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Irish Times via Reuters
Savita Halappanavar died of septicaemia a week after miscarrying 17 weeks into her pregnancy.
Laws allowing limited access to abortion will be introduced in Ireland, the only European Union member state that bans the procedure, following the death of a woman who was refused a termination, the government said on Tuesday.
The death last month of 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar, who was denied the abortion of her dying fetus and later died of blood poisoning, shocked the predominantly Roman Catholic country and spurred the government to act on an issue it had delayed for decades.
Abortion was banned in all circumstances by a constitutional amendment in 1983, but when challenged by a 14-year-old rape victim in the so-called "X-case" nine years later, the Supreme Court ruled a termination was permitted when the woman's life was at risk, including from suicide.
Successive governments sidestepped the politically divisive issue of clarifying the circumstances under which the mother's life could be judged to be at risk. Some members of the ruling Fine Gael party have indicated that they may not be able to back the new legislation.
Tragic Savita case reignites abortion debate in Ireland
"The drafting of legislation, supported by regulations, will be within the parameters of Article 40.3.3 of the constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court in the X case," the government said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The legislation should provide the clarity and certainty in relation to the process of deciding when a termination of pregnancy is permissible, that is where there is a real and substantial risk to the life, as opposed to the health, of the woman."
The death of Halapannavar, an Indian living in Ireland, highlighted the lack of clarity in Irish law that leaves doctors in a legally risky position and re-ignited the abortion debate, leading to large protests by both pro-choice and pro-life groups outside parliament and around the country.
Hundreds of women in Ireland are protesting, calling for legislative change after the death of Savita Halappanavar, who died after her requests for an abortion were rejected by her Irish doctors. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.
The European Court of Human Rights said in 2010 that Ireland must clarify its law, a ruling that led to the commissioning of an experts' report that said a woman was still only lawfully entitled to an abortion when there was a real and substantial risk to her life.
Members of Prime Minister Enda Kenny's conservative Fine Gael party, including minister for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton, have expressed particular misgivings that the inclusion of suicide in any new legislation could lead to abortion on demand.
There was no specific reference to the risk of suicide as grounds for an abortion in the government's statement, which said further decisions would be made at a later stage relating to "policy matters that will inform the drafting of the legislation."
Kenny has said that he expects the government to vote as one on the issue, meaning that any defectors could be expelled from his party.
While this would be unlikely to threaten the government's large majority, it would be a blow after the junior coalition Labour Party, which has campaigned for a clarification of the country's abortion rules, expelled its fifth member in less than two years last week for voting against budget cuts.
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Too little, too late. All the doctors who sat by and told her for THREE DAYS that the baby and her were both dying, but did nothing about it, have placed law above ethics and betrayed their Hippocratic Oath. If you are "Pro-Life" I don't understand how letting two individuals die is a better option than one. In this case Ireland's "Pro-Life" laws caused an unnecessary death, lawmakers should be held accountable and forced to write a piece of legislation that clearly addresses these situations. The physicians who betrayed the Hippocratic Oath should be stripped of their license to practice medicine and forced to re-enter medical school and think twice about what that oath really means.
Just to correct the article, Ireland is not the only EU country that bans this procedure, here in Malta it is banned too.
Incredible that even this site gets the story wrong. Doubts about what really happened in the Savita case have been in the mainstream news since Dec. 4th at least, yet it is still being claimed that the poor lady requested an abortion. Get your facts right, NBC!
See:
According to what I read, she did request an abortion.
Savita was admitted to the hospital October 21 with severe abdominal pain at 17 weeks pregnant (about the start of her second trimester.) The doctors who admitted her discovered she was infected with a virulent strain of e.Coli, which triggered the miscarriage already in progress.
The antibiotics used to treat that strain of E.Coli cannot safely be given to a pregnant woman. Savita then asked for them to hurry the process along--perform an abortion on an already-dying baby--so she could get the antibiotics she needed.
Normally when a woman miscarries, it's over in a few hours, and I believe the doctors in this case thought this was the likeliest scenario, so they refused to perform an abortion out of personal belief, religious doctrine, and Irish law. After all, the mother's body was already in the process of a 'natural abortion', just let her body complete the process, and there would be plenty of time to get her the anitbiotics afterward.
Except it didn't happen that way. Savita's miscarriage took almost three days. By the time the fetal heartbeat finally stopped and the doctors removed the dead baby from her body on or about October 24, this virulent strain of E.Coli had spread to her internal organs, shutting them down one by one, resulting in complete internal organ failure by October 27 and she was pronounced dead on October 28.
I firmly believe that they should have performed the abortion at the beginning of the second day (at least.) Their refusal to do so led to unnecessary pain and suffering for the mother, and eventually hr unnecessary death since with this new form of E.Coli, the earlier the antibiotics can be/are administered the greater the chances for survival. If the abortion had been performed on the already dying baby the first day at the hospital, she would have been able to get the antibiotics necessary and had an 85-95% chance of surviving.
The baby was only seventeen weeks and already massively infected with E.Coli from the mother. There was absolutely NO chance of it surviving. Therefore, to have refused the abortion on the basis of saving the baby's life was erroneous, and ultimately cost the mother her life too. And the doctors should face malpractice suits for that and possibly have licenses revoked.
calm down no story is ever 100% but the important parts of this story are correct, this woman was dying because her fetus was dying and poisoning her system and she was refused proper medical care which is a doctors job to provide, there is an oath to do no harm. Clearly there needs to be changes in their system, and I am glad that I live in a country where someone elses religious beliefs don't get to impact me where the law in concerned. The best thing our founding fathers did was draw a clear line between church and state.
ok the story states she died a week after miscarrying if she miscarried it's not an abortion it would be a DNC and the Dr's not doing a DNC just neglect! So it has nothing to do with them refusing to abort the baby
Pay attention tlb1974. The miscarriage took 3 days to complete, that is the time period when the doctors refused to abort the DYING fetus. If they had aborted it immediately (since everybody knew it was dying) she could have received the treatment for the infection sooner (couldn't treat her while pregnant). By the time the fetal heartbeat finally stopped it was too late to save the mother.
@ Amanda 2017567. Antibiotics were administered within 24 hours of her arrival at the hospital, the husbands solicitor now acknowledges this fact, so this goes against what you have read. E coli ESBL is also antibiotic resistant.
ccc:
Thank you for that fact--I hadn't heard that. If you wouldn't mind, could you point me in the direction of where you read that? I've been looking and I can't find it, nor can I find any acknowledgement by the hospital that they did indeed give her the antibiotics--one would think that such news would be put forth by the hospital/doctors in their attempt to justify their decision--'we gave her the antibiotics so granting her the abortion wouldn't have helped at all' sort of thing.
How could they have sat there and just let her die?
I agree I never understand how they can claim to hate abortion because it will take an unborn life but the life that is lost means what? Nothing, the consequence of getting pregnant, only in the dark ages. The procedure should have been done the doctor should have had the courage to ignore insanity and do the right thing.
How could their God?
Are we going to wait until women are dying in this country to get the stupid religious arguments out of our medical and legal decisions? Our Constitution is supposed to protect us from religion imposing itself on us.
Sadly, the answer is a resounding yes.
The first step towards entering the 21st century is leaving religion back in the 20th, or better the 18th.
Why doesn't Victoria Jackson bitch about Ireland rather than making light of the situation in CT?
Another example of how religion kills. In this case it is Catholicism that requires young women to die. I wonder if the victim was even Catholic in this case?
She was not, she was Hindu. And it should not have mattered--the Supreme Court in Ireland ruled some time ago that an abortion could be allowed to save the mother's life. There was no reason they should not have performed the abortion she asked for--see post 3.1.
I hope that they name the law after Savita. She gave her life needlessly but others in the future will/may benefit from it. If there is a saving grace through this whole debacle, it is that. Rest in peace.
"Ireland to seek change in abortion law after death"
Seems like someone who died doesn't need an abortion.
The hope is that more women won't have to die.
It would have been nice to have this information BEFORE last month's election!
Uhhhhh....why?
Cavemen