A Senseless Death in Ireland

 THIS is why religion has no place in politics. Politics drive policy. And policy has very real consequences for everyone who lives in that society.  There is no longer room for dogmatic and irrational beliefs to frame those policies.

In case you missed it, a Hindu woman living in Ireland died of septicemia on October 28^th after a week in the hospital,because Ireland’s abortion ban made it impossible for the medical staff to do their jobs and address the very real harm the dying fetus was causing the mother.

 Fair warning, this is horrific and rage-inducing:

 “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 can’t 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.

…

“The next morning I said she was so sick and asked again that they just end it, but they said they couldn’t.”

At lunchtime the foetal heart had stopped and Ms Halappanavar was brought to theatre to have the womb contents removed. “When she came out she was talking okay but she was very sick. That’s the last time I spoke to her.”

At 11 pm he got a call from the hospital. “They said they were shifting her to intensive care. Her heart and pulse were low, her temperature was high. She was sedated and critical but stable. She stayed stable on Friday but by 7pm on Saturday they said her heart, kidneys and liver weren’t functioning. She was critically ill. That night, we lost her.”

 

Savita’s husband is now a widower for no other reason than someone, somewhere, decided that fetuses are of greater value than the women who bear them.

Make no mistake, harbor no illusion: Savita died because religious beliefs superseded medical expertise.

Savita’s husband is a widower for the simple reason that the law made it illegal for doctors to do their jobs.

 This is why religion has absolutely no place in politics. And it absolutely has no place in medicine.

 

Given the international nature of this senseless death – Savita was neither “Irish nor Catholic” – and the attention it is garnering, there is some hope that this tragedy will prompt Ireland to free themselves from the dogmatic grip of the viscous little man in red pajamas in the Vatican, at least when it comes to abortion. I don’t harbor the same hope, especially when shit like this is true, too:

 In a sign of how contentious the issue is in Ireland, the pro-life Youth Defence group, which campaigns against any change in the existing abortion laws, released a statement in response to the death stating that “Ireland’s ban on abortion does not pose a threat to women’s lives.”

 

You know, in a way, I can see how that logic makes sense to them– it seems that in this group’s worldview, pregnant women aren’t “women” anymore, but mysterious baby-making quasi-humans. So yeah, I guess it would make sense for them to say the abortion law “does not pose a threat to women’s lives”. Women can’t be pregnant, because if they are pregnant they aren’t women anymore, and so the abortion laws can’t harm women because abortion laws only apply to baby-making quasi-humans. QED!

 

The whole thing is stupefyingly outrageous, and reminds me only that I need to be doing more to make sure that this kind of theocratic, irrational, Dark Ages bullshit never, ever takes root in this country.

 

Starting with a big fat donation to Planned Parenthood.