Tragic case to reopen abortion debate in Ireland

[Alatar]

For what its worth Nel, I happen to agree with you. However, there is one fly in the ointment. This law was voted on by the people of Ireland. It was two decades ago, and the Catholic Church was much more influential, but that doesn't deny that fact.

I guess you could argue that Men should not have been allowed to vote on this, but I strongly suspect that even had only women been allowed to vote the result would have been the same. I understand that you feel strongly about this, but do you propose allowing a government to force their agenda on an unwilling public? Thats a pretty slippery slope.

[nerdanel]

For what its worth Nel, I happen to agree with you. However, there is one fly in the ointment. This law was voted on by the people of Ireland. It was two decades ago, and the Catholic Church was much more influential, but that doesn't deny that fact.

I guess you could argue that Men should not have been allowed to vote on this, but I strongly suspect that even had only women been allowed to vote the result would have been the same. I understand that you feel strongly about this, but do you propose allowing a government to force their agenda on an unwilling public? Thats a pretty slippery slope.

I did not argue that men should not have been allowed to vote on this. And this thread makes obvious that not all women are like-minded on this topic. However, what I learned last week is that enough women are willing to stand up for the rights of all women to effect change, and we are a powerful voting bloc when as many of us as are willing stand together.

I have often said that minority rights should not be voted on by the general public. This principle more often crops up in the context of gay rights or racial minorities' rights. But what people sometimes don't fully appreciate is that abortion is a minority rights issue. The group affected is not "women" but "women of current or future childbearing age who would, under at least some set of circumstances, not carry a child to term." This is a smaller number of women whose right to bodily integrity is constantly under threat by (some) men and (some other) women. I belong to this group. It is not a matter of the government "forcing their agenda on an unwilling public." It is a matter of the public forcing its agenda on a minority group, infringing on our right not to endure nine months of unwanted penetration and permanent and temporary changes to our body, followed by an unwanted assault (more violent and painful than many if not most criminally charged assaults) from the fetus as it emerges into the world. This right is fundamental (constitutionally so, in the United States) and should not now, not ever, be subject to popular vote.

Understand: the victim in this case did not necessarily even belong to this group. By all accounts, she genuinely wanted to have a child - and this particular child. She only wanted to terminate because there was no prospect of her child surviving. But this case illustrates that for her even more fundamental right to life to be respected, the rights of the minority demographic I described above must be respected. If the latter right was respected in Ireland, the victim here would have received the medical treatment she requested properly. As it stands, she did not.

[Alatar]

As I said, I agree with you on this one, but I still think its a slippery slope. There are many other minority groups who might choose to vote for something you fundamentally disagree with. Say, for example, female circumcision. Where does the line get drawn?

20 years ago in Ireland, the line was drawn at abortion. It would, and likely will, be drawn at a different place today. Where will it be drawn in another 20 years?

[nerdanel]

As I said, I agree with you on this one, but I still think its a slippery slope. There are many other minority groups who might choose to vote for something you fundamentally disagree with. Say, for example, female circumcision. Where does the line get drawn?

The line gets drawn at people's attempt to practice their religion on other people's bodies. European regional jurisprudence is very close to recognizing that this is unacceptable in multiple forms. To the extent that the below principles do not reflect the state of regional law, I expect that regional law will evolve in the next twenty years along these lines:

1. A child has a right to physical integrity. While parents can consent to necessary medical treatment on her behalf, they are not entitled to mutilate her body to conform to their religious traditions.

2. Adults have a right to bodily integrity. We have the right to exclude unwanted invaders from our bodies. This includes men's and women's right to say no to unwanted sexual penetration from others, including spouses and significant others. It also includes women's right to removal of an unwanted fetus and termination of an unwanted pregnancy. (Men are also entitled to insist that no unwanted object remains inside their body for nearly a year at a stretch.) We recognize in the sexual context that sexual contact we desire can be one of the most wonderful experiences possible, but that the very same contact when undesired can be one of the greatest nightmares and crimes it is possible to experience. The same understanding needs to be brought to the context of pregnancy: for women who want and embrace the experience, it can be (I am told) powerful, affirming, transformative, and wonderful - at least for some women. Even for those who hate the experience of being pregnant but want the end result of a biological child, the negatives are described as something they willingly endure for the sake of the larger positive outcome of motherhood. But for a woman who does not want either the experience or the end result - either at a particular point in her life, or ever - a legally coerced pregnancy is a tremendous, profound violation.

3. Adults are also entitled to make personal decisions to modify their own bodies in ways that might seem unpleasant or bizarre to others, from tattoos and piercings to genital modification. So long as an adult woman is not being coerced by others, I think it should be legal for her to request female circumcision, just as it is uncontroversial that men can request to be circumcised as adults. However, there should be severe criminal penalties in place for anyone who coerces an adult woman to pursue this procedure - a real problem in Europe right now as regards some African and Middle Eastern immigrants.

4. I would not have thought this needed to be said, but apparently it does: children and adults have a fundamental right to life-saving medical treatment. Willful deprivation of this medical treatment by parents or medical professionals for any reason should be clearly recognized as a violation of the criminal law.

5. Adults' fundamental right to control their own bodies should also include the twin (1) rights to refuse lifesaving medical treatment when the decision is made that it is too painful to continue, or the residual quality of life remaining does not warrant continuing; and (2) to request life-terminating treatment when confronted with end-stage terminal illness.

These rights are related and are linked to a profound respect for people's dignity, personhood, and autonomy. None of them should be subject to popular vote. None of them is equivalent to the noxious practices of mutilating a child's clitoris or labia, denying children life-saving medical treatment in the name of the parents' religion, or denying an adult life-saving treatment in the name of anyone's religion other than that same adult's religious beliefs as contemporaneously expressed by her.

[JewelSong]

While this case appears atrocious on the face of it, I am with Lali in that I feel we are not getting the whole story.

Unless there was severe malpractice, I cannot imagine any hospital allowing a woman to remain in such a state, knowing the risk of septicemia. And, as Alatar says, even with Ireland's strict abortion laws, a pregnancy termination IS allowed if the woman's life is in danger, which it seems it clearly was.

This was a very much wanted child, according to the first article. Is it possible, I wonder, that the woman actually was trying to keep the pregnancy, even though it seemed a miscarriage was imminent? Did she wait too long to request that the dying fetus be removed, thinking that maybe the bleeding would stop and she would be able to carry to term? Is it possible that she insisted on trying to keep the pregnancy?

I don't know. It is difficult for me to believe that any hospital - even a Catholic hospital - would blithely say that "abortion was against the policy" while a woman was in grave danger of infection and death...and the fetus was obviously not going to survive.

It is a terrible thing to lose a pregnancy that you dearly want to keep.

[Frelga]

Jewel, now you are just making stuff up. The original article makes the statement that the family repeatedly asked for termination, and were told that it is against policy/law. What is your basis for speculating that the exact opposite happened?

[JewelSong]

Jewel, now you are just making stuff up. The original article makes the statement that the family repeatedly asked for termination, and were told that it is against policy/law. What is your basis for speculating that the exact opposite happened?

I don't have a "basis." And I am not just "making stuff up." I am trying to understand how and why this could have happened, when the second article states quite clearly

if there was a need to end her pregnancy in order to save her life, then the hospital was free to do that. Nothing in law was preventing the hospital from doing so.

Was everyone in the hospital ignorant of the law? Was every person who attended this women totally incompetent as a medical professional?

The original article quotes only the husband. It says people at the hospital were interviewed but doesn't give any statements from anyone but the husband.

I am sure there will be an investigation and maybe every single medical professional at the hospital WAS incompetent/ignorant of the law/so against abortion that they would not even do it to save the life of the mother. But I think there is more to the story...as horrific as the whole thing is.

[nerdanel]

I agree with Frelga. So we are given a basis to believe that she repeatedly asked for termination and was denied: the eyewitness statements of her husband. We are not given a basis to conclude that she really wanted to keep what she had been told was a non-viable fetus and indeed was willing to risk her own life to retain a non-viable fetus against medical advice. While it's fine to point out that we don't know the whole story, as Lali did, it is pretty problematic to posit without evidence that the only eyewitness who has publicly spoken so far is lying and that the reality is completely the opposite of what he (or anyone else) has described.

As for the state of Irish law: the Irish Constitution states that abortion is illegal, period. The exception for the mother's life is a creature of Irish caselaw. It's possible to understand how a medical professional without legal training could have been confused due to the ambiguity of the (I feel the need to underscore, immoral) law.

[axordil]

Also from the Irish Independent--

Doctors and protesters join growing
clamour for a change in the abortion law
David McKittrick
Thursday, 15 November 2012
Irish abortion laws have become “like a sword of Damocles” hanging over doctors because
there are grey areas where they were left at risk of committing a criminal offence, according
to the leading consultant obstetrician Dr Peter Boylan.
"Politicians need to act," he said yesterday. "We need to start acting like an adult state and
get on with it."
Judging from the streets, the airwaves and the internet, almost the entire country seemed to
be seething about the treatment of Savita Halappanavar, the Indian dentist who died after
she was refused a termination of her pregnancy.
On Eyre Square in Galway, the anger was palpable. Several women actually shook with anger
as they spoke of the fate of Mrs Halappanavar. A typical response came from retired African
aid worker Paud Murphy, who said: "It's awful, it's a disaster. I just feel very upset about it,
as an awful lot of people do. We have to legislate so that it never happens again."
A vigil is to be held in the square tomorrow night. Some blame the medical profession but
most anger was focused on the politicians who, it was widely said, had for two decades run
away from clarifying abortion law.
Outside the Dail in Dublin on Wednesday night one of the protesters held a placard bearing
the words: "Savita had a heartbeat too."
There remains a substantial minority resistant to change, including Rebecca Roughneen, a
27-year-old graphic designer and an organiser of the anti-abortion group Mayo Youth
Defence. When she heard of the death, she said, "I thought it was horrific – really, really
tragic. My heart went out to that family." But she added: "Nobody's really sure why she died,
and I'd be afraid of the pro-abortion people using this to further their own agenda."
Earlier this month, an anti-abortion rally called by her group attracted several thousand
people to Castlebar, home town of the Prime Minister, Enda Kenny. While much of the power
of the Irish Catholic Church has ebbed, Ms Roughneen's group boasts it has been called "the
cutting edge of the pro-life movement." It maintains: "We know that abortion is always
wrong."
Attempts to change the law are sure to meet resistance. But opposition to abortion has
faded and the Halappanavar case has roused public anger. Government minister Brian Hayes,
admitted the issue has "festered away for many years". There was a resolve in the cabinet,
he said, that "action in some shape or form will follow".

[Voronwë the Faithful]

As for the state of Irish law: the Irish Constitution states that abortion is illegal, period. The exception for the mother's life is a creature of Irish caselaw.

And, at least at least so far as I understand (nel and Al probably both know more about this than I do) that that exception has never been defined sufficiently to give it any real value in giving guidance to medical professionals in determining when they are "allowed" to engage in practices that "may" save a woman's life.

[Frelga]

As for "how could it have happened" - I remember quite vividly when our own Brian's sister was at a Catholic hospital, which refused to administer contraceptive pills even though there was no possibility of her conceiving and the pills were meant to prevent the onset of menstrual bleeding, which was highly likely to kill her.

Dogma over a woman's life.

[Impenitent]

Negligent homicide.

It can be dressed up any which way, but she was miscarrying for more than 48 hours, she was in pain, she asked for termination more than once, and it was refused.

[JewelSong]

As for "how could it have happened" - I remember quite vividly when our own Brian's sister was at a Catholic hospital, which refused to administer contraceptive pills even though there was no possibility of her conceiving and the pills were meant to prevent the onset of menstrual bleeding, which was highly likely to kill her.

Dogma over a woman's life.

*sigh* I guess I was just grasping at straws...it is so difficult for me to wrap my head around something like this, when it seems so blindingly obvious what needs to be done from a medical standpoint.

I'm back to my "horrific" reaction.

[Alatar]

Personally I think this is a case of malpractice. Doctors in Ireland regularly terminate pregnancies in cases like this. That it didn't happen here seems to me to be down to ineptitude rather than religious dogma.

Nel, I want to respond to you on the "thin grey line", but I don't think this is the thread for the discussion its likely to provoke.

[Lalaith]

Personally I think this is a case of malpractice. Doctors in Ireland regularly terminate pregnancies in cases like this. That it didn't happen here seems to me to be down to ineptitude rather than religious dogma.

This is still what I'm leaning toward based on the knowledge we have about the case right now.

[JewelSong]

Personally I think this is a case of malpractice. Doctors in Ireland regularly terminate pregnancies in cases like this. That it didn't happen here seems to me to be down to ineptitude rather than religious dogma.

But then where did the quotes and information about the refusal to terminate being due to Catholicism come from? That (according to the husband) was the reason cited for not terminating the pregnancy...and by more than one person at the hospital.

Surely there was more than one medical professional attending this woman. Are they all so ignorant of general practice, or die-hard right-to-lifers that they just refused to terminate the pregnancy?

[axordil]

Yes, it was malpractice--but the extreme vagueness of the legal situation is the context for that malpractice. Make the legal situation as clear as it should be (the best way, of course, would be ditching the no-abortions-rule entirely, but it's actually not necessary) and this situation has a much higher chance of ending with a live patient, one who might even be able to have the children she wanted later.

And the thing that gets me: they were told they were going to lose the child anyway. Let me repeat that: THEY WERE GOING TO LOSE THE CHILD ANYWAY. The fetus was toast, and could only drag its mother down with it, which is exactly what they let happen.

I need to stop commenting.

[Maria]

Several women actually shook with anger as they spoke of the fate of Mrs Halappanavar.

Why didn't the article refer to her as Dr. Halappanavar? Is that not the custom in Ireland?

[Alatar]

Normally yes. No idea why not in this case.

[Lalaith]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timst ... ic-church/

On abortion, on homosexuality and on abuse, the mainstream media has it in for the Catholic Church

By Tim Stanley US politics Last updated: December 7th, 2012

People wonder why conservatives moan endlessly about what they label “the mainstream media”. One reason is that it often displays a subconscious prejudice against religion. Catholics, for example, are sometimes presented as misogynistic cultists with the blood of millions on their hands. To anyone who occasionally attends Mass, this can come off as rather insulting. Sorry, but we’re sensitive that way.

Take the tragic case of Savita Halappanavar, who died earlier this year in a hospital in Galway, Ireland. Here’s how The Guardian reported the story:

Ireland's near-total ban on abortion has come under renewed scrutiny amid an outcry over the death of a woman who was denied a termination. Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist, died of blood poisoning at Galway University hospital. She had turned up at the hospital a week earlier, but was denied a medical termination and, according to her husband, was told: ‘This is a Catholic country.’”

It was thus assumed that a) Savita did indeed request an abortion, b) an abortion would have saved her life and c) the hospital made a definitively Catholic decision to deny her the lifesaving procedure. Pro-choice protests erupted and Ireland’s politicians started talking about the need for reform. Savita became a martyr to Catholic cruelty. “I am ashamed that Ireland's medieval abortion law still stands,” wrote one Guardian commentator. And who wouldn’t be, if all they read was The Guardian?

But the story was a lot more complicated than it first appeared. The journalist who broke it later admitted that the facts were “rather muddled.” She now thinks that a termination might not have been requested and that Savita was only healthy “as far as we know” before going into hospital, implying that her condition might already have been fatal and that an abortion wouldn’t have saved her. It took an unsolicited letter from a consultant microbiologist to raise the possibility that Savita’s death was due to a “resistant bacteria strain” rather than “obstetric mishandling.” Also, few media outlets seemed aware that both Irish law and Catholic moral teaching would have permitted an abortion if it genuinely would have been “lifesaving.” And next to nobody noticed that Catholic Ireland – a land of “medieval” laws – actually has one of the lowest rates of death from childbirth in the world.

Perhaps what was most disturbing about the Savita story is how it was leaked to pro-choice activists before it was broken by the Irish Times. At least three days before the story went public, Irish Choice Network was notified by email that “a major news story in relation to abortion access is going to break in the media early this coming week,” and that it would be followed by a pre-arranged protest. We can infer that someone at either the Irish Times or the Health Services Executive conspired to use a private tragedy to push a political agenda. It's all very Alinsky.

Run a news search on Savita’s death and you’ll find very little in the mainstream press that addresses these problems or, more importantly, corrects earlier false reports. It’s as if the story never happened. Perhaps it would have been better if it hadn’t. Rather than waiting for a proper investigation of what went wrong, some chose to broadcast the opinions of understandably distressed family members as if they were indisputable facts. And the commentary accompanying the journalism drew a straight, short line between an individual’s death and the Catholic Church. The takeaway: Catholicism kills.

Of course, this is not to deny that Catholics have committed crimes or that the Church, as an institution, has failed the innocent. It is self-evident that its many sins should be investigated and exposed. But the journalism applied to the Church is often uneven. We might forgive a little misunderstanding about theology. But on the stuff that really matters, I’m beginning to detect the sulphurous whiff of a witch hunt.

Consider the New York Times’ hasty reporting of an allegation that the Dutch Catholic Church had castrated a gay man in the 1950s because he complained about being sexually abused by two priests. Never mind that the two priests were charged and prosecuted, that the use of castration was secular and horribly widespread in psychiatric hospitals, or that the allegation had been dismissed by an earlier inquiry for lack of evidence. The New York Times chose to ignore all of this in preference for an angle that, by coincidence, offers a damning indictment of Catholic homophobia. Similar artistic licence is found in the “journalism” of Johann Hari – a man with multiple personalities (all of them, alas, horrible). As part of a campaign against the Catholic Church, Hari used a TV appearance to read from a 2001 letter in which the future Pope apparently told bishops that “cases of child abuse should be dealt with in the most secretive way, restrained by perpetual silence, and everybody is to observe the strictest secret.” But, the missive itself was not a secret (it was published a few days after being read) and the word “secret” didn’t occur in the untranslated version at all. The letter was actually written in order to inform bishops that Benedict was now handling child abuses cases personally and nowhere did he tell them not to approach the police. Hari’s representation of the Pope’s past was wildly inaccurate. To Hari, "the truth" is something that he writes on other people’s Wikipedia entries.

In all of these stories, members of the mainstream media have taken incredibly complicated, personal and tragic stories and turned them into straightforward exhibits of Catholic evil. If the truth was being inexpertly pursued for the sake of the truth, this situation would be regrettable but worth suffering. But the pattern is rather more ugly. Stories are reported as evidence of Catholic hatred for women, Aids sufferers or the LGBTQ community. And when the details of those stories are later challenged, the contradictions seem to get much less attention than the original accusation. In the desperately sad case of Savita, the silence is unnerving.

Obviously, the article is an opinion piece and is about a bigger issue than the case of Savita, but I thought it was interesting what the article brought out about the case. It would be nice to verify those facts from another source.