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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Irish government and Catholic hierarchy need to disavow reasons for death of pregnant woman -- Will they stand up and be counted on wrong application of Catholic doctrine?

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Irish government and Catholic hierarchy need to disavow reasons for death of pregnant woman -- Will they stand up and be counted on wrong application of Catholic doctrine?

Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 07:29 AM

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Protestors gather outside Leinster House (Irish Parliament building)
during a demonstration in favor of abortion legislation in Dublin,
Ireland, on November 14, (Credit: Peter Muhly/AFP)

The Irish government and the Catholic hierarchy there should make clear that they strongly disagreed with the dreadful decision to allow a young mother in a Galway hospital to die because her non-viable fetus continued to have a heartbeat.

There is no other correct decision for them to make. This is not a medical issue, it is a human rights one. It is incredible to think that in this day and age such a death could occur.

The life of the mother was sacrificed in this occasion by waiting for the 17-week-old non-viable fetus to die while she was miscarrying. When she desperately asked for the fetus to be aborted she was told “This is a Catholic hospital.” She later died of sepsis.

Savita Halappanavar (31), a dentist and of the Hindu faith, originally from India, went through two and a half days of dreadful pain while the fetus lived on.

Surely the Catholic Church and the Irish government need to step in here and say “not in our name”?

The fetus would never have lived, doctors in Galway agreed. The mother was bleeding and leaking amniotic fluid.

In Britain or the US, if it were seen that the mother was in imminent danger, the mother would have been given drugs to expedite the miscarriage.

In Ireland she was told to suffer and bear it and she died as a result.

If it sounds like a terrible plot from an Edna O’Brien novel from the 1950s then it is.

One can only imagine what this lovely young woman and her husband, both emigrants to Ireland, experienced in her final hours.

It is an enormous blot on the country, a throwback to the bad old days when women’s lives in childbirth were considered expendable.

The church and state need to make it clear that it was not done in their name.

Whether they will or not will tell us a lot about the new Ireland.

Read more: Thousands gather to protest in Ireland over death of mother due to abortion denial

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WoundedKnee | Nov 16, 2012, 03:10 AM EST

holbackgirl: Like most racists of your ilk, you're an idiot. This woman received constant care from the time she presented in the hospital. Whether or not decisions taken by her medical carers were valid and well-founded is something that will be revealed when a proper enquiry is mounted, not when a bigot like you jumps to a conclusion like a manic racist kangaroo.

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branagh | Nov 16, 2012, 02:41 AM EST

Need to disavow..strange phrasing! Anyway,main points: The ONLY things known are what her husband has related to a call-in radio station 10 days after the event (from India). Like call-in with Larry King or C-Span! What did the abdominal ultrasound, abdominal CT-scan show? Did the patient have a bleeding diathesis that accompanies endotoxic shock - where ANY surgery is catastrophic? Bleeding time,platelet count? A miscarriage, yet a heartbeat 3 days later - perhaps this makes sense for some HP posters but absolutely no OBGYN sense at all - rubbish! ALL the clinical facts, all the relevant tests, the lab results, the imaging studies (eg., here the abdominal ultrasound, abdominal CT-scan), the clinical exams will need exhaustive review to establish the facts. Medical malpractice occurs sometimes on a criminal scale and I do not know if this was the case here. This will now be examined rigorously as in any place in the world.

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Gearoid4 | Nov 15, 2012, 06:07 PM EST

Such a tragedy is indeed rare in Ireland but it should not be misused as an insidious excuse to introduce pro-abortion legislation which is unnecessary in a land which has an enviable reputation as one of the safest place for mothers to give birth in the world. The full facts can only be arrived through a thorough medical inquiry into this tragic event.

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hollabackgurl | Nov 15, 2012, 05:03 PM EST

I see you did bury your heart WoundedKnee. And we know how racist you are from the phrase "an Indian migrant worker," as well as inference it can not be trusted. That Indian man watched his wife die needlessly in a foreign hospital where no one would help them.

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WoundedKnee | Nov 15, 2012, 12:55 PM EST

O'Dowd: You've gone down in my estimation. I thought you were a competent journalist. But you disobey the first rule of journalism: Get The Facts. In this case we have no facts. Merely the unscrutinized testimony (given to a journalist 5000 miles away) of an Indian migrant worker. It's most unprofessional that you build an entire argument on such a shaky foundation. Get the Facts, then sound off as you will.

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hermitTalker | Nov 15, 2012, 12:53 PM EST

Niall; What apology do the Government and Hierarchy have to make? 1. The facts are not in yet. 2. The medical board guidelines, and the Constitution revised by the People allows an old principle of double effect to kick in- IF the mother's life is in danger, the baby may be taken for her life. This happens so rarely, 5 deaths out of (?) thousands announced by a pro-life physician on radio here. The HSE already apologised. This is not a Catholic issue. It is a Natural law issue, the same law that bars me from punching you to death, stealing from your bank account or spreading lies and gossip to ruin your good name. ALL also endorsed by most reasonable humans, except the leftists who select what they are outraged about and bash Momma Church when they are angry

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