Ireland probes death of miscarrying woman who sought abortion (allegedly, doctors refused)

[No Elephants]

By SYDNEY LUPKIN
Nov. 15, 2012

A 31-year-old woman is dead after doctors in Ireland reportedly refused to give her an abortion as she languished in pain from an ongoing miscarriage.

<snip>

"I don't do abortions, I'll tell you right now. ... But I'd have to tell the mother, 'Your baby doesn't have a chance and to save your life, I have to do this,'" said Dr. John Coppes, the medical director at Austin Medical Center-Mayo Health System in Minnesota.

Savita Halappanavar was 17-weeks pregnant when she arrived at University Hospital Galway in Ireland, complaining of back pain, her husband told the Irish Times. Doctors told Halappanavar she was miscarrying.

A day into her hospital stay, Halappanavar asked doctors to terminate the pregnancy because she was in "agony," her water had broken and she was shivering and vomiting. However, they said they couldn't perform the operation if a fetal heartbeat was present because Ireland is a "Catholic country," Praveen Halappanavar, her husband, told the Irish Times.

<snip>

At the Galway University Hospital, Halappanavar's fetal heartbeat stopped nearly three days after she arrived on Oct. 21. Doctors evacuated Halappanavar's uterus, but she died of septicemia, or blood poisoning, on Oct. 28, according the Irish Times, which cited the autopsy report.

Coppes, who has never met Halappanavar, said that when a woman's water, or amniotic sac, breaks during early pregnancy, she is at risk for infection because the barrier between the baby and the outside world is broken. The fetus's environment is also no longer sterile, putting it at risk for "horrible malformations."

Coppes said the fact that Halappanavar's husband reported she was ill and vomiting suggested a serious infection had set in, and it's possible that it spread to her blood, resulting the septicemia that killed her. When asked how long it takes for an infection in the uterus to spread to the blood, Coppes said it can vary.

"Let's put it this way, the clock starts ticking when the membrane ruptures," he said. "It can be pretty fast. That's why you don't sit and watch."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/irish-abortion-denial-death-preventable-doctors/story?id=17720871#.UKT794YhTrc


Giving medical treatment to a mother already in the midst of a miscarriage is not an abortion, you murderers who think you are not doctors, but God.

And why does a Mayo Clinic Medical Center have a director who says emphatically that he does not do abortions?

We're not your children, and we have a constitutional right.

[formercia]

1. See what superstition does to people

Now, the Mother and Child are both dead. Happy?

[No Elephants]

2. FWIW, I don't believe that belief in God was responsible for this incredible result.

I would never have let this woman die and leave her husband without a wife or a baby.

That would be putting myself in the place of God, which the Bible very clearly forbids.

[Enthusiast]

4. Jesus should

have clarified his position on abortion. :sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

6. He never mentioned it, which should tell people something.

He never mentioned gays, either.

Once or twice, in the entire Bible, in the King James version, it says something about gays being an abomination to God. However, as I understand it from a Hebrew scholar, the word can mean a male prostitute.

In any event, the Bible never says that people should shun gays, or disown them, or treat them as dead or enact laws against them. That was all gloss thought up by humans who love to play God.

The Bible also says that gossip is one of the things God hates most. (In that list of things God hates most, gays are not mentioned.) Yet, as far as I know, gossips are allowed to marry, adopt children, etc. The Bible also says that God loves a merry heart. Yet, we have no laws against being depressed.

According to my Bible, God is a very big boy and quite capable of doing whatever he wants about the things he dislikes. And, both the old and new testaments strongly suggest we leave things like that to him.


ETA: I think I can be confident in saying had Jesus been one of those doctors, he would have saved the mother.

She died because of a legalistic rule about a fetal heartbeart. Jesus very clearly condemned strict adherence to religious rules when net harm results. He also condemned taking religion to an extreme.

The NT contains, for example, a story about picking corn on the Sabbath in order to eat it, which no Jew of his time would have done. Not because the Bible prohibits picking corn, but because the Bible declared the Sabbath a day of rest and, by Jesus's day, people already had taken that simple statement to extremes.

Offhand, I cannot recall if Jesus picked the corn or he did not chide his disciples when they picked the corn. Whatever it was, the religious extremists of his day counted it against him.

I think the moral of the story is that you don't let religious legalism or religious extremism stop you from meeting the basic physical needs of humans.

[Enthusiast]

10. Great post. Yeah, I know that about Jesus and the bible.

That's why it is so irritating to see all the biblical cherry picking going on surrounding the birth control, gay and abortion issues.

[formercia]

5. I'm sorry if I sound sarcastic

but this very thing happened to a close friend.

She became pregnant by her boyfriend and not being emancipated, her parents made the decision for her not to have an abortion. Dying of Seprticemia is a horrible way to go. Neither she or the baby survived. Her parents on the other hand, tried to blame everyone but themselves.
So, yeah, I tend to be a bit sarcastic in matters like this.

[No Elephants]

7. I never called you out for sarcasm. I am sarcastic in about 95% of my posts.

You made your point and I made my point.

That's how posting goes. As long as you don't attack me (or any DU2er, for that matter) personally, I will have no problem with your posts. However, if you call me a poopyhead, I will come after you! Fair warning.

[formercia]

8. Deal...

Call me anything you like, just don't call me late for Dinner. :hi:

[Enthusiast]

9. That is awful!

Sorry about the loss of your friend in such a cruel way.

[formercia]

11. It still affects me after all these Years.

Her parents were Evangelical Fundies. They weren't bad people, just True Believers. Suffering was just 'God's Will.'

Thank You for caring. :hi:

[Enthusiast]

3. I'm with you.

Just terrible.