Religion
Related: About this forumWoman dies after abortion request 'refused' at Galway hospital.
The husband of a pregnant woman who died in an Irish hospital has said he has no doubt she would be alive if she had been allowed an abortion.
Savita Halappanavar's family said she asked several times for her pregnancy to be terminated because she had severe back pain and was miscarrying.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20321741
This intrusion of religion is outrageous. Staff at the hospital refused on the basis that Ireland is a Catholic country. She wasn't Catholic and her baby wasn't Catholic. Now they are both dead, hopefully not in vain.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)before apologists on this board step up to defend this?
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)I'm sure others are as well. What happened is indefensible.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Abortion is legal in Ireland when there is a threat to the life of the mother. While their laws are an abomination right now, the medical staff could have proceeded if they deemed her life to be in danger.
Apparently they did not. Why that is is not clear.
Starboard Tack
(11,181 posts)The doctor told us the cervix was fully dilated, amniotic fluid was leaking and unfortunately the baby wouldnt survive. The doctor, he says, said it should be over in a few hours. There followed three days, he says, of the foetal heartbeat being checked several times a day.
Savita was really in agony. She was very upset, but she accepted she was losing the baby. 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 foetal heartbeat we cant do anything.
Again on Tuesday morning, the ward rounds and the same discussion. The consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita [a Hindu] said: I am neither Irish nor Catholic but they said there was nothing they could do.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)If they felt it was not, they were bound by law to not proceed.
She died of septicemia several days later, which might indicate that they did not properly remove all the fetal contents after she miscarried. Either way, had she been here, the pregnancy would have been terminated much, much earlier.
I hope this provides some impetus for Ireland to revise their laws.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,154 posts)Irish politicians have, extremely cowardly, refused to lay down in law under what circumstances doctors can act to save the life of the woman by performing an abortion. Because they don't care that much about the occasional woman dying, if it helps them avoid a political fight with a bunch of mad extremists (among whom arethe Roman Catholic bishops). And some craven doctors, like this collection of wastes of oxygen, can't be bothered to stand up for saving lives.
Here's hoping they have criminal charges laid against them. And here's hoping the group 'Precious Life' with their sanctimonious "thoughts and prayers were with Ms Halappanavar's family" get shunned by all right-thinking Irish people, and they spend the rest of their lives regretting their decision to support the death of women.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Do you think it might promote some movement in the legislature?
Do they ever perform abortions to save the life of the mother?
Dorian Gray
(13,469 posts)in the US would induce if the mother's life was deemed in danger. What happened there was a travesty. Her final moments in life were followed by losing her pregnancy. It's terribly sad. The doctors and the hospitals should reconsider. The law should be reconsidered.
unblock
(51,974 posts)then working like hell to try to save the life of the baby?
and if the baby then dies, so be it, at least you tried?
or is the thinking that if it's too early for there to be any real chance of the fetus surviving outside the womb, then the mother has to take her chances?
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)No IV, No BP monitoring, Only a pregnancy test. My tube had already ruptured, not that there was ANY chance of c-setion on a fallopian tube to "save the baby".
"We don't do ABORTIONS" is what they told me. A simple sonogram would have shown my condition. You cannot abort something that is DEAD already. Plus, even if the embyro was still alive, it simply cannot BE saved. So, I should die, leave my already born daughter motherless, and my husband a widower? For a DEAD EMBRYO?????? "God's Will"? Well, heart attacks are "God's Will" and nothing should be done for them either.
Don't get me started on the Catholic Church.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)That sounds like malpractice, if those are the facts. An ectopic pregnancy clearly threatens the life of the mother.
Did you have any options other than a Catholic hospital?
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)I know many people said I should have sued them. My doctor had ordered all these procedures but they ignored his orders. He had a delivery at the time and came to the hospital after that, SCREAMING at the hospital staff for not following his orders, and leaving me unattended in that bed.
Before he ordered me to get to a hospital ASAP, he tried to get me into his other non-religious hospital but they had no beds. "I hate to do this to you (Catholic Hospital), but you HAVE TO GO ASAP". I had no clue at the time why he said that. Learned very quickly.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)But we had an absolute policy that a woman who needed one for her own health would be transferred immediately. If a transfer could not take place, then there would be an emergency ethics/physician/administrative meetings. If the mother was in imminent danger, the procedure would take place irregardless of the "rules".
Glad you came out of that ok. Whatever staff did not follow the physicians orders for a sonogram was beyond negligent. A sonogram has nothing to do with abortion.
Dorian Gray
(13,469 posts)Which hospital was it? (St Vincents?) I only ask bc I live in NYC and am curious.
I'm so sorry you went through that. The whole experience must have been painful and heartbreaking.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)Dorian Gray
(13,469 posts)My husband is from queens and used to teach in Elmhurst. So sorry you went through this at all. It's terrible. I'm glad your doctor came back and reamed out the staff. Going through a miscarriage is difficult. Going through it with a hospital staff who won't help you in your pain is inconceivable to me.
(I had a miscarriage in 2009. I know how much it sucks. Luckily, the hospital where I was seen by doctors performed a D&C without any questions.)
Mariana
(14,849 posts)is probably extremely dangerous to the woman in most cases. A C-section is major surgery. It really can't be a good idea to go cutting into someone with, say, a raging infection, or wildly high or low blood pressure. Not that I'm an expert, but that sure sounds like malpractice to me.
unblock
(51,974 posts)presumably at least the risk of the woman dying without either c-section or inducing would be taken into account.
rug
(82,333 posts)If the fetus was dead, it would not be an abortion.
I don't get it.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)be an abortion.
rug
(82,333 posts)skepticscott
(13,029 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)Come now, scottie, no need to be coy.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,154 posts)Then she died.
She died of septicaemia and E Coli. She died after three and a half days of excruciating pain. She died after repeatedly begging for an end to the pregnancy that was poisoning her. Her death would have been avoided if she had been given an abortion when she asked for it when it was clear she was miscarrying, and that non-intervention would put her at risk. But the foetus, which had no chance of survival, still had a heartbeat. Its right to life quite literally trumped hers.
...
Just two months ago, a consortium of Irish doctors got together to declare abortion medically unnecessary. They claimed that abortion is never needed to save a pregnant woman's life, and stated: "We confirm that the prohibition of abortion does not affect, in any way, the availability of optimal care to pregnant women."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/14/savita-halappanavar-medically-unnecessary-death
Those doctors should be struck off. They are a literal danger to their patients.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)What they concluded is blatant bullshit.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)hierarchy on this. It should go beyond license revocation, in my opinion. The woman begged for her life and they refused and watched her die of septicemia. How can any decent human being do that? And the woman was neither Irish nor Catholic. They murdered someone over dogma. Utterly reprehensible and untenable logically. Inhuman.
The entire thing is an obscenity.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)along with any church officials who advised them in their consortium. This is the 21st Century, not the Middle Ages. We know how to save the lives of women like this Hindu woman. She was murdered, even after begging for her life. Obscene.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)this travesty. Their dogma has killed yet another woman who was not even a Catholic. It is obscene, un-Christian, and the people involved in this should be charged with murder. Her life could have been saved. Now she is dead, at the hands of dogmatic hypocrites.
A Pox on the Dogma That Killed This Woman!
Please. If any Catholic on this forum wishes to debate this, I will be happy to take them on. These abominations should result in prison terms for everyone involved, including any church leaders who advised that women who were dying from a miscarriage should not have the fetus aborted. Whether that advice was for this particular case or general, they share responsibility for this poor Hindu woman's death. Her death is an obscenity, and is due purely to Roman Catholic dogma.