Parents slam Irish abortion laws after woman dies

Savita Halappanavar, 31 year old woman from India who was 17 weeks pregnant. / Courtesy of The Irish Times

NEW DELHI The parents of an Indian woman who suffered a miscarriage and died after being refused an abortion in an Irish hospital slammed Ireland's abortion laws Thursday.

Savita Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she miscarried and died last month. Ireland's government confirmed Wednesday that Halappanavar suffered from blood poisoning and died after being denied an abortion, reigniting the debate over legalizing abortion in the predominantly Catholic country.

• Ireland woman denied life-saving abortion?

"In an attempt to save a 4-month-old fetus they killed my 30-year-old daughter. How is that fair you tell me?" A. Mahadevi, Halappanavar's mother, told several Indian television stations. Her daughter actually was 31 when she died.

"How many more cases will there be? The rules should be changed as per the requirement of Hindus. We are Hindus, not Christians," she said.

Savita Halappanavar's father, Andanappa Yalagi, said the combination of medical negligence and Irish abortion laws led to his daughter's death.

The spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, Syed Akbaruddin, said in a Twitter post that the Indian Embassy in Dublin was "following the matter."

Halappanavar's husband, Praveen, said doctors at University Hospital Galway in western Ireland determined that his wife was miscarrying within hours of her hospitalization for severe pain on Oct. 21. He said over the next three days, doctors refused their requests for an abortion to combat her searing pain and fading health.

It was only after the fetus died that its remains were surgically removed. Within hours, Savita was placed under sedation in intensive care with blood poisoning, her husband said. By Oct. 27, her heart, kidneys and liver had stopped working, and she was pronounced dead the next day.

Three separate investigations are looking into the cause of Halappanavar's death.

Ireland's constitution officially bans abortion, but a 1992 Supreme Court ruling said the procedure should be legalized for situations when the woman's life is at risk from continuing the pregnancy. Five governments since have refused to pass a law resolving the confusion, leaving Irish hospitals reluctant to terminate pregnancies except in the most obviously life-threatening circumstances.

An estimated 4,000 Irish women travel next door to England every year, where abortion has been legal on demand since 1967. But that option is difficult, if not impossible, if the woman's health is failing.

[RobertCoxswain]

Why no outrage for the women who die on abortion tables, or for the women who suffer the guilt and remorse of abortion? Ah that is right, it would interfere with the liberal agenda of population control. Hypocrites.

[PourpaixPourpaix]

The Church does not seem to get it. Too bad. The Church's place is to advise on how to live a moral, healthy life. Perhaps even show leadership with morality. Enforcing God's law is far, far, far from the Church's domain. It is up to the individual to self-impose and apply standards, not the Church. The Church has manipulated things since day 1, inserting man's word into scriptures in order to dominate. They even feel it appropriate to deem some of the disciples' observations of the life of Jesus Christ to be heresy because it doesn't fit into their agenda. And most of all, a pack of celibate idiots are probably the last counsel to seek concerning sexual morality.

I left Christianity in 1971 after some clown minister told me the Vietnamese were dirty little Communists who didn't believe in God. Since they were bound to take over the world and destroy God, we were entitled to torment and kill them in any way we see fit. Screw that, screw the perversion that the Church has become. I don't need it, and neither do you. Keep the idiots in the Church as far away from government as possible.

[hypnotoad72]

I'd read another article on this issue.

The patient was not Catholic. Why must Catholic regulations apply?

The Hippocratic Oath is not a misprint of "Hypocritical Oath".

One was alive, the other was forming to become alive, if not alive. The unborn is not a "product of intercourse" or what some try to be "objective" about. Both are living beings. A false claim of being pro-life effectively murdered, with - I agree - slow torture.

Worst of all, TWO people died. Logically, and keep in mind all of this is tragic, do you try to save the mother at the expense of the unborn, or do you save the unborn at the expense of the mother? Which one is more capable of creating another? Definitely not the unborn...

Anyone pro-life needs to re-evaluate the qualifications.

[ugacrew]

First, I state clearly that I am not in any position to pass judgement on another human being. However, I would like to ask how is it that one can solicity sympathy for the fate of a woman who was attempting to inflict this same fate on another human being? Shouldn't we also feel sympathy towards the death of the infant?

[Millennial]

..the FETUS was dying inside of her all signs of a miscarriage to take place..and the pain was there for a reason.. which is nature's sign stating something is WRONG with your BODY and the FETUS..DO something or you'll die.and as result nothing was DONE and BOTH died, does that make SENSE to let BOTH die? Nope for the sake of heaven!

Geesh Louise.. why PPl can't get this behooves me!

[KPeters_from_UK]

who was attempting to inflict this same fate on another human being
------------

Did I read that correctly? If something is killing you.........oh never mind.

[lesliep4819]

Here's what happens when religious doctrine overcomes medical necessity. Coming soon to a red state near you.

[all4science]

That's what happen when common sense is not exercised

[hypnotoad72]

Eschewing common sense in favor of fascism. This religious fascism killed. The baby was dying and chances are high it would have died either way ("it" because I don't know the gender). The grown adult woman did not need to die, and in pain on top of all that!

What's going on is obscene. Miscarriage is a horrible enough event, but denying the woman help and she dies as a result is an unjustified and needless, undeserved cruelty.

And her husband has to live with this for the rest of whatever.

[LelioRisen]

This is why religious institutions cannot be responsible for setting anti-abortion legislation.

When the life of the mother is shown to be of less value than the life of the fetus, something is clearly off-kilter.

To deny a woman an abortion when the health of the mother is at stake is obscene. To force a woman to bear the child of rape or incest is equally immoral and unacceptable.

The only thing that those that cloak themselves in the term 'pro-life' care about is controlling the lives of others. Usually, they stop caring about life the moment the fetus is out of the womb.

@leliorisen

[hypnotoad72]

Very true.

We've read articles with insurance companies denying newborns, claiming "preexisting conditions".

We've read articles that use child labor, and other sources of labor, to lower costs. Since wages are what workers earn their freedom with, the moment the baby plops out it is seen only as a cost or liability, as "cheap labor".

The amount of rationalizing on their part is... discouraging.

[Millennial]

And not only that, if the rapist is not convicted or even yet convicted of rape in some red states and if the mother gave birth to the rapist child, by law the rapist still has a right to custody of the child via thru his family asking for partial custody or visitation rights. Romney & Ryan.

..its a SHAME what happened to this young mother to be, as result of denying an abortion in this MEDICAL case-- this woman acquire blood posioning because of the FETUS being toxic dying at 18 weeks NOT to be born, God gave knowledge to man/woman to become DOCTORS for a REASON PPL!

CBSNEWS is not spinning this issue on abortion.. I've read this earlier on the net coming out of Ireland.

[cntrygirl3]

Her husband said for three days he begged doctors to perform an abortion as his wife lay in agony. He was told by law as long as there was a fetal heartbeat there was nothing they could do. I assume that probably meant no antibiotics or painkillers either as they would hasten the death of the dying fetus. This is the law a country past. The law or more precisely the constitutional amendment wanted in the republican platform would have this same outcome. A woman forced to die in agony for nothing. These radicals must never be allowed to take over our government, they are why Romney lost, the republican party should take heed.

[need-balance]

CBS News is not reporting this factually. Ireland is known to have the best care for pregnant women, even better than Britain and others.

These "journalists" are putting their own spin on things before the investigation is even completed or all the facts are known.

The only reason they are doing this is because abortion is not legal in Ireland and it involves Catholics.

Where is CBS when a baby was born in a toilet and left to die at an abortion clinic and when Planned Parenthood "misplaces" money, aids human trafficking, and fights against laws to notify sex partners about being HIV positive?

Faulty journalism or just downright misleading the "sheeple" to make a uninformed decision?

[hypnotoad72]

slownews -

Or FOX.


Need-balance -

Or where was CBS when a newborn was denied health coverage because it had a preexisting heart condition, an issue that the "liberal" media was all over a couple of years ago?

And it's being reported only because it will bring in readers, and potentially higher profit. It's simple advertising and capitalism. If you want to get to the core of the issue, rather than playing with sheep shears since woolly thinking is quite common around here, but I've admitted when I was wrong in the past...

[KPeters_from_UK]

SERVORUM is a man who has no clue about pregnancies and their complications. He has no idea that dead tissue (the miscarried placenta) inside the uterus is indeed a cause for septicaemia. SERVORUM is a classic example why MEN WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND women's health issues. That's why I never have understood why some women don't mind seeing a male OB/GYN or a male therapist or a priest. There will always be issues that men will never understand.

Naturally, I can't definitely pronounce that all men are clueless but it's close.

[servorum]

I don't mean to rock your boat with the facts but once again you are utterly wrong.

I am in fact a medical professional with thirty years of experience, including overseeing cases in the specialty of OB/GYN. I have in the past worked with and currently treat a wide variety of medical problems women face on a daily basis, many of which are no doubt unfamiliar to you since you don't practice medicine.

While one hates to participate in a rush to judgment on one's fellow medical practitioners, it does appear that this woman should have been administered an antibiotic much earlier in this process, something that apparently did not happen, resulting in septicemia, a frequently deadly bacterial infection of the bloodstream.
This is what killed this unfortunate woman.

However, from your previous comments it is clear that you are in fact unconcerned about women's health.
You take radical political positions on medical issues because you know only what you read from newspaper headlines and brief articles which you cannot understand because you lack medical training.

You are the kind of person who rails against the ER medical staff because his or her fatally ill family member has died only a few hours after being admitted, even though the staff has done everything in its power to save him.

Medical professionals do their best to save every life they are called on to treat, but pregnancy is a very tricky and potentially difficult time in the life of any woman. Infection is hardly the only complication that can take the life of the mother and the child in the womb.

The medical care provided to this woman was undoubtedly professional and caring, even though it fell far short of ultimate success.

You on the other hand appear to have a deep animus against the life of the unborn child such that 55 million lives lost since Roe v Wade has neither shaken you nor opened your eyes to what has been a terrible slaughter of the innocent.

I have been asked to do abortions in the past and have said no each time. I will continue to do so as long as I practice.

I have no illusions about the power of my words to wake you up because you have a closed mind, but I feel it is still my job to speak the truth to your distortions and sad misconceptions.

[KPeters_from_UK]

There you go SERVORUM. I would never trust you with my daughter's life.