Savita Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she checked
into a Galway
hospital for back pain. She was suffering from a late
miscarriage, but was denied a
medical abortion even after severe complications arose. A
week later, she died from
septicaemia.
Now Ireland’s strict policies surrounding abortion are under
severe scrutiny.
Halappanavar’s husband said she was told “This is a Catholic
country” after
requesting the termination. They were denied the abortion
because medical staff
had detected a fetal heartbeat. But Halappanavar’s family
believes that the refusal
only served to delay the inevitable and later caused the
blood poisoning that killed
her.
Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar said, “Savita was really
in agony. She was very
upset, but she accepted that 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
fetal heartbeat we can’t do anything.”
A few days later, Savita started vomiting and shivering, the
doctors starting her on
antibiotics. She soon became critically ill, and by Saturday
her heart, kidneys, and
liver had shut down. She died that night.
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