Savita Halapanavar, Ireland
Savita Halapanavar was 31 years old when she died of blood poisoning nearly a week after arriving at Galway University Hospital (UHG) in Ireland, complaining of severe back pain.
Halapanavar, a dentist from Karnataka, southwest India, was 17 weeks pregnant with her first child and went to hospital with her husband Pravin on Sunday, October 21, 2012. Hours later, doctors said a miscarriage was inevitable, although it could be hear the heartbeat of the fetus. So far, Halapanavar is in “unbearable” pain and “very upset,” according to health officials. Her plan was to “wait and see” if she would spontaneously.
At the time, Irish law stated that abortion was only allowed if there was a “real and substantial” threat to a woman’s life. There were no miscarriages until Tuesday. The couple asked if the person could be challenged, but the doctor told them: “According to Irish law, if there is no evidence of risk to the mother’s life, our hands are tied, as long as there is a heart of the fetus[beat]”
Woman in a mural by Savita Halapanavar in Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson / PA
Halapanavar developed a high fever. On Wednesday morning, the medical team diagnosed an infection and later septic shock. Her condition was deteriorating rapidly.
A plan was made, but not implemented, to give Halapanavar a cure for abortion. According to the investigation of the health service at that time, the death of the fetus was certain and the appropriate treatment was termination of pregnancy due to the risk to life of Halapanavar.
Halapanavar had a miscarriage in the middle of Wednesday afternoon and was admitted to intensive care. She was now critically ill with severe sepsis and multiple organ failure. She suffered cardiac arrest and died in the early hours of Sunday, October 28, almost a week after she was admitted.
The case has sparked outrage in Ireland and highlighted how the law puts women at risk for life-threatening medical conditions in Irish hospitals. In interviews with the media, Halapanavar’s husband revealed that he and his wife had repeatedly asked for the pregnancy to be terminated, but were refused and said, “This is a Catholic country.”
Protesters took to the streets, calling for responsibility and change, accusing the Irish state of failing to protect its citizens. A 2015 Amnesty International report said her “entirely preventable death is a consequence of the Irish Abortion Restriction Act”.
Anti-abortion activists say the case is being used by those who have an agenda to liberalize Irish law, and the Catholic Church has said the woman has no more right to life than the fetus.
The government, under intense public scrutiny, has conducted numerous investigations into Halapanavar’s death. In the final report of the HSE, the investigation team stated that the termination of the pregnancy was medically indicated and would be carried out in “other jurisdictions”.
In May 2018, Ireland voted strongly to lift its almost complete abortion ban. The referendum – in which 66.4% voted “Yes”, a majority of 706,349 – attracted the highest turnout for social issues.
Family members hold photos of Olga Reyes, a 22-year-old law student who died of an untreated ectopic pregnancy in Nicaragua in 2007. Photo: Esteban Félix / AP
Olga Reyes, Nicaragua
22-year-old Olga Reyes waited in pain for hours in the hospital ward in 2006. She had already been discharged from one hospital but arrived at the next with evidence that she needed urgent care: an ultrasound scan from a private clinic showing an ectopic pregnancy tore her fallopian tube.
The fertilized egg is implanted outside her womb, and the embryo, about six weeks old, cannot survive, but is life-threatening: Reyes bleeds to death. Doctors delayed treatment, fearing the consequences of a ban on therapeutic abortions, which was introduced only months earlier, in November 2006. When they took Reyes for surgery, it was too late.
The 22-year-old law student, who celebrated her wedding just two months earlier, suffered multiple heart attacks during the operation and died of a brain arrest due to bleeding.
In a report published the same year on the ban on therapeutic abortions in Nicaragua, Human Rights Watch said it should have been treated immediately under government rules on ectopic pregnancies, but the controversial new ban on therapeutic abortions means doctors fear intervention.
Just days after the law was changed, another young woman, the same age as Reyes, spent days unsuccessfully seeking treatment at a local hospital. When she was transferred to another hospital, it was too late again. She died of cardiac arrest.
The penal code, introduced by Nicaragua to enforce its ban, included prison sentences for anyone who had an abortion, as well as for women seeking them, regardless of whether their lives were in danger. That’s why, her husband told the media, Reyes was left in agony in the hospital ward.
The deaths of young women did not change the course of Nicaragua’s laws. Following the ban on therapeutic abortions in 2006, further amendments led to a total ban until 2008, without exception, for saving a woman’s life.
People are protesting the death of Isabella, a 30-year-old Polish woman killed by abortion laws. Photo: David Zhukhovich / Reuters
Isabella, Poland
The morning before her death, Isabella * sent a message to her mother from the hospital. “The child weighs 485 grams. For now, because of the abortion law, I have to stay in bed, and they can’t do anything, “she wrote. “They will wait for the baby to die or something to happen. If it doesn’t work out, I can expect sepsis.
Isabella, 30, owned a hair salon in Pszczyna, a small town in Silesia. In her Instagram account, Pani Iza, as she was known to customers, regularly posted photos of her wedding hairstyles and hair transformations that deserve influence. Her clients spared no compliments. “The best hairdresser in the world, you see, she loves her job,” reads one of the latest online reviews from June 2021, a month before Isabella died. “Thanks to her, I went from black to blonde and my hair survived!”
When her waters erupted at 22 weeks, Isabella thought it was stressful. She had spent the day in hospital with her nine-year-old daughter, who had fallen off her scooter. Isabella was taken to hospital the next day, although no treatment was received until the next morning.
“There’s nothing they can do, because then it looks like they did it on purpose,” she sent a message to her mother, explaining why doctors did not cause the birth hours after the water erupted.
“They have to wait for this to happen on their own. And if it doesn’t, then we are waiting for the heart to stop beating, “she wrote. “A woman is like an incubator. And the baby also suffers – he has nothing to breathe. “
Under Polish law introduced in 2021, abortion is legal to save the health or life of the mother and in cases where the pregnancy is the result of rape. Previously, the procedure could be performed legally in cases of severe fetal abnormalities.
Although doctors could legally have an abortion, they chose not to do so until it was too late. The law that would allow them to do so was “difficult to implement in practice,” said Jolanta Budzowska, a lawyer representing Isabella’s family in a lawsuit against the hospital. “If they have an abortion too early and prosecutors decide there is no danger to the mother [at that point] they could face up to three years in prison. Therefore, doctors are more cautious in their decisions. “
As the doctors waited for the fetal heartbeat to stop, the women in Isabella’s ward remembered her begging the staff. “She felt something was wrong. But they kept telling her that her heart was beating and that as long as her heart was beating, that’s how it should be, “a woman told Polish media.
“To this day, I hear her words: that she wants to live, she doesn’t want to die, that there are people to live for,” the woman said.
Following nationwide protests, the hospital where Isabella died was fined 650,000 zlotys (£ 120,000) by the Polish health service. The lawsuit against the doctor responsible for Isabella during her hospital stay continues. The hospital’s director resigned in March.
Manuela, a Salvadoran woman who was sentenced to 30 years for murder after a miscarriage. She died in prison. Photo: Marvin Resinos / AFP / Getty
Manuela, El Salvador
Manuela *, a mother of two children from El Salvador, did what most people would do when she fell ill while pregnant in 2008: she went to hospital. Unfortunately, she had a miscarriage, but instead of medical and social support, she was handcuffed to her hospital bed and questioned by police.
Manuela, 33, whose full name was never made public, was charged with aggravated murder under El Salvador’s draconian anti-abortion laws and sentenced to 30 years in prison. She died of cancer two years later, a disease that activists say was ignored and left untreated during prison.
“The stories of women in El Salvador who have been unfairly criminalized for obstetric emergencies, as happened to Manuela, should also serve as a global example of the dire consequences of criminal restrictions on access to services such as abortion,” said Carmen Martinez. , Associate Director in Latin America of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a US-based human rights organization.
Last November, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled that the state was responsible for Manuela’s death, violating her rights to life, health, justice and guarantees, freedom from discrimination and gender-based violence. The court ordered …
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