"Ireland investigates death of ill abortion-seeker" by Shawn Pogatchnik | Associated Press, November 15, 2012
DUBLIN — The debate over legalizing abortion in Ireland flared Wednesday after the government confirmed that a woman in the midst of a miscarriage was refused an abortion and died in an Irish hospital after suffering from blood poisoning.
Prime Minister Enda Kenny said he was awaiting findings from three investigations into the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian woman who was 17 weeks pregnant. Her case highlighted the legal limbo in which pregnant women facing severe health problems can find themselves in predominantly Catholic Ireland.
Ireland’s constitution officially bans abortion, but a 1992 Supreme Court ruling found the procedure should be legalized for situations when the woman’s life is at risk from continuing the pregnancy. Five governments since have refused to pass a law resolving the confusion, leaving Irish hospitals reluctant to terminate pregnancies except in the most obviously life-threatening circumstances.
The bulk of Irish women wanting abortions, an estimated 4,000 per year, simply travel next door to England, where abortion has been legal on demand since 1967. But that option is difficult, if not impossible, for women in failing health.
Halappanavar’s husband, Praveen, said doctors at University Hospital Galway in western Ireland determined she was miscarrying within hours of her hospitalization for severe pain on Sunday, Oct. 21.
He said over the next three days, doctors refused their requests for an abortion to combat her surging pain and fading health.
The hospital declined to say whether doctors believed Halappanavar’s blood poisoning could have been reversed had she received an abortion, rather than waiting for the fetus to die on its own. In a statement, it described its own investigation into the death, and a parallel inquiry by the government’s Health Service Executive, as ‘‘standard practice’’ whenever a pregnant woman dies in a hospital. The Galway coroner also planned a public inquest.
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Prime Minister Enda Kenny said he was awaiting findings from three investigations into the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian woman who was 17 weeks pregnant. Her case highlighted the legal limbo in which pregnant women facing severe health problems can find themselves in predominantly Catholic Ireland.
Ireland’s constitution officially bans abortion, but a 1992 Supreme Court ruling found the procedure should be legalized for situations when the woman’s life is at risk from continuing the pregnancy. Five governments since have refused to pass a law resolving the confusion, leaving Irish hospitals reluctant to terminate pregnancies except in the most obviously life-threatening circumstances.
The bulk of Irish women wanting abortions, an estimated 4,000 per year, simply travel next door to England, where abortion has been legal on demand since 1967. But that option is difficult, if not impossible, for women in failing health.
Halappanavar’s husband, Praveen, said doctors at University Hospital Galway in western Ireland determined she was miscarrying within hours of her hospitalization for severe pain on Sunday, Oct. 21.
He said over the next three days, doctors refused their requests for an abortion to combat her surging pain and fading health.
The hospital declined to say whether doctors believed Halappanavar’s blood poisoning could have been reversed had she received an abortion, rather than waiting for the fetus to die on its own. In a statement, it described its own investigation into the death, and a parallel inquiry by the government’s Health Service Executive, as ‘‘standard practice’’ whenever a pregnant woman dies in a hospital. The Galway coroner also planned a public inquest.
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Related:
"10,000 rally over denied abortion in Ireland
DUBLIN — About 10,000 people marched through Dublin on Saturday in memory of the dentist who died of blood poisoning in an Irish hospital after being denied an abortion. The protest stopped outside the office of Prime Minister Enda Kenny, where many lit candles and held pictures of Savita Halappanavar (AP)."
"Ireland removes 3 doctors from abortion investigation" by Shawn Pogatchnik | Associated Press, November 21, 2012
DUBLIN — The Irish government removed three doctors Tuesday from its investigation into the death of an ailing woman who was denied an abortion in an Irish hospital, a case that has exposed Ireland to worldwide criticism.
Prime Minister Enda Kenny told lawmakers he hoped the move — barely 24 hours after Ireland unveiled the seven-member panel — would allow the woman’s husband to support the investigation into why Savita Halappanavar, 32, an Indian dentist, died Oct. 28 while hospitalized in Galway.
Kenny’s U-turn came hours after the woman’s husband, Praveen Halappanavar, said he would refuse to talk to the investigators and would not consent to their viewing his wife’s medical records because three of the Galway hospital’s senior doctors had been appointed as investigators.
Kenny said that the three doctors would be replaced by other officials ‘‘who have no connection at all with University Hospital Galway. In that sense the investigation will be completely and utterly independent.’’
“A man’s wife has died,’’ Kenny said. “Nothing will bring her back. But it is important for our country, for our people, for the family, for everybody concerned to ascertain the truth of what happened here. And this investigation can hopefully do that with the cooperation of Mr. Halappanavar.’’
Halappanavar did not immediately respond to the prime minister’s reversal. He previously also faulted the Irish investigation on several points....
Praveen Halappanavar said one of the doctors insisted they couldn’t remove a living fetus because Ireland ‘‘is a Catholic country.’’
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After the fetus died Oct. 25, its remains were surgically removed, but Savita Halappanavar’s health rapidly faded as internal infections spread and her internal organs gradually failed. A coroner determined she died from blood poisoning and e.coli bacteria potentially contracted at the hospital.
The chairman of the investigation, Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, said he hoped to have a face-to-face meeting with Halappanavar to persuade him to change his mind about talking to investigators because his testimony on his wife’s care would be central to identifying problems.
Arulkumaran, a native Sri Lankan who practices and teaches at St. George’s Hospital in London, is one of the world’s leading authorities on fetal monitoring and maternal health.
The case has highlighted Ireland’s failure to legislate in line with a two-decade-old Supreme Court judgment that women should receive abortions in cases where the pregnancy places their lives at risk. The court found this should be the only exception to Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion....
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Prime Minister Enda Kenny told lawmakers he hoped the move — barely 24 hours after Ireland unveiled the seven-member panel — would allow the woman’s husband to support the investigation into why Savita Halappanavar, 32, an Indian dentist, died Oct. 28 while hospitalized in Galway.
Kenny’s U-turn came hours after the woman’s husband, Praveen Halappanavar, said he would refuse to talk to the investigators and would not consent to their viewing his wife’s medical records because three of the Galway hospital’s senior doctors had been appointed as investigators.
Kenny said that the three doctors would be replaced by other officials ‘‘who have no connection at all with University Hospital Galway. In that sense the investigation will be completely and utterly independent.’’
“A man’s wife has died,’’ Kenny said. “Nothing will bring her back. But it is important for our country, for our people, for the family, for everybody concerned to ascertain the truth of what happened here. And this investigation can hopefully do that with the cooperation of Mr. Halappanavar.’’
Halappanavar did not immediately respond to the prime minister’s reversal. He previously also faulted the Irish investigation on several points....
Praveen Halappanavar said one of the doctors insisted they couldn’t remove a living fetus because Ireland ‘‘is a Catholic country.’’
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After the fetus died Oct. 25, its remains were surgically removed, but Savita Halappanavar’s health rapidly faded as internal infections spread and her internal organs gradually failed. A coroner determined she died from blood poisoning and e.coli bacteria potentially contracted at the hospital.
The chairman of the investigation, Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, said he hoped to have a face-to-face meeting with Halappanavar to persuade him to change his mind about talking to investigators because his testimony on his wife’s care would be central to identifying problems.
Arulkumaran, a native Sri Lankan who practices and teaches at St. George’s Hospital in London, is one of the world’s leading authorities on fetal monitoring and maternal health.
The case has highlighted Ireland’s failure to legislate in line with a two-decade-old Supreme Court judgment that women should receive abortions in cases where the pregnancy places their lives at risk. The court found this should be the only exception to Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion....
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DUBLIN — The husband of a woman who died after being denied an abortion in an Irish hospital accepted an apology Thursday from a midwife who, when explaining why her plea for a potentially life-saving abortion was rejected, said Ireland was ‘‘a Catholic country.’’
The apology came during a coroner’s inquest this week into the Oct. 28 death in University Hospital Galway of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist living in the western Ireland city.
Arguments over her death have sparked large public protests on both sides of the abortion debate, and forced the government to take action to clarify when the law permits abortion to end a life-threatening pregnancy.
Such practices supposedly were legalized by a 1992 Supreme Court judgment, but governments since have refused to pass backing legislation because of strong antiabortion sentiment in the predominantly Catholic nation. Abortion rights advocates argue that this legal confusion directly contributed to Halappanavar’s death.
Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when, hospitalized for pain, doctors informed her that the fetus would die. As her miscarriage pains worsened over the next three days, doctors refused her pleas for a termination because they could still detect a fetal heartbeat. By the time the fetus did die, Halappanavar was suffering from blood poisoning and died of organ failure 3½ days later.
The inquest is seeking to identify flaws in her care and rule whether an abortion might have saved her life.
Her widower, Praveen, in November accused hospital authorities of risking his wife’s life unnecessarily in defense of Catholic antiabortion doctrine. He said one hospital official had bluntly told him, when they protested that as Hindus they should be permitted an abortion, that they could not because Ireland was Catholic.
The senior midwife at the hospital, Ann Maria Burke, took the stand on Wednesday.
She surprised many by admitting that she had made the ‘‘Catholic country’’ comment and apologized directly to Praveen Halappanavar, who was present in the Galway courtroom.
‘‘It was not said in the context to offend her. I’m sorry how it came across,’’ Burke testified. ‘‘It does sound very bad now, but at the time I didn’t mean it that way.”
She was referring to referendums in 1992 and 2002 on proposed amendments to the constitution, which bans abortion.
In both cases, the government sought public approval for legalizing abortions to stop a physical threat to the woman’s life, but excluding a threat of suicide as reasonable grounds to grant an abortion.
The Supreme Court had ruled that credible suicide threats also should be sufficient grounds. Voters on both sides of the issue rejected both measures, leaving the legality of life-saving abortions in legal limbo.
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"Death of woman denied abortion blamed on staff; Inquest faults Irish hospital" by Shawn Pogatchnik | Associated Press, April 20, 2013
DUBLIN — A miscarrying Indian woman who died from blood poisoning in an Irish hospital after being denied an abortion perished because staff bungled her diagnosis and didn’t give her prompt treatment, a jury unanimously ruled Friday in a case that has divided Ireland.
The findings from a two-week coroner’s inquest into the causes of Savita Halappanavar’s Oct. 28 death at University Hospital Galway confirmed what her widower, Praveen, has maintained all along: Hospital staff refused to give his wife an abortion, citing the country’s Catholic social policies; waited three days until the 17-week-old fetus had died; then discovered she was in an advanced state of septicemia. She died 3½ days later from organ failure.
At the conclusion of his fact-finding probe the Galway coroner, Dr. Ciaran MacLoughlin, praised Praveen Halappanavar for his courage in protesting publicly against his wife’s medical treatment at the western Ireland hospital, where doctors had refused to perform a termination while the fetus retained a heartbeat. Halappanavar then shook the hands of the six-man, five-woman jury that ruled she died from ‘‘medical misadventure,’’ meaning incompetence in her care.
Outside, he said legal action would continue to try to make particular staff responsible for her death. He said the hospital’s inaction for several days as his wife’s health deteriorated during a drawn-out, painful miscarriage meant she might as well have stayed at home.
‘‘Medicine is all about improving patients’ health and life. And look what they did. She was left there to die. It’s horrendous, barbaric, and inhuman the way Savita was treated in that hospital,’’ said Halappanavar, speaking on the day that would have been the couple’s fifth wedding anniversary.
The case highlighted a two-decade dilemma in Ireland’s abortion law. A 1992 Supreme Court ruling declared that abortions deemed necessary to save a woman’s life must be legal, but successive governments have refused to pass any law to support the ruling, fearful of voter backlash where Catholicism remains the dominant faith. That has left doctors fearful of facing prosecution for murder if they perform terminations in a country whose constitution contains a blanket ban on the practice.
The government of Prime Minister Enda Kenny has pledged it will pass a law, with related medical guidelines, by July that defines when life-saving abortions can be given. But Kenny’s own party is split down the middle, with Catholic conservatives pledging to vote against the measure amid lobbying by church leaders....
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Irish want abortion access, poll says
Belfast to open Ireland’s 1st abortion clinic
"Abortion clinic opened in Belfast to protests" by Shawn Pogatchnik | Associated Press, October 19, 2012
BELFAST — The first abortion clinic on the island of Ireland opened Thursday in downtown Belfast, unleashing angry protests on the street and uniting Catholic and Protestant politicians in calls to investigate the new facility.
The clinic, run by the British family planning charity Marie Stopes, will be permitted to provide abortions only in exceptional circumstances to women less than nine weeks pregnant.
But the opening caught Northern Ireland’s socially conservative politicians off guard, and they vowed to launch an investigation into how the clinic operates. About 400 protesters who lined the sidewalk outside the facility all day said they were certain that public pressure would force authorities to shut it.
I was told it was dividing... never mind.
Both effectively export the controversy to Britain, where abortion on demand has been legal since 1967....
Protesters displayed posters with graphic pictures of aborted fetuses, sang hymns, and sparred verbally with passing pedestrians who made clear they want liberalized access to abortion in Northern Ireland. Protesters didn’t directly heckle people entering or leaving the clinic, which is inside a much larger building with several offices.
Directors of Marie Stopes emphasized they would comply fully with Northern Ireland’s law permitting abortions only when the woman’s life or long-term health is endangered. They said that such exceptional abortions are already carried out in secrecy in Northern Ireland hospitals, between 30 and 50 a year. Many more eligible women travel to Britain rather than confront stern antiabortion attitudes at home....
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UPDATE: Ireland proposal on abortions finally arrives
Offensive pun intended?
When they do have kids:
"Ireland to vote on expanding rights for children; Government makes final push for amendment" by Shawn Pogatchnik | Associated Press, November 10, 2012
DUBLIN — Ireland’s 1937 constitution can be amended only through national referendums. Such votes typically involve polarized debates, with opposition parties often attacking the government onissues such as divorce, abortion, and neutrality.
Not this time. Every party and every child-welfare charity supports the proposed amendment, while only one of Parliament’s 166 members says he will vote no. All opinion polls indicate voter approval for the measure, in part because of Ireland’s scandal-plagued record on child protection to date.
For decades, reform-minded judges and social workers have called for changes to Ireland’s legal framework for protecting children. A series of incest and abuse cases have highlighted how care workers and agencies have identified children in wretched conditions and yet failed for years to extract them from horrific situations, partly because judges found that the law favored parents’ rights.
The Irish Times called for a ‘‘yes’’ vote in Friday’s lead editorial. It argued that rejection ‘‘would mark a step backwards towards a more rigid, forbidding society where children were frequently treated as legal ‘chattels’ within sometimes dysfunctional families.’’
Typically in Ireland’s divorce courts, the views of children are recorded only sometimes and second-hand via court-appointed experts, and the rights of the mother are paramount.
The proposed amendment commits the courts to hear direct testimony from children and ensure their views are ‘‘given due weight’’
Adoption laws are stranger. Children in long-term foster care cannot be adopted at all if their abusive Irish parents are married.
The government plans to pass a trove of legislation if the amendment passes.
One bill would explicitly make it a crime to hide information on a suspected child abuser. That measure appears particularly designed to combat the kind of systematic cover-up of child rape in Ireland’s Catholic Church, the subject of several fact-finding inquiries over the past decade.
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Not this time. Every party and every child-welfare charity supports the proposed amendment, while only one of Parliament’s 166 members says he will vote no. All opinion polls indicate voter approval for the measure, in part because of Ireland’s scandal-plagued record on child protection to date.
For decades, reform-minded judges and social workers have called for changes to Ireland’s legal framework for protecting children. A series of incest and abuse cases have highlighted how care workers and agencies have identified children in wretched conditions and yet failed for years to extract them from horrific situations, partly because judges found that the law favored parents’ rights.
The Irish Times called for a ‘‘yes’’ vote in Friday’s lead editorial. It argued that rejection ‘‘would mark a step backwards towards a more rigid, forbidding society where children were frequently treated as legal ‘chattels’ within sometimes dysfunctional families.’’
Typically in Ireland’s divorce courts, the views of children are recorded only sometimes and second-hand via court-appointed experts, and the rights of the mother are paramount.
The proposed amendment commits the courts to hear direct testimony from children and ensure their views are ‘‘given due weight’’
Adoption laws are stranger. Children in long-term foster care cannot be adopted at all if their abusive Irish parents are married.
The government plans to pass a trove of legislation if the amendment passes.
One bill would explicitly make it a crime to hide information on a suspected child abuser. That measure appears particularly designed to combat the kind of systematic cover-up of child rape in Ireland’s Catholic Church, the subject of several fact-finding inquiries over the past decade.
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"Ireland votes to strengthen children’s rights" Associated Press, November 12, 2012
DUBLIN — Voters have approved an amendment to insert stronger rights for children into Ireland’s constitution with a narrower-than-expected 57.4 percent ‘‘yes’’ vote, according to official results released Sunday.
Only a third of registered voters participated in Saturday’s referendum, reflecting a low-key campaign. All political parties and children’s charities supported the ‘‘yes’’ side.
Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Sunday that the amendment will allow his government to pass laws making it easier for Irish children to be adopted, for courts to remove children from abusive homes, and for children to testify in court.
Analysts say the unexpectedly high ‘‘no’’ vote reflects low turnout among ‘‘yes’’ voters, antigovernment feeling, and a surprise Supreme Court ruling.
Ireland’s highest court found that the government’s information booklet on the children’s rights amendment was biased and violated the referendum law requiring that the government not to fund only one side of a referendum argument.
A lying, criminal government, even on this issue?
The government apologized, resisted calls to postpone the vote, and urged voters to approve the measure regardless of the strong possibility that the amendment would face legal challenge if passed.
The court ordered the government to take down the bulk of material from its campaign website, which had a similar presentation of facts and arguments, but said it would be impossible to recall the booklets. The court had no power to order a postponement of the vote.
‘‘This amendment is 20 years overdue,” said Leo Varadkar, government minister leading the campaign for approval.
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Just keep them out of the hands of the priests:
Only a third of registered voters participated in Saturday’s referendum, reflecting a low-key campaign. All political parties and children’s charities supported the ‘‘yes’’ side.
Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Sunday that the amendment will allow his government to pass laws making it easier for Irish children to be adopted, for courts to remove children from abusive homes, and for children to testify in court.
Analysts say the unexpectedly high ‘‘no’’ vote reflects low turnout among ‘‘yes’’ voters, antigovernment feeling, and a surprise Supreme Court ruling.
Ireland’s highest court found that the government’s information booklet on the children’s rights amendment was biased and violated the referendum law requiring that the government not to fund only one side of a referendum argument.
A lying, criminal government, even on this issue?
The government apologized, resisted calls to postpone the vote, and urged voters to approve the measure regardless of the strong possibility that the amendment would face legal challenge if passed.
The court ordered the government to take down the bulk of material from its campaign website, which had a similar presentation of facts and arguments, but said it would be impossible to recall the booklets. The court had no power to order a postponement of the vote.
‘‘This amendment is 20 years overdue,” said Leo Varadkar, government minister leading the campaign for approval.
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Just keep them out of the hands of the priests:
"Priest who urged reform may succeed Ireland’s cardinal" by Shawn Pogatchnik | Associated Press, January 19, 2013
DUBLIN — Monsignor Eamon Martin sits on the National Board for Safeguarding Children, a church-funded body that can investigate how dioceses and independent orders of priests and nuns concealed child sex abuse in the past, and to recommend reforms. That board over the past four years has uncovered myriad coverups and shoddy practices, including in Martin’s own diocese centered on the Northern Ireland city of Londonderry.
That work builds on the efforts of state-authorized investigators who, over the past decade, have published several mammoth reports documenting how church authorities protected pedophiles in their ranks from prosecution from the 1930s to the mid-1990s....
A taxpayer-funded compensation program already has paid out more than $1.3 billion to more than 13,000 claimants and their lawyers, and several hundred child-rape victims have successfully sued church authorities.
One such lawsuit in 2010 uncovered records showing that Cardinal Sean Brady, when serving as a canon lawyer to a border diocese in 1975, was involved in suppressing information on child rapes committed by the Rev. Brendan Smyth.
Brady admitted he had interviewed two boys who had been sexually assaulted by Smyth, sworn both to secrecy, and did not tell police or any civil authorities about the alleged crimes.
Nor did he warn parents of other children identified by the boys as suffering abuse. Brady apologized publicly but insisted he had acted appropriately because he was too low-ranking in the church and was following superiors’ orders.
Smyth eventually was exposed as Ireland’s most dangerous child abuser in history, molesting or raping more than 100 boys and girls in several parts of Ireland, Britain, and two US states, Rhode Island and North Dakota, before Northern Ireland police finally brought charges against him in 1993. Smyth died in prison in 1997.
Veteran observers of Irish Catholicism said Martin was an inspired choice to show that the church wanted a new generation to repair its battered moral authority....
Related: Belfast judge: Gay, unmarried couples can adopt
Time to say goodbye:
"Clinton makes farewell visit to Northern Ireland amid violence" by Michael R. Gordon and Alan Cowell | New York Times, December 08, 2012
BELFAST — The discovery of the devices elsewhere in the country came after days of chaos on Belfast’s streets when unionists, who seek continued ties with Britain, blocked traffic to protest a decision by the City Council to limit the number of days when Britain’s Union flag is flown at City Hall.
“The violence is a reminder that, although much progress has been made, the hard work of reconciliation and fostering mutual understanding must continue,’’ Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said after meeting some of Northern Ireland’s political leaders.
“The only path forward is a peaceful democratic one that recognizes the right of others to express their opinions but not to resort to violence,’’ she said. ‘‘There can be no place in the new Northern Ireland for any violence. Any of the remnants of the past need to be quickly and unequivocally condemned....
Did she toss a few back again?
Did she toss a few back again?
The tensions are not related to Clinton’s visit, analysts and officials said, but offer a sobering backdrop to what has been depicted as a celebratory visit recalling President Bill Clinton’s diplomatic triumphs in promoting the Northern Ireland peace in the 1990s along with the leaders of Britain and Ireland.
The causes of the current spike in tensions in Northern Ireland are diverse but spring from familiar roots, underscoring the continued power of sectarian passions....
I no longer buy sectarianism because regular people just aren't like that. Sectarianism is a war-promoting, agenda-pushing front for the Jewish War Media and its intelligence assets.
I no longer buy sectarianism because regular people just aren't like that. Sectarianism is a war-promoting, agenda-pushing front for the Jewish War Media and its intelligence assets.
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"Dan Rooney resigns as ambassador to Ireland" Associated Press, December 15, 2012
PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Steelers chairman and co-owner Dan Rooney has stepped down as the US ambassador to Ireland, a post he assumed after backing President Obama’s presidential campaign despite being a longtime Republican.
The embassy in Dublin said Rooney, 80, resigned Friday and returned to the United States. Press officer John Murphy said Rooney met with Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, and President Michael Higgins during a final round of engagements this week.
Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore hosted a farewell dinner for Rooney on Wednesday, but news of his imminent departure was kept secret, even though the resignation had been expected for some time.
Rooney, the grandson of an Irish immigrant, supported Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary and then campaigned for him.
In an op-ed article published Friday in The Irish Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rooney said the relationship between the United States and Ireland is as strong as ever....
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