"To Procure An Abortion": Forbidden

"When the consultant came on the ward rounds on Monday morning, Savita asked if they could not save the baby, could they induce to end the pregnancy?  The consultant said: 'As long as there is a fetal heartbeat, we can't do anything.'
"...The consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country.  Savita said: 'I am neither Irish nor Catholic', but they said there was nothing they could do."
Praveen Halappanavar, Dublin, Ireland

Just as well that Savita Halappanaver, 17 weeks pregnant, saw her parents for the last time - as they had departed back to India after visiting with their daughter and son-in-law - the day before their daughter was admitted to hospital.  They saw her again soon afterward, when their son-in-law brought their daughter back to India for burial for a Hindu funeral and cremation.

In Galway, where the young couple had settled, and where he had taken a job as an engineer at the medical devices manufacturer Boston Scientific, the city's annual Diwali festival was cancelled by the Indian community living there.  For Praveen Halappanavar was the motivating force behind the festival, one of the main organizers.  If they had been in Boston or back in India she would still be alive.

Ireland's constitution forbids abortion, even though a 1992 Supreme Court ruling found it should be legalized for situations when the mother's life would be at risk from a continued pregnancy.  Irish hospitals and their doctors remain reluctant to terminate pregnancies, making exceptions only in the most life-threatening circumstances.

Irish women who seek abortions must leave for England where abortion on demand has been legal since 1967.  Any woman too ill, too frail, too poor, or in too much pain to travel is out of luck.  According to Praveen Halappanavar, Savita's husband, doctors at University Hospital Galway in western Ireland were able to determine within hours of her admission for severe pain that she was miscarrying.

Over the following three days doctors at the hospital steadfastly refused both their requests for a medically induced abortion in view of and despite Savita's obvious pain and fading health condition.  They insisted on waiting for the foetus to die on its own.  As long as they could detect a heart beat they would take no action to relieve the desperate mother of her pain, frustration and fear.

"Savita was really in agony.  She was very upset, but she accepted she was losing the baby", her husband explained in an interview with The Irish Times.  His wife vomited repeatedly, he said, but doctors refused to terminate the foetus since its heart was still beating.  It died the following day, its remains surgically removed.

And within hours of that final relief, Savita was placed under sedation in intense care, with blood poisoning.  And that was the last time her husband ever spoke again with his wife.  Her heart, her kidneys and her liver had halted their function.  Early the following morning she was pronounced dead.

Ireland's illegality of abortion law dates to 1861, when it was part of the United Kingdom.  It is no longer valid in Britain, but Ireland clings to the law.  Breach it, and it becomes a crime punishable by life imprisonment.