Jill Filipovic on the death of Savita Halappanavar.
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.
It wasn’t even (as I’ve seen some mistakenly say) an attempt to save the fetus. It was just a refusal to act because the doomed fetus still had a pulse. It was just a determined decision to let both die rather than save one – the adult one with existing hopes and plans and work and people who loved her.
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.”
Tell that to Savita Halappanavar, you evil bastards.