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November 19, 2012
Pregnant Woman's Death in Ireland Becomes Global Flashpoint Over Abortion
Pro-choice activists from Dublin to Delhi demand change; Irish prime minister calls death "a tragic coincidence."
(Update: Ireland has pledged to decide on a new abortion law this month.)
Pro-choice activists from Ireland to India are protesting the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian woman who was denied an abortion at a hospital in Galway, Ireland, in late October.
In Dublin, an estimated 6,000 protesters rallied to legalize abortion in heavily Catholic Ireland, which has stringent anti-abortion laws. Similar marches in Galway, where Halappanavar died, and at the Irish embassy in the Indian capital Delhi called for the Dublin government to amend the abortion law or abolish it entirely.
Irish prime minister Enda Kenny says he will not rush into a decision on the right to abortion. He called any connection between Halappanavar's death and Irish abortion law a "tragic coincidence."
Doctors are still investigating Halappanavar's death to determine whether an abortion would have made a difference or not. Meanwhile, pro-life groups are protesting the spin being put on her death before all the facts are known.
A statute dating back to 1861 outlaws abortion in Ireland, but the country amended the law in 1992 to allow doctors to terminate a pregnancy when it endangers the mother's life. More recently, a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision in 2010 called for Ireland to clarify the status of abortion in Irish law.
Ireland is one of the last remaining countries in the European Union to outlaw abortion.
CT has previously covered the rise of Protestantism in Ireland, the ECHR's ruling on Ireland in 2010, and the recent string of pro-life rulings from the ECHR.
Comments
Report the details of the story. Your failure to accurately report what happened here -- a young husband watches his wife dies a slow and agonizing death due to being fatally infected by the dead fetus inside her which the Catholic hospital refuses to remove -- is poor journalism although not surprising for a low-caliber religious publication more concern with toeing rightwing politics than with providing accurate and complete information.
Posted By: kaitlin | November 20, 2012 12:39 AM
So kaitlin, where exactly is the poor journalism here? Where exactly are the non-facts? The fact that doctors are still investigating the circumstances of this poor woman's death doesn't stop you from making a precise medical prognosis in advance. Amazing!
Posted By: Philip | November 20, 2012 5:57 AM
@ Philip Google this news story. It has been covered by just about every major news source in detail a few days ago. They have more info than CT does.
Posted By: Basil | November 20, 2012 9:03 AM
I first heard about this from a friend for whom attacking the Catholic Church and making snide remarks about ignorant, superstitious "Micks" (I am both Catholic and part-Irish) would seem to have become more than a minor hobby. He too shows no interest in the facts of this heartbreaking story, which is being cynically and cruelly used by the abortion lobby to promote its murderous agenda.
Posted By: Roan Suda | November 23, 2012 11:15 PM
I think people are getting it wrong about who is protesting or at least they are missing a large part of it. It's not about being pro-choice it's about what value is placed on the mother's life compared to the unborn child. To deny a woman who is in agony, an abortion for a fetus that has no chance to survive in the first place(she was having a miscarriage) is to say that the fetus is more important than the mother. As a woman I find that reprehensible and men should too. What if it was your wife, what if was your daughter crying out in pain and the doctors were doing nothing to save her because she was carrying a baby that had no chance to survive? How much value should we place on the living vs how much value we place on the potential life that she carries in her? To me the already living should always come first.
Posted By: Kristin Owens | November 24, 2012 12:02 PM
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