Ms Halappanavar asked for a medical termination.
This was refused, he says, because the foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”.
She spent a further 2½ days “in agony” until the foetal heartbeat stopped.
Intensive care
The dead foetus was removed and Savita was taken to the high dependency unit and then the intensive care unit, where she died of septicaemia on the 28th.
An autopsy carried out by Dr Grace Callagy two days later found she died of septicaemia “documented ante-mortem” and E.coli ESBL.
Full piece on irishtimes.com, including audio of an interview with Praveen Halappanavar, which I haven't had a chance to listen to in full myself.
The state of abortion law in Ireland is roughly and briefly thus: abortion is prohibited by our constitution, except where the mother's life is at risk, including the risk of suicide. It is legal to travel abroad for abortion services, and to distribute information about abortion services abroad. Various court rulings have, for the past 20 years, put the responsibility on the government to pass legislation establishing when exactly abortions are permissible. No government has done so, the politicians involved presumably being afraid to upset the Catholic majority.
And now it seems that a 31 year old woman is dead, fucking dead, because that fear has put doctors in a position where they have no clear standards on when they can perform medically necessary terminations. What the fuck, NSG? How the actual fuck can temporary political controversy prevent life saving legislation? How could the sane pro-life position even have a problem with abortion in cases like this where the baby is sure to die in either case and the mother will die without one?
Ye gods but this is frustratingly stupid country some times. I can only hope that this awful, preventable tragedy finally gets the political class to pull its head out of its ass and finally, finally, pass a law to set out when women here can have their lives saved by medical terminations, as is their constitutional and basic human right.
