Okay, let's see if we can clarify the details just a bit here, rather than having to run on this person's or that person's interjection of his own personal hobby horse as a substitute for facts.
From ABCnews.com:
Savita Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she arrived at University Hospital Galway in Ireland, complaining of back pain, her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, told the Irish Times. Doctors told Halappanavar she was miscarrying, but they reportedly refused to terminate the pregnancy as long as there was a fetal heartbeat, because, they said, Ireland was a "Catholic country."
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Abortion is illegal in Ireland unless continuing a pregnancy would endanger a woman's life. But [Deputy Prime Minister Eamon] Gilmore said certain circumstances cloud the interpretation of the law.
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At the Galway University Hospital, Halappanavar's fetal heartbeat stopped nearly three days after she arrived on Oct. 21. Doctors evacuated Halappanavar's uterus, but she died of septicemia, or blood poisoning, on Oct. 28, according the Irish Times, which cited the autopsy report.
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Halappanavar's husband told the Irish Times the couple had repeatedly asked doctors to end the pregnancy, and were refused even though his wife's cervix was fully dilated and her amniotic fluid was leaking. The night after the fetal heartbeat stopped and doctors cleared the uterus, he got a call from the hospital.
"They said they were shifting her to intensive care," Praveen Halappanavar told the Irish Times. "Her heart and pulse were low, her temperature was high. She was sedated and critical but stable. She stayed stable on Friday, but by 7 p.m. on Saturday they said her heart, kidneys and liver weren't functioning. She was critically ill. That night, we lost her."
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Ireland Pledges to Clarify Abortion Laws After Death of Miscarrying Woman - ABC News
So it seems like they're saying, when you cut through all the speculation, that the doctors COULD have legally aborted the miscarrying fetus, they themselves were not entirely clear on what the law was in that regard.
From CNN.com:
Savita Halappanavar, 31, went into a hospital on October 21, complaining of back pain. She was 17 weeks pregnant at the time.
The doctors who examined her told her she was having a miscarriage but denied her an abortion even though she was in extreme pain, her husband has said. Halappanavar died at the hospital, leading lawmakers to call for an investigation into what role abortion laws may have played in her death.
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Halappanavar was told that the miscarriage would be over in a matter of hours, said Kitty Holland, who reported the story for the Irish Times.
But the hours kept ticking and Halappanavar remained in terrible pain, so her husband asked doctors to expedite the miscarriage by carrying out an abortion.
Doctors at Galway University Hospital said that as long as the fetal heartbeat could be felt, the law prevented them from ending the pregnancy, Holland said. Halappanavar died of septicemia, or a blood infection, after three days in the hospital.
Woman's death prompts abortion debate in Ireland - CNN.com
Kind of amazing how much of this article was speculation and agenda-pushing. Seems to support the idea that the doctors were very unclear on what the limits of the law were.
From Newsmax.com:
Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian immigrant, was admitted to Galway University Hospital in late October complaining of back pains. Examining physicians informed her that she was having a miscarriage and asked her and her husband to allow the miscarriage to take its course before removing the body of the 4-month-old fetus.
According to The Guardian, it took three days for the fetus to die. Despite attempts by the hospital to improve Halappanavars health, she died within a week of septicaemia, a blood infection that caused her kidneys and liver to stop working.
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According to doctors at the hospital, the abortion was not performed when requested by Halappanavars husband during the three day miscarriage because under Irish law abortion is prohibited while the babys heart is still beating, which was the case in Halappanavar's situation.
Ireland Abortion Law Under Fire After Death of Savita Halappanavar
So again, it seems that the doctors just REALLY didn't understand the law in relation to miscarriages, which seems very odd to me. American doctors usually know the legality of their jobs to a fare-thee-well, with not only an eye toward prosecution, but also toward malpractice.
From Foxnews.com:
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.
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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.
Indian woman's parents decry Irish abortion laws after daughter dies | Fox News
Apparently, Ireland is less willing to let judges simply tell them what the laws are and should be than Americans are. They probably have some funny notion that words mean things.
So it looks like what we've got is a gray area between what the law actually says and what the courts are prepared to prosecute that has left doctors in Ireland confused and reluctant to take risks. While I can respect, in general, a country actually adhering to its written laws, rather than merely assuming they're mutable as and whenever someone wants them to be, I think it's completely unacceptable for them to have left this particular are of law in such a mess, all but inviting something like this to happen.
