Ireland’s abortion ban at center of controversy in mother’s death
I don’t do abortions, I’ll tell you right now. … But I’d have to tell the mother, ‘Your baby doesn’t have a chance and to save your life, I have to do this.’
~ Dr. John Coppes, medical director at Austin Medical Center-Mayo Health System in Minnesota, stating his opinion regarding the recent controversial death of Savita Halappanavar (pictured right) in Ireland, CBS News, November 15
The hospital’s refusal to perform an abortion as she was miscarrying allegedly contributed to her death, according to her husband and pro-abortion activists.
The other side of the story, from World magazine, November 16:
Pro-abortion advocates are clamoring for Ireland to change its abortion laws after 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar died after a miscarriage. Doctors had refused to abort her 17-week-old unborn baby because the child had a heartbeat.
While the investigation is still ongoing about what exactly happened to Halappanavar, media and others in Ireland are placing the blame on the country’s pro-life laws that have made abortion illegal – except when the life of the mother is in danger – for the past 20 years.
But some point out that this case had little to do with the pro-life laws, but rather with irresponsible medical protocol.
Halappanavar visited Galway University Hospital on Oct. 21 because she was suffering back pain. Doctors said she was having a miscarriage, and when she asked for an abortion, the doctors said refused because the unborn baby had a heartbeat. Halappanavar died three days later of a septicemia infection.
Eilís Mulroy wrote in an opinion piece in the UK’s Independent, “In this kind of situation the baby can be induced early (though is very unlikely to survive). The decision to induce labor early would be fully in compliance with the law and the current guidelines set out for doctors by the Irish Medical Council.”
The Irish law did not stop the doctors from saving Halappanavar, Mulroy wrote, and so the responsibility of Halappanavar’s death is on the medical team for not practicing the right protocol….
Ireland, according to the United Nations, is one of the safest places for a mother to have a baby.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I don’t know the details, however if the women was miscarrying a child, and things were going horribly wrong, then action could be taken given the principle of double effect. It is better to save the life of the mother than to lose both mother and child. In other words, your actions are focused not on the mother’s liberty but her life. Medically, it’s the point where it’s not about “choice”, but necessity.
Not everyone facing dire consequences when offered a solution will accept what is offered, so a medically necessary intervention could be rejected by the patient. I’m not saying that’s the case here.
Here is one of the original news stories that broke the story.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2012/1114/1224326575203.html
It appears the doctors did everything right – they treated the mother for septicaemia with antibiotics but it appears that the septicaemia must developed during or before the miscarriage process.
If the baby is not dead, how does one remove the baby without killing it? Catholic doctors are called to protect the life of the mother and the baby.
On the surface the story does not add up. I think this story was written by a pro-abortion reporter who had issues with the Catholic legal regime that protects preborn life. I believed the media is using the tragic death of this mother for the proabortion agenda.
No where does the article directly suggest that abortion would have saved the mother – it only implies it. Very sloppy reporting.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/abortion-promoters-may-have-promoted-irish-abortion-death-media-french-leak/
Shameful.
xalisae, thanks for the link I didn’t see that. It now makes sense knowing who wrote the story. This story is practically fruadulent and a distortion of the facts.
Prochoicers, and the left, share one thing in common – they are bullies or “mean girls.” They manipulate people’s emotions. Praxedes and Mary are right, these people have a personality disorder.
This story is very fishy and why haven’t they mentioned the name of the doctor.
Here is something one doctor said that makes some sense:
Dr. Bryna Harwood, a gynecologist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said Halappanavar’s story was more nuanced than it appeared on the surface. Although the ruptured amniotic sac could have led to an infection that caused the septicemia, it was impossible to know from published details whether Halappanavar’s infection was related to her pregnancy, she said.
The septicemia also could have come from a kidney infection or an appendicitis, both of which can be harder to detect in pregnancy, can be exacerbated by immune system changes in pregnancy and can cause pregnancy complications. They would also cause the back pain Halappanavar’s husband described.
I think this story may be an attempt to prevent incremental prolife legislation, such as the Heartbeat Bill, from being passed.
I think this may be the case because of the specific and repeated reference in all of the news stories about the heart beat of the child in Savita’s womb.
It is better to save the life of the mother than to lose both mother and child. In other words, your actions are focused not on the mother’s liberty but her life. Medically, it’s the point where it’s not about “choice”, but necessity.
I agree one hundred percent. This is just a sad story all around, but pro-aborts are using this tragedy to advance their agenda. All we hear is that a woman died because she wasn’t given an abortion. It’s shameful
I support emergency medical procedures done to save the mother’s life, even if that inevitably means that her baby won’t survive. I recognize that there’s a difference between medically necessary and purely elective. I support investigating the hospital and medical professionals involved, and prosecuting them for negligence if necessary. I wait until all of the facts are available before I make up my mind about any news story. I’m against using sensationalism and misleading vividness to score political points with a tragic death, especially when it’s an outlier as far as the scientific data is concerned. In countries where it’s currently impossible to ban abortion due to the political or legal environment, I support closely regulating abortion providers. If a woman bleeds to death following a supposedly safe, legal abortion, I support investigating the abortion provider in question (especially when they let her hemorrhage for over five hours before sending her to the emergency room).
What about pro-choicers? Is this an area of common ground or not?
Things will always occasionally go wrong in pregnancies. The law allowed abortion to save the pregnant woman’s life. If she died, it may just have been one of those awful things that tends to happen. How can we know for sure that she would not have died if the abortion had been immediately performed?
Some things are just tragedies with no lesson of any kind. This may well be one of them.
I find it amazing that these morons see this as an argument for legalizing abortion when Ireland already always abortion when necessary to save the mother’s life. Even if abortion would have saved her life, this was a doctor fail, not a law fail.
When I wrote my comments first thing this morning, the information was limited compared to the more extensive story now being told by World. Given it was septicemia, I’m guessing there’s much more to this story than meets the eye.
There’s a few questions I have:
Did Halappanavar know the gender of her child? What’s the gestational age? Did she have an ultrasound? Did she immediate request the abortion? What was the medical condition (pathology) that brought on the miscarriage? How would her blood get infected?
I have a suspicion that she knew the gender of her child and perhaps an illegal abortion was attempted (started) which lead to hospitalization, and her request for an abortion.
It doesn’t surprise me the thoroughly corrupt media wouldn’t provide facts. It’s like dealing with pathological liars.
The pro-abortion side needs to prove that an abortion would have saved Savita’s life.
I disagree with Eilis Mulroy. How does he know the situation, what extra facts does he have? How can he say that the doctors serving Savita made an error?
We cannot pin this on the doctors. This is not a failure of the prolife laws. This is simply a tragedy.
I wish all the proabortion advocates would remember that two people died here.
Abortion is illegal and a woman dies “THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN IT’S NOT LEGAL YOU EVIL WOMAN HATING MONSTERS!”
Abortion is legal and a woman dies “So?”
“I think this story may be an attempt to prevent incremental prolife legislation, such as the Heartbeat Bill, from being passed.”
Interestingly, when I read the part about the heartbeat in the above quote it made me think about how the heartbeat bill is apparently being revived in Ohio. However, I can’t see that the Irish media, who started covering this story, actually cares in any way about bills in America. This theory could explain the American media covering it, I suppose.
Oh, I now notice the first quote is from CBS News, so I guess they were the ones you were referring to with regards to stopping incremental pro-life legislation.
JDC, I think the proabort side coordinate their messaging across the ocean. They had plenty of time to decide how to tell this narrative. Savita died November 3 and the story broke 11 days later. The whole story was planned on how best to push the proabortion agenda.
Why the specific reference to the baby’s heart beat?
What doctor would actually say, “Ireland is a Catholic country,” to a father worrying about the fate of wife and child? That statement is too cold and too short to be uttered by any compassionate doctor let alone a Catholic doctor.
Judges often refer to rulings made in other countries when deciding how to interpret laws. Legislators and politicians also refer to the laws in other countries in order to help craft laws in their own country. This is nothing new. The proabortion side understands that Ireland is one of the last remaining countries that has prolife legislation. JDC, don’t you think PP International has their eye on this country?
opps.. Savita died October 28 – eighteen days before the story broke.
Tyler, you may very well be right. I still think that legalizing in Ireland is likely their main priority with this story, allow probably not their exclusive priority.
“opps.. Savita died October 28 – eighteen days before the story broke.”
Good point. In this era of rapid worldwide communication that’s way more than enough time to co-ordinate a response. I suppose I should put nothing past them.
A friend of mine recently went through something very similar, about a month or two ago. She found herself unexpectedly pregnant and was not entirely happy, because she and her husband are already struggling to get by with their toddler, but she committed to having the baby and her husband was overjoyed. Nonetheless, things did not look good. Her hcg levels were low and dropping, and the heart rate was something ridiculous like 68 or something like that. Her doctor told her to expect to miscarry and she bled for somewhere around two weeks without really experiencing anything that she thought was a full miscarriage, as the heart rate dropped even lower, but when she asked if there was anything they could do to help her body do what it apparently needed to do, she was told that they don’t perform or refer for abortions.
I’m not saying that there is an easy answer or even any questions to ask, but I can tell you right now that going through essentially a month-long miscarriage with no real medical/psychological support or aid did not help her in any way. She was scared and she was worried that something could go wrong, that she could get infected, etc. As she went through the whole ordeal it struck me that it seemed almost criminal, certainly cruel, for her doctor to not…run tests, or check up on her, or something. The reality is, there are negligent doctors out there, and there are doctors who care more about appearing pro-life than about caring for their patients’ lives. None of this means that abortion should be legal but just that the negligence alleged in this story is certainly possible.
I don’t know the details of this story from Ireland but the apparent similarities struck me when I first read of it.
She died on the 28th of October 2011.
I agree with Alexandra. This is really sad.
Navi, we don’t know what happened in Savita’s case. The doctors may have followed all of the procedures and did the right thing.
Abortion is never the answer. Any surgery or thereuptic medical procedures done to save the life of the mother are never and should never be directed at the killing of the child. The doctor should focus on healing the cause of the lethal sickness. For example, a doctor can provide heart surgery on a pregnant woman if it is necessary. If the child dies as result of this surgery the doctor has done nothing wrong. The case of an ectopic pregnancy the doctor is trying to repair the fallopian tube of the mother and the doctor is not trying to abort the baby.
Another doctor’s opinion on the treatment of spontaneous miscarriages:
Spontaneous miscarriage is the commonest complication of pregnancy. It occurs in up to 20 per cent of pregnancies, which means there are approximately 14,000 miscarriages in the Republic every year. An inevitable miscarriage occurs when on medical examination the neck of the woman’s womb is found to be open. Even if there is still a sign of foetal life, there is no chance of the pregnancy continuing to term. In many cases the foetus will die and be evacuated naturally from the womb, which is why the initial management is often one of “watch carefully and wait”.
When I first heard the story, it sounded fishy to me, also. Where did the septicemia come from? Certainly, the docs did not let the baby die AND leave the body in utero for any longer than necessary, unless they COULD NOT act, such as if this woman became upset and left AMA.
The DIY-abortion theory counds compelling. THe docs are not allowed to just put the woman’s medical info out there, so pro-abortion groups can say whatever they like.
But info will come out in discovery, if there is a legal case.
What a heartbreaking story. :( It’s sad that she should die, and that she left her husband and children. That just makes me so sad.
I’m not sure that abortion would have changed anything, of course, but she obviously needed some help that she didn’t get. And that is so, so sad.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026005/Mothers-heartbreak-A-level-student-dies-weeks-taking-abortion-drugs.html
Where’s the outrage?
Notice they are blaming the hospital officials saying This was refused, he says, because the foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”.
Pro-aborts are trying to blame the CAtholic religion not medical malpractice.
septosemia is blood poisoning, not fetus poisoning. The fetus is getting blood from the mother. So she was four months and one week pregnant. If the blood was bad and that was the cause of death it could have been anything BUT the baby that caused the death.
It would more likely be the fact that her blood stream was open to some outside source of bacteria-which could have happened either out or in the hospital, but it was most certainly not the fetus.
The fact that she was asking for an abortion is only more proof that she is not a medical expert and didn’t know exactly what was going on with her body or her babies body-but I would be interested in knowing what she got blood poisoning from.
They are trying to blame the fetus and not the actual medical situation that was the cause and result of the death. They are trying to confuse the issue – which is protecting women, by promoting these, once more, fabricated medical profits of feticide.
Alot of people will relate emotionally with Andrea’s story.
It’s going to be how they (Planned Parenthood) blusr the line and legalize abortion in Ireland.
It’s important to draw a clear distinction between malpractice, medical discrimination against women, ((which is age-old) and which abortion is a product of), and the clear need to protect children in the womb from needless harm.
I know Andrea’s friend could have died, but until you are certain the mother’s life is in peril – which is clearly where the line has been drawn in both instance, then you stick it out in honor of the human dignity of the unborn person.
Let’s make that line well defined, as it is this line that is being smudged and obscured right now in order for it to be completely erased so that the Catholicism that protects pre-borns in Ireland can be demonized and the floodgates of abortion in Ireland, broken, and the lives of millions of pre-borns lost, and the lives of millions of women damaged or lost as well like it has been here in the states because of widespread abortions, that are commonly botched, and because of the emotional damages caused by abortion.
Remember the alternative when you site the “women’s health,” reference to accept abortion in your communities. Once legalized, the abortion machine won’t stop at women’s health. It won’t stop until it hsa a Planned Parenthood “EXPRESS,” like they do in Pasadena, or a facility in the school as they do at Roosevelt High school in East Los Angeles. Or an SB 623, with no parental consent laws as they (PP) have in California and are trying to get elsewhere.
Keep Ireland Abortion Free.
I really think there is nothing to this story. Irish law allows abortion to save the pregnant woman’s life. When it is necessary is a medical judgement call. There will always be errors in judgement.
It should be noted that 17 weeks along is the first week of the 5th month of pregnancy. As I’ve pointed out before, abortion is automatically MUCH more difficult after the 3rd month. This is true regardless of legality or illegality. It is not impossible that the abortion itself could have triggered medical complications.
Performing an abortion at 17 weeks is also inevitably quite gruesome. The fetus is fully developed with arms, legs, and a head. It has simple brain function as well as a heartbeat.
Perhaps if an abortion had been induced she would have survived. Perhaps she would have died. Since the law clearly stated that doctors could abort if they thought it was the only way to save the pregnant woman’s life, the Irish anti-abortion laws are irrelevant.
This is a tragedy. I’m sorry this young woman died. But anti-abortion laws didn’t kill her or play a part in killing her. She just died. Condolences to her family.
What are the chances that all the “healthcare professionals” that were involved in this tragic case of malpractice were personally opposed to the pro-life regulations that exist in Ireland?
What are the chances?
My first read of the story was that some treatment harmful to the four month foetus was at issue. Did doctors withhold treatment as well as deny an abortion so treatment could proceed. ?