Thanks for the consoling news that US Hispanic Catholics take (what seems to me) a more intelligent and enlightened view of abortion than the remarkable system currently running in Ireland.

And here is some actual evidence to back it up, even. Gosh, I feel rigorous now.

http://latinainstitute.org/Latinopoll
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/07/14/us-usa-hispanics-abortion-idUSTRE56D00Y20090714

Like other Catholics, they’re split on the issue.

The HSE has set up an investigation into allegations that pregnancy counselling agencies it funds provided women with inappropriate advice, the Oireachtas health committee has been told.

It seems there was a sting operation:

According to information gathered undercover by anti-abortion activists, some counsellors allegedly advised women how to smuggle the abortion pill into the Republic. It was also alleged women were told to hide their abortions from their doctors. Since the allegations were published last month, some backbench Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil TDs and Senators have been pressing for an investigation.

I don’t know the legal basis for this. Presumably it’s kosher to buy pills in Hollyhead? Must they be swallowed before the return journey?

Thanks for the consoling news that US Hispanic Catholics take (what seems to me) a more intelligent and enlightened view of abortion than the remarkable system currently running in Ireland.

I have tried to work out why that might be so. I can imagine several reasons why intelligent Irish Catholics might support their current system:
1) they genuinely agree with the teachings of the Church
2) they have doubts about abortion, but believe the Church can commit them to salvation or damnation in the next life
3) they doubt (2) also but are painfully aware that their professional prospects in this life, if they are doctors, or their future votes if they are politicians, depend on not opposing the Church
4) orthogonally to the above: they realise that if Catholics avoid abortion (and as far as possible contraception) they may eventually outbreed Protestants and other enemies of the faith; after which, in lands lost to the so-called Reformation …

Now, applying these arguments to US Catholic Hispanics who (as you say) are not locked into an anti-abortion mindset, the only factor that seems to me to apply to Ireland but not to the US is (3): the secular power of the Church in the US is inadequate.

Corroborative evidence: look at the legality of abortion in Catholic Latin America (outside Mexico City). Limited to zero.

Awkward consequence: if factor (4) applies, not so much through breeding as through immigration, then the secular power of the Church in Hispanic-majority regions of the US, if not the whole US, might increase to the point where factor (3) also applies.

Of course, by then I (and much of CT) may be past caring.

Surely adovcating medical malpractice and letting pregnant women die of neglect is illegal in Ireland? I know you don’t have such an extreme protection of freedom of speech as the US does.

A point made by someone earlier is that the hospital behavior was medical malpractice — the previous commenter thought this meant the law didn’t need changing. Well, maybe not, *provided* every doctor and nurse and hospital administrator involved with the case is convicted of criminal medical malpractice, jailed, fined, and stripped of licenses to practice medicine.

Is that happening? No? Well, then, the law does need to be changed. For a doctor, nurse, or someone in authority at a medical establishment to refuse to provide a medically necessary abortions needs to be a crime punishable by prison. This would chase the nasty women-killers out of the medical profession in Ireland pretty fast.

I think its important to remember that many doctors refuse to give abortions in Ireland not because they are ideologically opposed but because, despite medical guidelines, there is also a strong weight of law saying abortion is illegal in all circumstances. At the European Court of Human Rights, the government could not point to a single hospital with the required equipment for terminations, or a single recorded termination. Doctors are justificably scared of being brought to court if they carry out terminations because of the legal ambiguity.

That’s why the Masters of a number of major hospitals have been repeatedly calling for legislation: they want to be able to do their job, but their hands are currently tied by the law. I do not want to see a doctor scapegoated for not being able to muddle his way through the mess of abortion law in Ireland. It’s clear its the governments who are at fault.

The “this is a catholic country” comment is potentially a bit misleading – I would suspect it was intended as some sort of explanation for why the hospitals hands were tied – not as a moral judgement.

You complain about a rush to judgement on the basis of the known facts, and then confidently claim that “catholic teaching is not putting Irish women at higher risk.” Let’s see about that, shall we?

You imply again that it’s as likely that Savita died of MRSA or similar, a fringe theory designed to distract and obfuscate. There are well understood protocols for identifying and responding to super-bugs, and none of them appear to have been enacted in this case.

You say you want legislation, and then implicitly dismiss the need for it by saying clinical practice on medically required termination is uniform in Ireland – and uniformly supportive of women’s health.

You say such terminations are a standard practice in Ireland, and then imply conversely that UCG is an outlier. And if it is an outlier, you skim right over the central point of everyone’s concern: that Galway hospital staff did not follow accepted medical practice because of religious beliefs or fear of prosecution in ‘a Catholic country’.

At the heart of your various arguments is the idea that it’s just about possible Savita suffered horribly and died because of unusually bad medical luck, and not because she was denied needed treatment owing to the beliefs of those who treated her. Given the facts that are available, this seems an extremely unlikely outcome. And yet you grab at it fiercely and claim that ‘nutters’ are exploiting this woman’s death for political ends. Why?

I find your attempt to portray yourself @104 as the good faith middle ground uncompelling, to say the least, and your characterisation of pro-choice ‘nutters’ as being satisifed by Savita’s death quite revolting.

I can’t decide whether you are just confused, are concern-trolling or think this blog is a place where strangers should line up to sort out your contradictory arguments for you.

Perhaps you are in good faith, but the claims you are making and your appeals to others to recognize or join you in the ‘middle ground’ are exactly the kind of de-railing and disinformation I’ve seen repeatedly over the past twenty years.

There is a middle ground here; one where people try as constructively and objectively as they can to fathom what happened in Galway and stop it from ever happening in Ireland again. But you’re not on it.

IF the enquiry shows they made a mistake, then doctors will be struck off and a massive law suit is guaranteed. Her death will have major consequences for everyone involved (as it should). Why do you think they won’t be held responsible?

You keep stating that Irish women are not at a disadvantage to their UK counterparts re maternal mortality rates when part of the reason is that Irish women are availing of medical treatment in the UK to terminate high risk pregnancies. The UK therefore contributes both to its own low mortality rates and ours. If the UK suddenly refused to carry out terminations on Irish citizens, do you think the woman presenting with cancer at six weeks would then be at a disadvantage to her UK counterpart? Do you think she’d be offered a clearcut choice to have a termination here at six weeks? And by termination, I mean abortion. Where you acknowledge fully that a healthy foetus is being removed to minimise the risk to the woman’s life. No fudging. No fuzziness. You keep stating that “terminations” are available here – that “therapeutic termination is standard practice” – when what you actually seem to be referring to are induced early deliveries in later pregnancy, D&Cs in cases where the foetus is already dead, or ectopic pregnancies (none of which the anti-abortion movement itself will actually categorise as abortion): so we have “terminations” but we don’t have “abortions”. Because if actual abortion – what most people understand as deliberately terminating a pregnancy – were standard therapeutic practice in Ireland, the doctors involved could expect to have Youth Defence decorating the footpaths outside their homes or SPUC in its newer incarnations running screaming to the High Court (irrespective of its current qualms about legislation).

Sarah,

Good points, I generally agree with you. I do strongly support allowing abortions in case of serious threats to the mother’s life or health, but one must be careful not to empower the yahoos who want to legalize abortion on demand, including for non-therapeutic reasons. I do think it’s unseemly to exploit this woman’s death in that way.

As you point out though, I’m not too worried about that. Ireland is a religious country, fortunately, and it’s not likely to go down the same path of the unborn that we did with Roe v. Wade. Neither are the Latin American countries, for the most part.

“, in other words, obstetric practice is similar, the MMR is probably in reality similar, so Irish women are NOT at any disadvantage. i.e. catholic teaching is not putting Irish women at higher risk.”

That’s an assumption, of course. The true rate’s assumed.

Your original point — made three times — was that Ireland’s MMR was far lower than the UK’s, which, you said (twice) has “abortion on demand until 24 weeks”. You added,

“One of the major causes of MMR is infection”.

Actually, the UK’s MMR rate is falling despite a rise in infections, and the rate (narrowly defined) remains roughly the same as Ireland’s.

You said

“If a refusal to carry out terminations to save mothers lives was regular practice in Ireland our MMR should be higher than in the UK. “

(as it may be) not really; as commenters here have pointed out, the UK — and others — carry out abortions on your behalf.

Also, if you really do support a change in the law, support the enshrining of some kind of right to abortion in Irish law, why don’t you just support it? Surely the case for that stands independently of the precise circumstances and causes of Savita’s death.

Point taken on the MMR.

“Dr O’Hare said that as Irish obstetric practice is very similar to that in the UK, it is reasonable to assume that the number of maternal deaths here would be similar to those recorded by CMACE in the UK.”

So, in other words, obstetric practice is similar, the MMR is probably in reality similar, so Irish women are NOT at any disadvantage. i.e. catholic teaching is not putting Irish women at higher risk.