Savita Halappanavar case – some links

These are worth following:-

(1) Pro-Choice Campaign Ireland Facebook page. I haven't yet seen details of any follow-up demonstrations. Last night's, by the way, was reported by RTE as around a thousand, and there was one in Cork too.

(2) Irish Times today "Tragic case demonstrates moral minefield faced by doctors"

Paul Cullen says that the current legal framework forces doctors to make life-and-death decisions affecting both mother and foetus, knowing that a wrong call may feed into the fevered debate on abortion.  Even the Medical Council guidelines seem contradictory, saying that every effort to preserve the life of the mother should be made in exceptional circumstances, where “there may be little or no hope of the baby surviving”.

(3) Irish Times today's editorial - An avoidable tragedy?

Argues that it's not possible to say categorically that earlier medical intervention to end Savita Halappanavar’s pregnancy by “expediting delivery” of her miscarrying foetus would definitely have saved her life.

But profound questions arise for the hospital. Also for the Medical Council about the ambiguity of its guidelines or its failure to ensure that they are fully understood. The current legal position is a morass, and there is an unarguable imperative on the Government to clarify it.

(4) Did Irish Catholic law or malpractice kill Savita Halappanavar?
 
A blog posted by Dr. Jen Gunter, a Canadian who says she knows these scenarios backwards and forwards as an OB/GYN,  and moreover had ruptured membranes in her own pregnancy.
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