SAVITA, VICTIM OF RELIGIOUS INTERFERENCE IN STATE LAW

Savita Halappanavar was seriously ill and felt she needed an abortion to save her life. She begged for a termination. Life-saving treatment was postponed because the hospital detected a foetal heartbeat and treatment would kill the foetus. She died in the care of University Hospital Galway. She was murdered by the policies of the Vatican and the Catholic faith and left to feel abandoned and to feel like a mere incubator.

"Even on the last day, before she went into septic shock, they were checking the foetal heart rate, whether it was present or not.  So they were waiting for that time for things to escalate.  In another country where there was not such a restriction they would have terminated the pregnancy two or three days earlier.  Whatever about what people might say, that morning just the fact that the health personnel wanted to listen to the baby’s heart that morning when she was severely sick, just indicates how worried the health personnel were about terminating the pregnancy."  Professor Sabaratnam Arulkumaran who led the inquiry into the death of Savita.

Andanappa Yalagi, Savita's father regarding the 2018 referendum effort to remove the equal right to mother and unborn baby from the Irish Constitution:

“I will watch this vote. I hope the people of Ireland will vote yes for abortion, for the ladies of Ireland and the people of Ireland. My daughter, she lost her life because of this abortion law, because of the diagnosis, and she could not have an abortion. She died.”

Abortion was banned in the Irish Constitution because the Church had a say in how the Constitution was drawn up and it was able to use propaganda and lies and fear-mongering to get the people to reject abortion during referendums. The main argument was that God gives life and only God can take it. There was no mention of the fact that God and faith should be left out so that the issue could be looked at on the human level. There was no concern for people suffering due to the wrong decision being made with religion and faith being to blame for the mistake. While it is okay to oppose abortion on non-religious grounds as long as one approaches the issue with the utmost caution and avoids bias, opposing it on any religious grounds is too dangerous.

As successive governments pandered to a Catholic people and were often Catholic themselves, they ignored their duty under the X Case judgement. The duty was to legislate for abortion when the woman's life was in danger.

Her inquest and the reports issued by the HSE assert that if her consultant, Dr Katherine Astbury, had been permitted to arrange an abortion it was more likely than not that Savita would have survived.

Savita's tragedy forced the Irish government to do something about the legal limbo left after the X Case. The X Case shook up Ireland's anti-abortion stance as it involved a young girl pregnant by rape who was considering taking her own life. The case raised the question that abortion should maybe be allowed if the other will kill herself if her pregnancy continues.

Irish law lays down that if a doctor performs an abortion or if a woman aborts her own baby they can be sent to prison for 14 years. Interestingly, there is no penalty or prosecution for using the abortion pill. A law that does not punish something permits it. So abortion is allowed in a sense.

Savita knew she had to sacrifice her pregnancy if she were to have a chance at surviving.

Clinical Midwife Manager Burke told Savita that termination was not an option, "It's a Catholic thing. We don't do it here."

Doctor Astbury said that it was a Catholic country which was why abortion was not an option.

In addition, Savita and her friend Mrdula were told that it was a Catholic thing.

University Hospital Galway denied that these things were said but was forced to admit that they were. Praveen and another witness to what was said were widely hated as liars who used Savita's tragedy to beat up others.

Burke admitted she said, "This is a Catholic country", in the witness box.

Some of the medical personnel indicated that they suffered from religiosity when they said they would pray for Savita.

Savita would probably still have died had abortion to save the life of the mother been allowed under Irish Law. Such a law would require that she must get gravely ill - perhaps through sepsis - before this action could be taken. But then it could be too late. Even if she would have died, abortion or not, the fact remains that this innocent woman was going to be thrust into a living hell over the foetus. This highlights the fact that abortion may be needed to save a woman's life even if she is not dying yet.

Catholics risk prolonging the life of the foetus which may be suffering. When it is going to die anyway it is better to end the pregnancy. Catholics prolong the agony of the mother for religious reasons. They increase the risk of her death. If an abortion was absolutely certain to save Savita's life, she would still have been denied one.

Catholicism has made the sinfulness of abortion under all circumstances to be essential Church doctrine. Catholics deny that their faith is irrational. Instead, they say it is non-rational. That means it does not contradict itself and is believable. But to say your faith is non-rational means you see no contradictions not that there are no contradictions. So a non-rational faith is no better than an irrational one in practice.

Catholic irrationality put women like Savita at risk. It killed Savita.

She suffered great neglect and religion was brought into it. Would it have been different if she had not been a Lingayat - a pagan? Might she have been treated better?

Going to an extreme to oppose abortion only sends out the message that if you have an abortion you are a murderer. That is hate speech and should not be tolerated. One day it will not be tolerated.

The Eighth Amendment which was responsible for risking many women like Savita and ultimately to blame for killing her was repealed in 2018.  Pro-choice say that Savita's baby died four days before her spontaneous miscarriage. They say that she died of sepsis and that needs drugs not abortion. She was 17 weeks on meaning she would not have got an abortion except for the 12 weeks and under limit imposed by Irish law some years following her tragedy. They say the doctor missing what was wrong with her killed her not the Eighth Amendment.  None of that allows a woman to have an abortion in a terrible situation to get a small chance to survive.  It is pure anti woman hate.