15/11/2012 - 13:08:21
The parents of an Indian woman who suffered a miscarriage and died after being refused an abortion in an Irish hospital hit out at Ireland’s abortion laws today.

Savita Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she miscarried and died last month.

The Irish government confirmed that Mrs Halappanavar suffered from blood poisoning and died after being denied an abortion, reigniting the debate over legalising abortion in the predominantly Catholic country.

“In an attempt to save a four-month-old foetus they killed my 30-year-old daughter. How is that fair you tell me?” Mrs A Mahadevi, Mrs Halappanavar’s mother, told Indian TV. Her daughter was actually 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, Mr 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”.

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

It was only after the foetus died that its remains were surgically removed. Within hours, Savita was placed under sedation in intensive care with blood poisoning, her husband said. By October 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 Mrs Halappanavar’s death.

Ireland’s constitution officially bans abortion, but a 1992 Supreme Court ruling said the procedure should be legalised 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 circuмstances.

Good for them for issuing a great response.

Former IFPA Education Officer looks back on reproductive rights activism in the 70s

“Are you CRAZY?” the Americans invariably ask on discovering that I’ve swapped my nation’s capital for theirs. Americans really like Ireland, probably much more than we credit. And I like America, more that I might have expected when I moved here eleven years ago.

Over these years of relocation (never exile!), I’ve come to see our two peoples as having a symbiotic relationship beyond coffin ships and care packages. At its simplest, Americans find the past in Ireland and the Irish find the future in America; thus, each of us completes the other.

If that’s not quite what I was expecting, why did I come? Adventure? Truly, I was exhausted by history: a young woman when I took to the streets for legalised contraception, and still young when I spoke out as the second Irish woman to acknowledge having had an abortion. My heroine, the late Mary Holland, blazed that trail and not without pubic opprobrium.

Less young surely when I committed to providing non-directive pregnancy counselling and defending those principles and procedures “through every court in the land,” and beyond . . . And positively middle-aged when I announced, to no one in particular, that “I’m going to quit being the face of abortion in Ireland as soon as I hit 40!” Yikes!

These were busy years, bracketed by staff positions at the IFPA (I&E officer in the late 70s and education officer in the mid-90s).

For those of us from an activist background, the liberal foundation of the IFPA once seemed suspiciously non-confrontational. Through association, I came to understand that abortion law reform requires patience and agenda-sharing by at least three constituencies – liberal reformers such as the IFPA, a largely conservative medical profession and radical agitators like the Women’s Right to Choose Group, originally a more natural home for me. That’s a tough one when you’re in a hurry to change the world!

Knowing a steadying hand was, in fact, particularly helpful when it came to determining how Open Door Counselling, the avowedly feminist enterprise founded in 1983, might be managed. Specifically, the IFPA taught me how to meet clients where they’re coming from - a primary service principle facilitating their empowerment if also necessitating an attitude adjustment as we recognise that clients may not share our ideological perspective, even to the point of actively repudiating it.

I returned to the organisation’s direct orbit when, thanks to the Union of Students in Ireland, the EU right to travel was confirmed and then CEO Tony O’Brien (another hero) took action to establish the nationwide network of IFPA pregnancy counselling centres. After consulting on this initiative, Tony invited me to (re)join the staff. I’m enormously grateful for this opportunity to discover my talent for experiential learning and to be so skillfully and compassionately trained there, chiefly by Liz Harper and Trish Murphy. I bring this passion, honed by developing original materials and implementing education programmes for the IFPA, to my current practice as an empowerment educator.

I’ve also learned over the years that – gadzooks! – aeroplanes fly in both directions. Come visit me soon!

Ruth Riddick successfully sued the Irish government in the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of Open Door Counselling (freedom of information, 1992). She continues to lecture and publish on reproductive rights and is a regular contributor to the Catholics for Choice journal, Conscience. A certified educator, she participates in the professionals’ programme at the New York School of Psychodrama at Caron, where she has been honoured for her work.

McCann was the partner of Mary Holland, the late journalist for The Observer, and The Irish Times. He has a daughter from that relationship, Kitty, who is now a journalist for The Irish Times, and a son, Luke, who is also a journalist working for ¡Hola! magazine in Spain.[15] Fellow SWP member and academic Goretti Horgan has been his partner since the mid 1980s and they have an adult daughter, Matty.

A Trotskyist and outspoken atheist, he is a prominent member of the Socialist Workers Party in Ireland, and in recent Northern Ireland elections has stood as a candidate for the Socialist Environmental Alliance.[6] Previously he stood unsuccessfully as a Labour Party candidate in the 1970s. He is also Chair of his local branch of the National Union of Journalists, and Vice-Chair of Derry Trades Council.
As a political activist, he has lent his support and considerable oratorical skills to many causes, including campaigns in support of abortion rights, immigrants and gαy marriage. Much of his journalistic work reflects what he himself describes[7] as a "shuddering fascination" with religion which, when coupled with his profound scepticism, has made it a topic to which he has often returned.[8]

Goretti Horgan (born 5 July in the 1950s) is an Irish socialist activist and a lecturer in social policy at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.[1]
Born in Ireland, Horgan was named for Maria Goretti. She attended university before moving to England. She later returned to Dublin, where she became involved in pro-choice campaigning.
Before becoming a lecturer, she worked as a Research Fellow at the University and as a researcher for Save the Children and the National Children’s Bureau. Before training as a researcher, she worked as a community worker in Derry city and County Londonderry. Before moving to Northern Ireland in 1986, she worked in television production in RTE in Dublin. She was Chair of the Northern Ireland Anti Poverty Network (NIAPN) from 2005-2008 and remains a member of the Board of Directors of NIAPN.[2]
Horgan is also a socialist and women’s rights activist, particularly known for her pro-choice campaigning. She was a member of the first Women’s Right to Choose Group in Ireland in the early 1980s and a founder of the Anti Amendment Campaign – the campaign to oppose the Eighth (anti-abortion) amendment to the Irish Constitution. She was later National Organiser of the Anti Amendment Campaign. In Northern Ireland, she was a founder member of the Derry Women’s Right to Choose Group and of Alliance for Choice. She is also a campaigner for children’s rights and for the rights of disabled people.[3]
A member of the Socialist Workers Party since the early 1980s, her partner is Eamonn McCann the writer, journalist and fellow socialist. They live in the Bogside in Derry with their daughter, Matty, who is in her 20s. She was the official leader of the Socialist Environmental Alliance until its dissolution in 2008.[4]

media bias

BY HILARY WHITE
Thu Nov 15, 2012

DUBLIN, November 15, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The death of a young woman in Galway, reportedly from complications of a miscarriage, has abortion-promoters demonstrating in the streets of Dublin, demanding legislation to legalise abortion. Pro-life leaders in Ireland and abroad, however, have slammed the media and abortion campaigners for using the young woman’s tragic death despite the dearth of details about what actually happened. They have also pointed to clear evidence that pro-abortion groups knew about Savita’s case days before it hit the media, and that they were already planning on using the case to further their cause.

Ireland’s leading pro-life group Youth Defence has issued a statement saying that the family of Savita Halappanaver has their deepest sympathies, but that her circuмstances do not support the hysterical calls for legalisation of abortion. “This is a tragic loss, and we need to remember that Irish doctors are always obliged to intervene to save the life of a mother - even if that risks the life of her baby.”

Halappanavar, a 31 year-old Indian woman died October 28th of septicaemia, a severe systemic inflammatory infection, after she was admitted to hospital while miscarrying.

Her husband Praveen has told Irish media that his wife died because doctors refused an abortion, and that story has been spread worldwide.

Halappanavar said that doctors determined that his wife was miscarrying within hours of her hospitalization and said that they refused to consider an abortion, saying that Ireland is a “Catholic country.”

The case has created an international media feeding frenzy, with headlines around the world implying that Catholic teaching is responsible for the woman’s death. Front page coverage has appeared in the Guardian, Daily Mail and the Mirror, as well the U.S. and UK editions of The Huffington Post, the CBC and elsewhere.

Niamh Uí Bhriain of the Life Institute called it “outrageous” to suggest that Catholic teaching would prevent proper treatment for a pregnant woman. “Neither the ethos of the Catholic Church nor the pro-life laws of Ireland would prevent any woman from receiving all treatment she requires in order to preserve her life,” she said.

Uí Bhriain added, “Abortion doesn’t cure septicaemia and isn’t a treatment for miscarriage.”

Meanwhile, a leaked e-mail, dated Sunday, November 11, indicates that the Irish Choice Network had been given prior knowledge of the case, days before it hit the media, though by whom is as yet uncertain. The Irish Times did not break the story publicly until November 14th, running the headline, “Woman ‘denied a termination’ dies in hospital”.

The e-mail advised ICN followers that “a major news story in relation to abortion access is going to break in the media early this coming week,” and said the news would be the basis of a prearranged protest calling for abortion outside the Dáil on Wednesday. The e-mail asked members to attend a meeting of the Irish Choice Network when they would have “more definite information around which we can make some collective decisions about how best to proceed.”

“Apologies if this is all a little mysterious, but the reason why I didn’t want to put specific details down by e-mail will probably be clear tomorrow,” it continued.

The e-mail, Uí Bhriain said, showed clearly that abortion advocates have deliberately exploited the case to start a campaign to have abortion legalised in Ireland. She said that serious questions now needed to be asked. “The media and the HSE [Health Services Executive] now needs to ask why this information seems to have been given in advance to abortion advocates,” she added.

“Was it given to them by the Irish Times, or by someone in the HSE? And if so, why?” she asked. She noted that the Irish Times story was written by Kitty Holland, daughter of leading abortion advocate Eamonn McCann.

“As we await the investigation in to what happened in Galway hospital, we need to know why this private patient information was given to campaigners for legalised abortion in Ireland,” she said.

Uí Bhriain told LifeSiteNews.com that Ireland’s laws already prioritise the life of the mother. Under the current law, doctors who fail to intervene to save a woman’s life are subject to disciplinary action for negligence. “Far from being the pro-life laws putting undue pressure to save the life of the unborn child, they put additional measures to protect the life of the mother,” she said.

At the moment medical details are scant, with the hospital and the government refusing to release details until after an investigation is completed, leaving pro-life groups scrambling to respond to claims that are impossible to verify either way.

“Our hearts are with [Mr. Halappanavar], but an abortion would not have saved her life. The medical council guidelines are incredibly clear, that the doctors must intervene to save a woman’s life, if they don’t they’re guilty of misconduct,” Uí Bhriain added.

Paul Tully, general secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said, “What we do know is that miscarriage and infection can be managed by proper medical treatment. Abortion is not medicine - it does not treat or cure any pathology.”

“What is rarely reported are the many cases of women who have died from infection or other causes because of supposedly safe and legal abortions.”

He named Manon Jones, Jessie-Maye Barlow and Emma Beck who all died of complications of abortion in Britain. He pointed to findings of the World Health Organisation that the Republic of Ireland, with some of the strictest pro-life laws in the world, also has the world’s best record in maternal health. By contrast, Great Britain and the United States, with their high abortion rates, have relatively poor maternal health records.


Savita Halappanaver
Earlier this year an international group of 140 obstetricians and other physicians meeting in Dublin issued a statement denying that abortion is ever “medically necessary” for women.

Ireland’s Minister for Health, James Reilly, who is not pro-life, has called for calm, saying he does not believe the claims that the doctors told Mr. Halappanavar that abortion was not available because Ireland is a Catholic country. He added that no decisions can be made until a medical investigation is completed.

The country’s General Medical Council guidelines already allow for abortion in “rare” cases when a pregnancy would threaten the mother’s life. The guidance states, “In current obstetrical practice, rare complications can arise where therapeutic intervention (including termination of a pregnancy) is required at a stage when, due to extreme immaturity of the baby, there may be little or no hope of the baby surviving. In these exceptional circuмstances, it may be necessary to intervene to terminate the pregnancy to protect the life of the mother, while making every effort to preserve the life of the baby.”

Labour leader and coalition Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore has not hesitated to use the uproar to again press for legalisation of abortion. Gilmore said this government will not become the seventh to “neglect and ignore” the issue. Labour is the only party in Ireland that has full legalisation of abortion as part of its platform.

The issue has come to a high boil after the European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling in the A,B and C case saying that Ireland must “clarify” under what circuмstances abortion could be legal under the current law. While the Court did not say that Ireland must legalise abortion, this has not stopped Gilmore and other abortion activists from insisting that abortion be declared legal. The report on abortion’s legal situation by the government’s expert group, which has been expected imminently for months, was reportedly delivered to the Health Minister on Tuesday and is expected to be published immediately.