Ireland contra mundum – or more accurately, mundus contra Hiberniam – seems to be the burden of shrill, not to say lurid headlines circling the globe since Wednesday of last week, when the story broke about the tragic death of a pregnant Indian woman in a Galway hospital on October 28.
But the facts surrounding this sad case and the international media’s reading of them are disturbingly out of synch. The Irish Times set the agenda for interpretation when it broke the story under the headline, “Woman ‘denied a termination’ dies in hospital”. The story being run around the world is not the sad story about an unfortunate woman’s death resulting from septicaemia caused by a miscarriage. It is a story about Ireland’s resistance to legislation allowing abortion and – in the commentariat’s view –why that resistance must now be abandoned.
What is disturbing about all this is the flight from reason and truth in the service of a propaganda campaign by Ireland’s – and the whole world’s — pro-abortion activists. Many of the facts surrounding the case are not at all clear, but one thing is certain: this tragic case is not the result of Ireland’s law protecting the unborn child. At issue is medical practice in a particular Irish hospital and whether or not the medical team involved in this case did everything they could do to save this woman’s life, as they were obliged to do by Irish law and the ethics of their profession.
What we do know is that on October 21 Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist, visited Galway University Hospital suffering from back pain. She was 17 weeks pregnant. She was diagnosed and was told that she was having a miscarriage. She requested a termination – but, as they had diagnosed, the termination had already begun naturally.
Irish law – and the Irish Constitution – prohibits the procedure of abortion of unborn babies in the womb but it does not prohibit evacuation of the womb where the process of a miscarriage has already begun – or where a baby in the womb has already died. Such procedures are regularly carried out in Irish hospitals. Miscarriage can, however, be wrongly diagnosed and surgical evacuation offered when the baby is still alive and healthy, as Breda O’Brien noted in an Irish Times op-ed last Saturday. One such case prompted an official inquiry two years ago in which 24 similar cases were examined.
In Savita’s case surgical intervention is evidently what should have happened. It did not. Her pain continued for three days and she eventually died of septicaemia. Two investigations are now in progress as to why she died – one by the hospital itself and one by the Irish health authority.
What has been widely reported is that doctors denied her request “for an abortion” because they said that they detected a foetal heartbeat and that Irish law ruled out a termination. Further reports say someone told Savita that this was because “Ireland is a Catholic country”. That such reasons would have been given for delaying the inducement is considered extraordinary by medical and non-medical Irish people alike. But they are equally dismayed by what they see as the callous manipulation of this situation by the abortion advocates before even the most basic investigation of the facts is carried out.
The manipulation of the situation is seen by many to be blatant and premeditated. The Irish Times, which has been campaigning for changes to Irish law on abortion for many years, had this story for some days before publishing it. Within hours of the story breaking a large demonstration by pro-choice activists had assembled outside the Irish parliament building. An email has now been leaked – the source as yet unknown – showing that news of the story was given in advance to these activists. The e-mail, dated Sunday, November 11, indicates that the Irish Choice Network knew the story was going to break. The Irish Times did not break the story publicly until November 14th.
The email told ICN members that “a major news story in relation to abortion access is going to break in the media early this coming week,” and it would be the pretext for a protest calling for abortion legislation outside the Dail (Ireland’s parliament) on Wednesday. Members were asked to attend a meeting where 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 email will probably be clear tomorrow,” the sender added.
Niamh Ui Bhriain of Ireland’s Life Institute is now asking the media and the HSE (Health Services Executive) why this information seems to have been given in advance to abortion advocates. “Was it given to them by the Irish Times, or by someone in the HSE? And if so, why?” she asked. “As we await the investigation into 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.
For Ms Ui Bhriain it is “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 the treatment she requires in order to preserve her life,” she said, adding that “abortion doesn’t cure septicaemia and isn’t a treatment for miscarriage.”
Speaking to LifeSiteNews.com she said 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. Continue reading
Image: Mercator