Woman dies in Galway after being denied termination

[AThingInYourLife]

Holy evil pro-life bastards, batman

The wonder is it that there haven't been more

RIP Savita Halappanavar :(

You didn't answer my question CailinDana.
Are you a medical professional?

Having an abortion would have allowed her to have her uterus begin to heal on the Monday and her cervix close then.

Are you suggesting this wouldn't have helped?

Plenty of women do XYZ and don't die does not equate to XYZ being safe for all women.

I'm not medical, no. I speak from the facts of the case, which are pretty clear. Even if her cervix had closed on Monday, if she already had the infection, it would have made no difference. Why on earth didn't they give her antibiotics?? It just seems so basic.

I'm not so sure about Enda Kenny's distance from the Vatican www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0924/1224324323933.html. He's part of a Centrist Democrat (ex Christian democrat) group that met the pope recently.

She should never have been allowed to suffer like that. I can only imagine how her husband feels, living with that.

The Catholic Church likes to pretend the prohibition on abortion is absolute. Yet it has swung back and forth over the centuries, at some times being permitted up to 'quickening' (i.e. when you can feel the baby move).

Any real medical experts around who can tell us whether quickly terminating plus antibiotics has a preferable medical outcome to labouring for three days fully dilated plus antibiotics?

Because I suppose I'm suggesting that antibiotics may have been medically necessary from the start, but that the termination would have absolutely improved her chances.

I'd like some actual facts on whether this is a reasonable assumption.

Thats terrible and the poor man has now lost his wife

cailinDana Having an abortion could have made things worse, it's impossible to tell.

To a satisfiable degree of certainty, the medical inquiry will actually clear this up.

Science- it's just like magic, but without the lies.

Surely what she was also asking for was for her miscarriage to be medically managed, it is annoying that this seems to be ignored.

In my mind (although in my experience doctors use the terms interchangeably) an abortion is different from a medically managed miscarriage. Even if it the same procedure. Surely the pro lifers could see a difference?

Because when CailinDana states so confidently "Even if her cervix had closed on Monday, if she already had the infection, it would have made no difference."
I think, what nonsense. It would have made a difference. Antibiotics are not magic. If open wounds need to be cleaned and closed to have a chance of healing, antibiotics or no, then surely an open cervix is an environment which invites an infection to worsen.

I don't think the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast could have carried out a termination as they only do them up to 9 weeks I think. I live in NI and the situation is not much better, despite being in the UK. I had a termination when I lived in England, no regrets at all. I dread to think what I would have done had I lived here at the time. People are vehemently anti-abortion both Protestant and Catholic, very much believe that children are gifts from God etc. I've told a few people about my abortion and have been advised to keep it to myself as I would be regarded as a murderer. I feel so sorry for the Indian gentleman, losing his beautiful wife for no good reason. Now they'll never get to bring a baby into the world. Religion sucks.

Anything less than abortion on demand is anti-women. I consider 'pro-lifers' on a par with racists, and the sort of whining bucketheads who insist that their superstitions and tender feelngs matter more than the lives of other women (so they will support restricted abortion rights on the grounds that abortion in certain circumstances makes them feel a bit icky) to be on the same moral level as people who say 'But some of my best friends are [member of ethnic group that is not theirs].

If you don't like abortions, don't have one. But keep your imaginary friends and your self-important bullshit out of other women's wombs and lives.

I don't see how Mixxy. A post mortem infection won't show how and when she picked the infection up. Verylittle - having a medical procedure like an abortion carries its own infection risk - it would be perfectly acceptable to claim that having an abortion would have put her in more danger rather than less. Women die from post-abortion infection as much as post-miscarriage infection.

Like I said, labouring for three days with an open cervix isn't unusual and is not a life-threatening situation. It was the infection that killed her, not the fact that she didn't have an abortion.

what is the law in other Catholic countries, Italy, most of South America, France etc?

Verylittlecarrot, I don't know but you or someone else might in the UK when you have a miscarriage or termination do they routinely hand out antibiotics?

I have had a missed miscarriage that was medically managed but have no recollection of being given antibiotics but aware that my case is different.

'Anything less than abortion on demand is anti-women'

Completely agree

Sorry that should say "A post mortem won't show how and when she picked the infection up."

'Plenty of women labour for three days with no waters and an open cervix' - maybe in Ireland. In the UK, a woman 17 weeks pregnant would NOT be made to labour for three days after her waters broke, actually.

So every single woman whose waters break has their baby within three days in the UK edam? Every single one?

I don't get it, when people miscarry are they not given choice of natural or medical termination? Is it always dangerous for people to choose the natural option? if so then why do people choose it?

can't a post mortem show how developed the infection was and give an idea of when the infection started?

i have no medical experience, i am genuinely asking this question.

CalinDana,
You categorically state things that are not at all so clear.
It does not seem so clear to me that 'it is the law' as you said in earlir post. There is jurisprudence establishing the exception. I guess that the United Nations table I have posted above was done with the information provided by the government itself.
Secondly, as I have stated before, it is very unclear that, as a doctor, you should not be ethically forced to save a life if there is no other benefit from not saving it.
We may discuss the facts. Perhaps the doctors could not know/did not do enough to know if the life of the mother was at risk; perhaps a termination was irrelevant. Or perhaps the fact that the baby was dying inside her was not a fantastic thing to improve her own infection.
Whatever the case, if it is true thatt she was reminded that she was a foreigner this would demonstrate a high degree of cruelty and mistreatment. She was made feel worse because she ask for a termination, after knowing that she was losing her baby while she was in agony herself.

No it's not always dangerous nailak. Choosing a natural miscarriage is a viable option, but most doctors advise close monitoring due to exactly what went wrong here - infection.

And in the UK women are OFFERED a choice of induction or expectant management if their waters break but they don't go into labour. The NHS may not be perfect, but it doesn't deliberately leave women to die.

It's true that there are several aspects to this story, crap medical care and attittudes to women enduring a miscarriage amongst them. But that doesn't detract from the relevance of abortion. It is the anti-abortion law that the hospital used as an excuse to leave this woman to die.