Pro-life rights also include life of mother
On Monday, Praveen Halappanavar was questioned in an Irish court about the events surrounding the death of his wife, Savita Halappanavar.
Yiwen Fu | Daily Trojan
Savita Halappanavar, an Indian dentist who moved from southwest India to Dublin with her husband in 2008, was 17 weeks pregnant when she was sent to University Hospital Galway on Oct. 21, 2012 after complaints of back pain, according to CNN. Praveen Halappanavar, in response to the recent inquest, testified that “his wife was advised her unborn baby would likely die, and that she was in extreme pain.”
The couple asked for an abortion, under Irish law, however, abortion is currently illegal unless it occurs as a result of a medical intervention performed when the mother’s life is at risk. Praveen Halappanavar told the hearing in Galway that health officials informed him that in Catholic Ireland, an abortion could not be performed while the fetus was still alive. Doctors had still detected the heartbeat of the fetus and denied the request for termination. Three days after being admitted into the hospital, the fetus died and was removed. And on Oct. 28, Savita Halappanavar died of septicemia, or blood poisoning.
Her death sparked waves of outrage globally. The Times of India led its online coverage with the headline, “Ireland murders pregnant Indian dentist.”
Demands for new abortion laws have deluged the nation since — and rightly so.
According to the World Health Organization, “nearly half of all abortions worldwide are unsafe, and nearly all unsafe abortions (98 percent) occur in developing countries.”
Complications from unsafe abortion accounted for an estimated 13 percent of all maternal deaths worldwide in 2003 and 2008. And yet, Savita Halappanavar passed away because of a preventable cause in the highly developed country of Ireland in the 21st century. Her story is a tragedy that should never have to happen to anyone, especially because it could have been avoided. The high-tech hospital was there, her family was there to be consulted and health officials were there to make a decision that would be best for not just the fetus, but Savita Halappanavar herself.
This tragedy was the working of stringent, stubborn abortion laws and medical negligence. Even though abortion does go against Catholic beliefs, greater exceptions should be made when taking into consideration the special circumstances that surround pregnancies.
According to CNN, Ireland’s Minister of Health James Reilly had indeed announced last year that abortions are permissible when the life of the mother is at risk. Though that might seem like progress in a country that has been struggling with abortion reform for the past 25 years, this proclamation begs the question, why can’t the overall the health of the mother also be considered? Why wait until a possibly fatal emergency is at hand? Why wait until it would most likely be too late to save not only the fetus, but the mother as well?
As a legal expert in Ireland told the Guardian, “it would have been lawful to offer Savita Halappanavar a termination that she and her husband believed would have saved her life.”
Yet the hospital refused to comply with a 1992 Irish Supreme Court ruling establishing a woman’s right to abortion when her life is at risk.
Concerns over the life of the baby should not override concerns for the mother’s life. By doing this, the reasons for which pro-life advocates oppose abortions are completely invalidated because the mother’s life is thus regarded as less significant than that of the fetus. Ironically, by attempting to prevent the murder of a fetus, the case turns into the murder of the mother.
That’s not to say that we should abandon the tradition and practices of a religion so prevalent in a country such as Ireland, however. It is entirely possible to uphold those tenets that are for the life of the fetus as long as it does not overstep into endangering the life of the mother.
The issue of the law lies in the fact that though it does provide provisions for abortion, it only does in cases “where it is deemed necessary to save the life of a mother,” said Dr. Gerry Whyte, an associate professor at Trinity College Dublin. The “deeming” of whether or not the case calls for immediate abortion is subjective, varying with medical judgment. The question is: Would the termination of the pregnancy have saved her life or not?
We must stand up for personal decision-making when it comes to lives in jeopardy — when it becomes not only about saving a life of an unborn fetus, but of a living woman who is a wife, sister and daughter to others. In this fight over abortion, we often get blindsided and forget that the purpose of pro-life policies should be one and the same — simply preserving and saving lives when possible.
As the Irish government deliberates on the introduction of new abortion legislation in the coming months, it’s time for change so that cases like this will never happen again — not just in Ireland, but in all countries for all women.
Valerie Yu is a freshman majoring in biological sciences and English. Her column “Heart of the Matter” runs Fridays.
My questions have to do with ONLY those cases in which the mother’s life is at risk. Do all pro-life people believe that abortion is wrong even up to the point of the mother’s life being at risk? I do understand that there are people who believe in earlier abortions even when there is no risk to the mother’s health, but I am not talking about them. Again, do all pro-life people believe that abortion is wrong even up to the point of the mother’s life being at risk? Essentially, I believe that many people are saying that they don’t believe in abortion under ANY circumstance. That essentially says to me that if they were pregnant, they would choose their death over the death of their unborn child. My opinion is not in this. It ‘s only something that I have come up with when I hear people talk about abortion. Is that what people are saying? “I will die rather than have my unborn child terminated.”
In articulating her argument in favour of abortion rights, Ms. Yu is guilty of the same thing that most abortion-rights supporters are guilty of: She fails to point out that most abortions have nothing to do with any medical risk or saving lives whatsoever, but are instead a very drastic but legal means of birth control. Yes, many abortions are medically warranted, but sadly, most simply are not. Ms. Yu avoids any focus on this reality by instead pointing to incomplete statistics. She claims that nearly half of abortions performed are unsafe, and that nearly all of the unsafe abortions are performed in developing countries, but she fails to point out other equally compelling realities that should be part of any discussion on abortion.
For example… To being with, most abortions are performed in developing countries in the first place because even the idea of abortion is a sort of bourgeous conceit that is derived from privileged and selfish societies where changing one’s mind on “being pregnant” is about as acceptable as changing careers. Industrialized nations have not only brought us great advances in science and medicine, but apparently are also the epicenter for enlightened wisdom on social issues. Just look at the current debate on the definition of “marriage” where modern-society wants to change the definition of a gender-specific term so that a statistically small group of people feel “included”. Modern society has even made accepting one’s gender no longer necessary because that too can be changed on the operating table. Likewise, an undesirable pregnancy can be “fixed” in America about as easily as removing a mole.
By contrast, people in undeveloped nations generally assume that the gender you’re born as is the gender you die as… and yes, that pregancy is a likely result of sexual intercourse, and thus a self-inflicted responsibility… perhaps even a blessing. (How archaic!) It would be easy for America’s elite society to dismiss these people as “simple” and “old-fashioned, but that of course would be a disservice to religious societies around the world that generally mirror these values, including heavily-Catholic Ireland where the tragic account of Savita Halappanavar took place. And yes, some old-fashioned… dare I say “traditional”… Americans still hold these values as well, perhaps an homage to our nation’s all-but-forgotten Christian past.
I’m also alarmed at Ms. Yu’s suggestion that the decision not to abort Savita’s baby amounted to “murdering the mother”. Suggesting this sort of moral equivilence is frankly reckless, and this rhetoric does nothing to advance the debate. There are definitely times when an abortion is medically warranted, and decisions in such cases should be discussed openly and accurately between the physician and patient, but a reasoned and thoughtful decision against abortion… particularly if rooted in conviction… does not amount to murder.
The debate over abortion will surely continue… as it should because there are valid arguments on both sides. What troubles me is simply the fact that most abortions are not necessary, yet the debate too often focusses on the minority of cases involving rape or lives in jeopardy. In the process, people of faith or conviction are marginalized as simple or archaic, or apparently even worse – as murderers. This is simply unacceptable. Unfortunately, Ms. Yu’s discussion of the tragedy involving Savit Halappanavar’s does not provide a complete and accurate understanding of abortion in our society, and thus adds little to the debate.