According to an article published on the Guardian, a tragic case of a 31-year old pregnant woman who died because she was refused an abortion has sparked an outrage in Ireland. The woman, Savita Halappanavar who was a dentist, was 17 weeks pregnant when she was admitted to the hospital on the 21st of October. However she started miscarrying soon after entering the hospital and was under a lot of pain. She was suffering profusely and apart from the pain, she was vomiting as well and even fainted once.
Why she died
She was told by the doctors that her baby could not be saved and thus she pleaded with them to let her have the abortion so she could save her life. However the doctors refused to perform the abortion as Ireland is a Catholic country and abortions are illegal. The foetus still had a heartbeat and thus the doctors did not terminate the pregnancy. They waited till the next day when the fetus died to remove the fetus from the mother but it was too late. By then Halappanavar had already become infected and died one week later from septicaemia.
Outrage in Ireland
The case has now sparked outrage in Ireland due to the doctor’s refusal to save the woman’s life. Halappanavar was a Hindu and neither Irish nor Catholic but was still denied an abortion. Although her husband and her begged doctors to perform the abortion, she was still denied the operation which could have saved her life. Rachel Donnelly, a pro-life campaigner says, “This was an obstetric emergency which should have been dealt with in a routine manner. Yet Irish doctors are restrained from making obvious medical decisions by a fear of potentially severe consequences.”
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