Savita Halappanavar, 17 weeks pregnant, was diagnosed as being in the middle of a miscarriage when she was admitted to an Irish hospital. She asked that labor be induced in order to get the whole thing over with, since she was in a lot of pain.
According to Savita's husband, the doctor refused on the grounds that the baby's heart was still beating and that since Ireland is a Catholic country, labor couldn't be induced while the baby's heart was still beating.
I don't know if Savita's doctor is an idiot or not. He might be just a rat-bastard and not a clueless clod. Either way, he was wrong. If a miscarriage is in progress, there is no law -- religious or secular -- that bans inducing labor to prevent the risk of maternal infection. There is no law -- religious or secular -- that bans using forceps to gently facilitate the delivery of the still-living 17-week baby. Savita's baby could have been removed from her uterus at any time once the inevitable miscarriage was diagnosed. To do so would have been 100% legal under Irish law. To do so would have been 100% permissible under Catholic doctrine.
What Irish law and Catholic doctrine forbid is an abortion.
A 17-week abortion is performed by reaching into the uterus with forceps and twisting pieces off the baby's body until the baby is dead and the uterus is empty.
By pulling the living baby into chunks, the abortion not only kills the baby, it also produces sharp bone fragments that can scratch, tear, or puncture the uterine wall. Such injuries actually increase the risk of infection by providing a direct pathway into the mother's blood stream.
In addition to helping the infection to spread faster, these injuries also bring with them the risk of fatal hemorrhage, embolism, and clotting disorders.
An abortion would not have reduced the risk to Savita's life. It would have compounded the risk. It would likely have made death flat-out inevitable.
It bears repeating: Savita requested an assisted delivery of a miscarrying fetus. What Savita requested was perfectly permissible under both Irish law and Catholic doctrine.What Savita requested was not an abortion.
I can understand why abortion advocacy groups misrepresent the nature of Savita's request. Of course they would misrepresent her request as an abortion request. Of course they would try to demonize both the Irish legislature and the Catholic Church, who are their sworn enemies in the drive for abortion-on-demand. To frame an obstetric malpractice case as a a dastardly, deadly deed done by their enemies is to be expected.
But why are the news media complicit? Why are they following the abortion-advocacy narrative and presenting Savita's death not as what it was -- flat out malpractice -- but rather framing it as a legally-mandated death?
I'm postulating one of two reasons:
1. The news media pass along the pronouncements of abortion-advocacy organizations because they trust those organizations and see no need to do any of their own investigating.
2. The news media know that what's being done is an act of deception and are deliberately complicit because they share the goals of the abortion advocacy organizations.
Perhaps there is another reason. And perhaps the reason isn't important. But what is important -- what is vital -- is understanding the truth. And the truth is this: Savita Halappanavar never requested an abortion. She never, never asked that her baby be put to death.
We can expect abortion advocacy organizations to slander a dead woman in order to achieve their ends. We can even expect them to lie to her family and characterize her innocent request as a request for an abortion so that they can then be used as pawns and as human shields. The abortion rights movement has made deceiving families and then using them as political props into an art form. They have a right to free speech, even if they use that free speech in dispicable ways.
But we need to stop letting the media get away with it. They need to start telling the truth: about Savita, about the doctor, about the circumstances, and about the organizations that are putting this woman's family through hell to achieve their political ends.
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