We can all agree this is a tragedy. A 31-year-old woman’s baby dies and then she dies herself. News stories are painting this as the example of what happens when abortion is not legal. I’m not sure this is the case. If it is, I’m still annoyed at the media because they systematically ignore the death of women in abortion clinics. I don’t mean to make this tit for tat. But the stories of women who die because they don’t get abortions are front page news, splashed all over the headlines. And the stories of women who die because they got an abortion are difficult to find–accessible only to those of us who track with this issue very, very closely.
(Sorry about the light to absent blogging, I’ve been on the road.)
by 
This story had been highly politicized from the beginning, while all the relevant information still remains hidden– and perhaps will never be revealed.
To be more specific:
– It is unclear whether her illness and death had anything whatsoever to do with being pregnant. Maybe the miscarriage was caused by her illness, and not the other way around.
– If she was indeed having a miscarriage, I believe it would have been ethical to induce birth immediately, and doubly so if the miscarriage was threatening her life. This is not the same thing as abortion!
– Why wasn’t she treated for blood poisoning, eg. given powerful antibiotics via IV? If she had blood poisoning, this would have been the ethical thing to do, regardless of the effect on her unborn child.
I suspect that her physicians failed to diagnose her condition, and she died as a result of their failure to give her appropriate treatment in a timely fashion. And now the illegality of abortion is turning out to be a convenient cover.
Yes, I had many of the same thoughts so eloquently expressed by Dan. I find it disturbing that the pro-abortion media exploits the tragic death of a young woman and her baby to further its agenda.
Ireland has consistently had one of the world’s lowest maternal mortality rates, this despite the fact that abortion has never been legalized there. Mrs. Halappanavar’s death is certainly a tragedy, and there is a possibility that there was some negligence in her care, but calling for the legalization of abortion to prevent tragedies such as this one is a non sequitur.
Ireland has law in place ‘to terminate pregnancy to protect the life of the mother’. This ‘story’ that ‘Pro Choice’ is generating has nothing to do with a need to change laws but is/should be about whether or not accurate diagnosis and care was given. The ‘pro choice’ advocates
don’t seem to care about the mother, who may have been terminally ill,the baby, the law, the doctors or the truth but only their agenda of abortion for no reason accept whim.