What can we learn from Ireland's massive vote for abortion?

Status
Not open for further replies.
pepipop said:
Savita died from a virulent, bacterial infection that is very rare in the West
Click to expand...
Pepipop your post misleads. Recommendation 4b of the Official Inquiry clearly blames the law in part for the delay in taking needed action and goes as far as suggesting constitutional change. She may have dies anyway. but doctors well able to take action which might have saved her did not, because of the Irish constitution. Without that constitution she might be alive. Her child would still be dead.

Recommendation 4b.
There is immediate and urgent requirement for a clear statement of the legal context in which clinical professional judgement can be exercised in the best medical welfare interests of patients. There is a parallel immediate requirement for clear and precise national clinical guidelines to meaningfully assist the clinical professionals who have the responsibility, often in circumstance of rapid deterioration or emergency, as to how to exercise their clinical professional judgement in a particular case. We recommend that the clinical professional community, health and social care regulators, and the Oireachtas consider the law including any necessary constitutional change and related administrative, legal and clinical guidelines in relation to the management of inevitable miscarriage in the early second trimester of a pregnancy including with prolonged rupture of membranes and where the risk to the mother increases with time from the time that membranes were ruptured including the risk of infection. These guidelines should include good practice guidelines in relation to expediting delivery for clinical reasons including medical and surgical termination based on available expertise and feasibility consistent with the law.
We recognise that such guidelines must be consistent with applicable law and that the guidance so urged may require legal change.
 
FiveLinden said:
No. I think unwanted pregnancies should be avoided in whatever way is considered moral by those making the decision and that people should have enough information, education and access to allow success.
Click to expand...
I think people already know that abstinence from sexual intercourse is a very effective and moral method of avoiding pregnancy
 
It’s relative. Compared to what we’re seeing now, I’m sure it has seemed hard.

Compared to the past when the Church would have had no problem explaining exactly what the consequences of such a vote would be (eternal damnation for every one who voted Yes), soft and nice.
 
FiveLinden said:
An example: the Church allows ectopic pregnancies to be aborted but only by the removal of the fallopian tube containing the foetus, but not the foetus alone, as to do so would ‘directly’ kill the foetus, whereas indirect killing plus sterilisation of the tube is considered morally ok.
Click to expand...
This kind of hair-splitting technicality goes on all the time including the idea that NFP is not a technical way to practice contraception or the easy access to annulments provides a Catholic way of divorce.
 
However there are 5-6 deaths in the UK, annually, with similar circumstances that carried out terminations but these did not clear up the infection/sepsis and the patients died.

It was the mismanagement of sepsis - I believe her initial blood tests, on presentation to the hospital, went missing - which would have identified the infection earlier and a termination could have been carried out, which is totally legal, in IRE, when the Mother’s life is in danger.

This is not a cut and dried case, as the media would like everyone to assume.


Sir, – The recent inquest on Savita Halappanavar has raised important issues about hospital infection in obstetrics. Much of the public attention appears to have been directed at the expert opinion of Dr Peter Boylan who suggested that Irish law prevented necessary treatment to save Ms Halappanavar’s life. **We would suggest that this is a personal view, not an expert one.**

Furthermore, it is impossible for Dr Boylan, or for any doctor, to predict with certainty the clinical course and outcome in the case of Savita Halappanavar where sepsis arose from the virulent and multi drug-resistant organism, E.coli ESBL.

What we can say with certainty is that where ruptured membranes are accompanied by any clinical or bio-chemical marker of infection, Irish obstetricians understand they can intervene with early delivery of the baby if necessary. Unfortunately, the inquest shows that in Galway University Hospital the diagnosis of chorioamnionitis was delayed and relevant information was not noted and acted upon.

The facts as produced at the inquest show this tragic case to be primarily about the management of sepsis, and Dr Boylan’s opinion on the effect of Irish law did not appear to be shared by the coroner, or the jury, of the inquest

Obstetric sepsis is unfortunately on the increase and is now the leading cause of maternal death reported in the UK Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths . Additionally there are many well-documented fatalities from sepsis in women following termination of pregnancy.
 
pepipop said:
however abortion will not stop the sepsis -
Click to expand...
Be careful about that assumption. Nothing’s for certain in that case, but the reason the pro-choice side picked that case up is because uterine bacterial infections is not an infrequent cause of such miscarriages. Once there is infection, a resulting miscarriage needs to be evacuated quickly, because the blood vessels need to be closed off and a D&C likely needed to remove infected tissue.

In Savita’s case, the protracted time period of the miscarriage over several days meant that the infection had opportunity to spread through open blood vessels from the uterus and cervix to her bloodstream. That is the sepsis that killed her.

Had the baby been removed more promptly and she had been more aggressively treated with ABX, she would probably have survived.
 
Her blood tests, on presentation, went missing and hence the diagnosis of sepsis was missed and the termination was not carried out. Note my earlier post above that outlines other obstetricians opinions of Savita’s case.
 
Yeah, I read the official reports on the case. Not saying the case wasn’t mishandled. I’m saying that a miscarriage that was allowed to drag out for several days provided ample time and opportunity for infection to spread. The delay in ABX sealed it.
 
Last edited:
The Church’s credibility issues in Ireland have little to do with “soft and nice” and everything to do with scandal.
 
And that scandal was caused by soft and nice. And the response to it by the clergy has been soft and nice. Hence, the lack of any moral authority.

Look, I’m not excusing the Irish. They have proven themselves to be worse than Sodomites. I’m just saying the problem here is ultimately the soft and nice.
 

Or she had the infection, on presentation as her white cell count was raised.

However, the major failing of the medical team caring for Savita at the hospital is that they underestimated the seriousness of her condition for too long.

They took three days to follow up on crucial blood tests.

* Blood tests were carried out on Savita on the day of her admission but not followed up. The tests showed an elevated white cell count – a signal for suspected blood poisoning.

* There was a lack of clarity on who was responsible for the follow-up. The senior specialist registrar in obstetrics ordered the tests, but the samples were taken under instruction by a junior doctor who also denied responsibility. A midwife said follow-up was not her job.
 
ChunkMonk said:
And that scandal was caused by soft and nice. And the response to it by the clergy has been soft and nice. Hence, the lack of any moral authority.
Click to expand...
I don’t think they were soft or nice about hiding their evil. Cowardly, yes.

I can tell you what I would do to anyone who abused my son like that, whether teacher, priest, coach, or whatever. Their face would be soft from my fist. And maybe a bullet.
 
So long as they are not foolish enough to give such power to some other entity in its place, like the state.
 
Yes, but other Irish obstetricians refuted what the State’s right hand man, Boylan, said. He was made to look very foolish, in the first televised debate, between the NO and YES sides, by a fellow obstetrician on several points - that had nothing to do with Savita’s case.

The NO obstetrician also said his (Boylan’s) views were not held by the majority of Irish obstetricians, which I believe Boylan is chairman of, and he was not speaking for the majority.
 
Yes, I read the original reports, as I stated. The fact remains that if the source of the infection was the uterus, they still needed to remove diseased tissues. In addition to providing an aggressive antibiotic protocol. They missed the sepsis, and they missed the infection in the uterus. Elevated WBC does not equate sepsis - it does indicate infection. The uterus is full of blood vessels and provides a ready gateway to infection.
pepipop said:
Terrifying errors led to death of Savita - Independent.ie

Or she had the infection, on presentation as her white cell count was raised.

However, the major failing of the medical team caring for Savita at the hospital is that they underestimated the seriousness of her condition for too long.

They took three days to follow up on crucial blood tests.

* Blood tests were carried out on Savita on the day of her admission but not followed up. The tests showed an elevated white cell count – a signal for suspected blood poisoning.

* There was a lack of clarity on who was responsible for the follow-up. The senior specialist registrar in obstetrics ordered the tests, but the samples were taken under instruction by a junior doctor who also denied responsibility. A midwife said follow-up was not her job.
Click to expand...
 
However, it wouldn’t matter as thy did not identify the infection for 3 days, due to internal errors. Likewise, IF she had had no infection, as her fetus’s heart was still beating she may not have been having a full miscarriage and possibly a threatened one.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I’ve agreed in my posts that the late ABX, due to botched testing protocols, was a huge factor. Not denying that.

I’m not even saying that Savita needed permissive abortion laws passed to have had a termination. From what I’ve read, Ireland already allowed abortions when the mother’s life is endangered.

The issue is that they failed to identify the threat to start with. The standard protocol is to screen for infection, and upon finding that, provide ABX and monitoring.

Assuming that the miscarriage was prolonged, termination and removal of infected tissues would then likely be indicated, as even with ABX, any remaining infected tissue in the uterus provides a breeding ground for seeding more infections.

So, to sum up, the hospital missed the infection, and therefore delayed treatment, and failed to recognize the threat against her life.
 
Just looking up a bit more about Peter Boylan, who was very vocal for the YES campaign and it was said that he was the senate/state’s mouthpiece, at one meeting, as he seemed to always be over there.

I also note he was also asked to resign, last year, because he tried to stop the maternity hospital from being housed within a Catholic ethos, then went on an anti-Catholic tirade about 300k taxpayers money going into the CC - that got great MSM coverage, and led to a petition from the horrified ‘sheep’, against the hospital being placed with the nuns.

So it seems the government got all its’ anti-Catholic brigade lined up for their ‘abortion’ referendum onslaught.


“Thereafter the agreement was approved by Government and planning permission was lodged. Last week, some five months after the agreement was approved, Dr Boylan, without warning, consultation with or notification to the board, its chair or the Master of the hospital, went public in attacking the agreement.”

During an interview, with RTÉ’s ‘Morning Ireland’ last week, Dr Boylan, suggested that the Sisters of Charity would bring a strong religious influence to the practices at the new National Maternity Hospital.

"The state is investing €300m of your money and my money in a new maternity hospital and it is inappropriate that that hospital should have a strong religious influence, particularly from the Catholic Church, with all its bad history in relation to women’s healthcare," he said.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top