Sad death of Hindu mother in Catholic Ireland

I couldn't agree more! I do not as a rule agree with abortion but when the mothers life is at risk!

But why did she get septicaemia? Was a home abortion attempted?

According to this article in the Irish Times the foetus was removed after it died. The mother was, by this time, very ill.

Doesn't seem likely *jeni" she was a dentist and could have taken herself over to the UK or to India if she wanted an abortion. And would have been bright enough to appreciate the dangers. There was obviously something seriously wrong. I guess people get septicaemia in the abdomen for various reasons don't they?

www.rcog.org.uk/womens-health/clinical-guidance/sepsis-pregnancy-bacterial-green-top-64a

Ah! That explains it. She probably got the infection via the vagina if she was leaking amniotic fluid. The uterine contents should have been removed as she was fully dilated as well.

Our posts crossed nanad but it confirms what I said.

Oh poor thing. So avoidable. If membranes ruptured in first half of pregnancy what point in delaying the inevitable.

The hospital is wrong....the Catholic Church doesn't ban abortion altogether. It states that if the mother's life is at risk then an abortion can be performed. They even give a list of examples.

This is one of them

(4) There must be a sufficiently grave reason for permitting the evil effect to occur. In this case, the reason is to save the life of the mother, a good that is greater than or equal to the evil effect of the baby's death.

Most of you know I'm not a Catholic apologist but it does annoy me that the hospital used the Church as an excuse not to act.

www.hli.org/index.php/cloning/400?task=view

Words fail me – a rare occurrence.

Having read VQ's link, I am too angry to comment.

The poor girl was in agony for 2 days and the foetus at 17 weeks had no chance of survival - what on earth were the doctors thinking?

One more good reason why religion should not direct laws.

It seems what Ireland does not have is a law that says abortion is legal to save the life of the mother. It is a classic fudge. Bit like their divorce law.
They have a amendments to the constitution:

*The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.
and after the case about the 14 year old rape victim, that needed to travel to the Uk for an abortion:

This subsection shall not limit freedom to travel between the State and another state.
This subsection shall not limit freedom to obtain or make available, in the State, subject to such conditions as may be laid down by law, information relating to services lawfully available in another state.
That's all.
Nothing to say that a doctor can perform an operation that will end the life of a foetus (even a non-viable foetus) if the mother's life is endangered.*

VQ your link has made me queasy.
There are demonstrations tonight in Dublin and outside the Irish embassy in London.

I think that I have posted before with regard to my views on the Catholic Church, so won't go into them here. Yet another instance of laws made by men that do not understand how the world is for a lot of women.

I do not consider myself to be an ardent feminist, far from it, but I do think that no one group should be even remotely "oppressed" or treated differently on the grounds of their gender.

(JessM , I have posted on your TED thread, my comment there may too seem a bit militant, heaven knows what's got into me tonight.)

Nothing wrong with being militant phoenix - sometime anger is justified!

Thankyou Jess !

The problem has arisen this time because the people who framed the law based on Catholic teaching totally misunderstood the teaching. The Church doesn't say no to abortion it just sets very strict guidelines. This poor lady could have had an abortion and it wouldn't have gone against Catholic teaching.

I'm not saying Catholic Church is right....in fact I believe that every woman has the right to choose....but in this case the law does not reflect Church teaching.

Yes but the doctor may have felt he/she was breaking the law. Abortion is against the law in Ireland despite the constitutional amendments listed above.
And why have they not passed a law that clearly says: A doctor may perform an abortion in order to safeguard the mother? Because they have misinterpreted the (convoluted) Catholic position on this, is it VQ.
I say convoluted based on the link you posted. Which, as my Nana would have said, "disappears up its own a***"

If her membranes had ruptured and she was fully dilated and in danger of infection and septicaemia, surely at some time inthe four days before she died they could have foreseen trouble and given her precautionary antibiotics until they were certain that all was well?

A 17 week pregnancy with ruptured membranes and a dilated cervix is going to produce a viable foetus is it. Antibiotics or no antibiotics.

No, but prophylactic antibiotics should surely have been given.

I think they were eventually. But who knows. You cant believe everything you read in papers. There are two enquiries going on. I guess her medical notes will tell what happened.

A young woman has died.
Unnecessarily.
She wasn't listened to.
It should have been anticipated that there was at least possibility of infection.
A 13 month old baby died in Birmingham Children's Hospital.
Unnecessarily.
The mother wasn't listened to.
Baby ought to have been transferred to intensive care and wasn't.

Why do lessons keep having to be learned? Can't people figure things out before tragedy strikes?