A young woman who was 17 weeks pregnant has died of blood poisoning after the hospital refused to give her an abortion that could have saved her life EVEN after she was told that the fetus wasn't going to survive anyway. Savtia Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist living in Ireland, died in severe agony, begging for the medical procedure, and no one would give it to her because it's a "Catholic country."
Halappanavar is Hindu.
This story makes me sick. It should make all women sick. Because regardless of where you stand on abortion, THIS is a travesty. Hospital officials claim there was still a heartbeat even though the 17-week-old fetus could not (and did not) survive outside the mother and would likely die anyway. But Ireland is a "Catholic" country. Never mind the beliefs of the mother. This could have been the fate of our country with a president who wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
It's chilling to imagine being denied a lifesaving medical procedure just because your government decides THEIR religion trumps yours. My heart breaks for this young life snuffed out by people too blinded by their religion to see the irony in their beliefs.
Though she was eventually given an abortion once the heartbeat truly stopped, it was too late. She died of septicaemia and E. coli ESBL.
If life is so precious, how could you let a woman die? They don't care about the sanctity of LIFE at all. They want to control women. Otherwise, this woman would have been allowed to terminate a pregnancy that was ending anyway in order to save her own life.
I get that people are all over the map on abortion, but the fact is, it's personal decision. It's a medical procedure that is only between a woman and her doctor. There is no good reason that these kinds of laws should be applied unilaterally.
Thank goodness we live in a country that honors religious freedom and the power of women's choice. Don't believe in abortion, don't have one. But if a woman desperately needs one to save her life, it's imperative that she live in a country where the law is clear -- termination is legal.
Isn't a hospital's job to save lives? How can they possibly justify refusing to save this woman's OR her fetus' life? It's against everything they are sworn to do. First, do no harm, right?
It's unclear if this woman had children at all. But I imagine as a mom considering her third pregnancy that this could happen to me. My children could be left motherless because some hospital bureaucrat decided my dying fetus was more important than me. I wonder how my children would feel about that decision. I wonder how Halappanavar's husband felt.
Actually I know how he felt. This is infuriating. It's a tragic, pointless death that makes me even more grateful that the election turned out the way it did last week. May nothing like this EVER be allowed to happen in the US.
Do you believe in abortion for the life of the mother?
Image via markhillary/Flickr
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Comments 131
I am failing to see the connection between the pregnancy and the death. And the article didn't say she asked for an abortion she asked to be induced. The way these articles were crafted make it sound like a bigger story than it appears to be. That is what sickens me that this poor woman's death is being used to make a political statement. That is very sad.
If you want to bring politics into it, fine. Obama's ACA mandate religious exemption wants to allow businesses with religious exemptions the freedom to limit healthcare provided to their employees. It also allows Catholic hospitals to refuse to perform abortions. This could easily happen here, not because its "a catholic country", but because, even in instances like this, people can hold their religious beliefs in higher regard than the people around them.
Seriously though- democrats? Stop acting like you narrowly missed the apocalypse. Your president was reelected, as incumbents usually are. Waving that in the face of those who had a less favorable outcome is childish. Republicans? Insulting and belittling the democrats (and anyone who doesn't agree with you) is also childish and petty. Like it or not, Obama will be our president for the next four years. Try supporting him. Maybe some good will come out of it. Next time around, try NOT actively excluding women, Latinos, and 47% of the population. I suspect that would have made the difference. Both sides just need to grow up and face reality without the rhetoric.
In Europe abortion is not illegal! I come from Italy, the most catholic country in the world, you know the Vatican there.... And you can have abortions, o don't blame it on the catholic thing, but on the doctor being an ass
More religious ignorance, the life of the unborn is valued more than the life of the mother.