Savita's case

  Savita Halappanavar was a 31-year-old woman who moved from India to Ireland 4 years ago. She spent a week in the University Hospital Galway before dying from blood poisoning. During the time she was hospitalized, she, who was 17 weeks pregnant, was informed that she was miscarrying. She went through a lot of pain and suffering during the 7 days of her stay in the Hospital and repeatedly asked doctor to finish her pregnancy.  However, the Hospital refused her request arguing that the fetus still had a heartbeat and because “this is a Catholic country.”

  Savita was allowed to have an abortion almost 3 days after the fetus’ heartbeat stopped, but it was too late. She was moved to an intensive care unit, but she died of septicemia.

   Although abortion is illegal in Ireland, the Supreme Court of the country commanded to do it in case the mother’s life is in danger during pregnancy; unfortunately, governments in Ireland have refused to make that command legal, so hospitals rarely obey this order.

   I think it is really unfair for women to not have the right to decide for their own lives, especially when the fetus has no chance whatsoever to survive and puts in danger the mother’s life. Moreover, I believe it is not fair to argue that because of religious reasons Savita was not allowed to end her fetus’ life. Why, if not everybody in the world shares the same religion, do societies have to be so influenced by one?

 What do you think of Savita’s case? 

Therapeutic abortion

When someone important in our lives passes away we feel what is called by psychiatrists the steps of "grief". But what if the person we lost weren't even born yet? What if the person you lost were your unborn child?

When we think of grief we think of psycological process that is normal and that it will be overcome, eventually.

Actually, grief can be a little bit more complex than that. Although women have been acused for centuries of hysteria and weakness of character, recent studies had focused on explaining the physiological effects of grief after the death of an unborn child. A study conducted in 2009 shows that the loss of an unborn child by induced abortion because of malformation of the fetus and other problems is one of the most traumatic events in life that can cause intense grief in a mother. Evidence showed in this study supports the hypothesis that the same neural structures involved in the experience of physical pain are involved in the experience of social pain and loss (Neural Activation Underlying Acute Grief in Women After the Loss of an Unborn Child by Anette Kersting, Patricia Ohrmann, Anya Pedersen, Kristin Kroker, Daniela Samberg, Jochen Bauer, Harald Kugel, Katja Koelkebeck, Johannes Steinhard, Walter Heindel, Volker Arolt, and Thomas Suslow).

The process of grief can be one of the most life changing experieces in life, but we should be careful when living this process.

Therapeutic abortion is a topic that can never be black or white; but, certainly, whoever can cope with the consequences not only has a strong soul, but also a strong mind.