Ireland: No abortion for suicidal young rape victim, forced premature c-section delivery instead

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/ireland-woman-forced-caesarean-pregnant-rape-friend

An unnamed suicidal young rape victim immigrant to Ireland was not only denied the abortion she begged for, she was forcibly given a Caesarean section after attempting to appeal to a recent law Ireland passed allegedly to protect people in her very circumstances.

The case is the first proper test of Ireland's 2013 Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, which allows for abortions in Irish hospitals in limited circumstances.

The law provides for cases where the woman's life would be in danger if the pregnancy goes to full term, or in cases where she is suicidal in such instances as rape and incest.

Critics say that in this instance the law has proved of no practical value to the woman concerned.

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The guidelines mean that women seeking an abortion could need approval from up to seven experts.

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Her friend confirmed that the woman had first asked for a termination when she was eight weeks pregnant.

After the woman threatened a hunger strike to protest against the decision, local health authorities obtained a court order to deliver the baby prematurely – at around 25 weeks, according to some reports – to ensure its safety. The infant has been placed in care.

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It is unclear just how young the victim is, but given that the baby had to be delivered by Caesarean section, I wonder if she is even fully grown yet.

The girl was trying to starve herself to death. She agreed to the Caesarean section only after the authorities made arrangements to force-feed her.

Some background.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...avita-Halappanavar-official-report-finds.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24463106

Ireland passed the 2013 Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, a reformed law about abortion in July of last year after international outcry about the horrifying death of Savita Halappanavar in October 2012.

Dr. Haplappanavar, a dentist, died in Ireland of a massive infection after a prolonged and excruciatingly painful natural miscarriage.

Irish doctors and nurses had refused to abort the doomed fetus to spare Dr. Halappanavar, telling Dr. Halappanavar (a Hindu) that Ireland was "a Catholic country."

Ireland has extraordinarily strict anti-abortion laws. Between 1861 and 1992 all abortions no matter the reason were illegal, punishable by hanging.

After the international outcry during the shocking and shameful case of 1992 when a suicidal 14-year-old Irish rape victim was blocked from leaving Ireland in order to obtain an abortion elsewhere, Ireland moderated its laws somewhat, allowing that perhaps abortions might be permissible if the mother was likely to die otherwise. Maybe.

Still, not a single woman in Ireland met the requirements for decades after that law was on the books.

In the years since, Ireland's abortion laws have remained an unholy mess of contradiction, vagueness, and impossible hurdles, such that its first legal abortion was only performed less than a year ago, immediately after the publication of the report on Dr. Halappanavar's death.

At the time of Dr. Halappanavar's death the laws seemed to say that one could not abort a live unviable (too young to survive outside the womb) fetus for any reason whatever, so the doctors and nurses waited for days until they could no longer hear a fetal heartbeat, overlooking the signs of maternal distress.

By the time the fetus was verifiably dead, Dr. Halappanavar was well on her way to a horrible death from infection.

None of this is to say that Irish women don't already get abortions at a good clip. If one is not poor, sick, suicidal, or a child, if one can afford it, one can easily get an abortion by discreetly traveling to the UK.

And Irish legislators know it, which is why they have never screwed up the courage to pass humane abortion laws that might upset some of their constituents. There is enough of a pressure release valve for the wealthy and comfortable who need abortions.

The poor, the sick, the suicidal, and children, however, suffer and die for the Irish pretense of sinlessness.

kikazaru said:

"….forcibly given a Caesarean section"

FORCIBLY given a Cesarean section.

FORCIBLY.

I'm trying to wrap my head around a country, (other than some backwards hellhole where women have less worth than the cattle they tend) that would FORCIBLY give a woman an operation AGAINST her will.

This makes me infuriated and shocked and saddened, that a supposedly civilized country did this. Can you imagine if this was your wife/daughter/niece, and she was in effect being held hostage by her own government and then operated on?

Unbelievable.

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In theory she agreed to it.

In practice it was after they were going to force-feed her to end her hunger strike and suicide attempt.

So it's kind of difficult to see it as not coerced.

TheMathematician said:

It's highly doubtful that change will occur any time soon in Ireland primarily because the Catholic church has a stranglehold over many parts of the Irish population.

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Wilde_at_heart said:

When those in the North claim their reluctance to ever join the South is because it's 'ruled from Rome', they do have a point; one that gets forgotten by those whose familiarity with 'The Troubles' comes mostly from U2 songs or Hollywood films.

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But is that entirely it? Italy is, by all reports, just as strongly Catholic a country, and I cannot recall having heard stories like this from there.