JOIN USAn inquiry into Savita Halappanavar’s death in Galway Hospital in Ireland in October last year raises more questions than it answers. The report fails to grapple with the real issues that resulted in her death due to septicaemia. It blames hospital staff for her death, drawing attention to their ‘apparent over-emphasis’ on the welfare of an unviable foetus and an ‘under-emphasis’ on the mother’s rapidly deteriorating health.
Savita was 17 weeks into her pregnancy when she developed life threatening complications. Doctors at the hospital ignored her repeated requests for termination of her pregnancy. Instead they waited for the foetal heart beat to stop before intervening to save the mother’s life. In the process, Savita’s health deteriorated sharply, culminating in her death.
While the report is right in drawing attention to the low priority that doctors accorded to the mother’s health, by blaming hospital staff it deflects attention away from the real reason for Savita’s death – Ireland’s abortion laws. Not only do these laws ban abortion but also they make participation in it a punishable crime. Consequently doctors err on the side of caution and avoid terminating a pregnancy even when it is medically required as it was in Savita’s case.
The inquiry report suggests that skewed priority and human error resulted in her death. However, it was the abortion laws that must be blamed for the hospital staff’s misplaced priorities and flawed decisions.
In the wake of Savita’s death, outraged women and men marched in protest, demanding laws that would ensure that no other woman would have to ever suffer the fate that Savita did. The Irish government promised steps to clarify the country’s abortions laws, allowing abortion to women in certain medical circumstances.
However it has not legalised abortion, which means that women in Ireland continue to remain vulnerable. Women who wish to terminate their pregnancy are forced to travel outside the country or seek unsafe and illegal methods to do so. By blaming the doctors rather that antiquated and anti-women abortion laws, the inquiry report goes along with the government’s limited approach.
Activists who oppose abortion often describe their position as ‘pro-life’ i.e. their perception of the foetus as a living being and recognition of its right to life. Savita’s fate is an example of how obsession with the foetus’ survival can cause death, how a supposedly ‘pro-life’ position can deny life to the mother.