Rev Fr Ronnie Prabhu, the spokesperson for the Church, told Bangalore Mirror: “To my mind, it is not Ireland's being a Catholic country and hence did not permit abortion at will that resulted in the death of Savita.”
Savita died an agonising death in the University Hospital Galway in
Ireland having been denied abortion on the ground that “the foetal
heartbeat was still present”, and that Irish laws do not allow
termination of pregnancy.
Savita, according to reports appearing in
Irish and UK papers, told the doctors to terminate her pregnancy with
the plea, “I am neither Irish nor Catholic.”
This paper on Wednesday had asked for a reaction from the Archbishop of Bangalore on the episode through the spokesperson of the Church.
Rev Fr Prabhu sent a reply on Friday by email, but later clarified that these were the thoughts of the Karnataka Catholic Church and not the Archbishop’s, who is away in Rome.
He concluded his email by saying: “All in all it is a very sad situation and we share the grief and disappointment of Savita’s husband.”
His email ad verbatim
Under the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in
1992, it is lawful to terminate a pregnancy if it is established “as a
matter of probability” that there is a real and substantial risk to the
life, as opposed to the health, of the mother.
If the doctors did not terminate Savita's pregnancy, even at her request, it was very likely because they did not see the probability of real and substantial risk to her life.Such a situation, I understand, can arise in any country, not just Ireland. I do not know whether there is any country where termination has to be granted or can be granted just at request.
There are always conditions to be fulfilled like within a specified number of weeks of pregnancy.
Savita died of septicaemia. As I have read elsewhere,
septicaemia deaths in this context are rare, and hence it is possible
that the doctors did not anticipate this to happen.
Again, septicaemia set in after the foetus had died and the womb had been cleared. One cannot say for sure that an earlier clearing of the womb through termination of pregnancy would not have resulted in septicimia.
The same thing could well have happened even with the termination of pregnancy.
I am not sure of the law in India, but I do know that termination is permissible only within a specified number of weeks of pregnancy.
If a situation like that of Savita had arisen here in India after the permissible number of weeks of pregnancy, and doctors do not anticipate any real danger to the life of the mother, I wonder how they would decide on their procedure.
To my mind it is not Ireland's being a Catholic country and
hence did not permit abortion at will that resulted in the death of
Savita. It was the failure of the doctors to assess the true situation
of Savita, and their failure to anticipate and prevent septicaemia that
resulted in her death.
All in all it is all a very sad situation and we share the grief and disappointment of Savita's husband.