Religious death is merciless

[If this post carried any meaning at all, it would emerge only after the message given at reference is read and imbibed.]

Dr. Savita Halappanavar’s death is old news; indeed, it is older than her death in the last week of October. Savita died in the first week of September and she died at the hands of medical professionals congregating in Ireland [1], that paragon of religious virtue of a particular variety – Roman Catholic.

“[T]he International Symposium on Excellence in Maternal Healthcare … featured a panel of world-renowned experts in the fields of mental health, obstetrics and gynecology.” To add to the list of luminaries and what they contributed, experts in “molecular epidemiology… presented their cutting-edge research and data gathered over years of clinical experience.” It was, of course, the fault, indeed the crime, of Savita that she slipped through the fingers of these experts.

To be fair, the symposium also addressed issues of “maternal mortality and morbidity, care for women with high-risk pregnancies, mental health, cancer in pregnancy, and fetal anomaly“. With what level of competence and confidence, we will figure out in due course.

What exactly does the Dublin Declaration declare? Here it goes:

·         “As experienced practitioners and researchers in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion [my emphasis] is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman.

·         We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child.

·         We confirm that the prohibition of abortion does not affect, in any way, the availability of optimal care to pregnant women.”

About direct abortion. It sounded suspiciously like the erstwhile Missouri US Representative Todd Aiken’s “legitimate rape”! It is not in this post (if ever) I will talk about illegitimate rape, but direct abortion is fair game here, and the reference is quite so helpful.

“Irish Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have previously pointed out that treatment for conditions such as ectopic pregnancy are (sic) not considered abortion by doctors.” The strong implication is these are the indirect abortions, which is OK as per Irish laws. Therefore, the complications in Savita’s pregnancy (non-ectopic) if sought to be terminated as she did can be classified only as a demand for direct abortion, obviously unnecessary.

Yes, the above definitely offers “‘clarity and confirmation’ to doctors and legislators” as “Professor Eamon O’Dwyer, chairman of the Committee for Excellence in Maternal Healthcare” helpfully “believes”. In addition, the symposium “clears up misinformation.”

The coup de grace, to end mercifully the debate on abortion in Ireland, is offered by Dr. Seán Ó Domhnaill, medical adviser to the Life Institute (we can safely surmise that this is an anti-abortion advocacy group): “This is a globally significant outcome, which shows abortion has no place in treating women and their unborn children.”

All of the above is science, purely medical science. Science, at the level of perceiving the heartbeat of an unviable fetus, gave rise to laws, through republican politics. If there are any problems with the whole drama, they should be placed squarely at the foot of these human institutions. True. But not the whole truth.

Why did I imply through the title of the post that the Savita’s death is of the religious kind, like the burning of witches at the stake? For anyone to ask this question, he or she must be fully unaware of how Ireland and Northern Ireland came about, what is IRA, why Mountbatten was assassinated and a host of simple, similar sounding questions. All of these had their roots in social and economic conditions and political games, but strongly under girded by religion, Roman Catholic Church.

Blame it on the Vatican, and Pope Benedict XVI in particular. If you could recall, not too long ago, he sounded the bugle against the marginally progressive (yet, normatively regressive, as in my book all religions are regressive) Church of England (Anglican), asking its adherents to switch their allegiance to his home base. One of the issues was abortion (gay marriage, women priests are some of the others). That being the case, Ireland could not have countenanced even fledgling move against the Vatican imperium, could they? Abortion is the hot button issue, particularly when it is falsely projected as “abortion on demand”.

I am not saying this. Savita herself had implied this when she protested (as per reports) that she was neither Irish nor a Catholic. She not being Irish was her choice. She not being Catholic was also her choice. But it was the de facto state religion, going beyond her choices, that took her life, by denying abortion to her. Ireland is secular, in its own way, on its statute books. But, in practice it is not. It is the dictates of the Roman Catholic Church that sealed her fate.

Coming back to Dublin Declaration, within a month and a half, its first affirmation was spectacularly proven wrong, thanks to the sacrifice of the Halappanavar family. It is bearing the cross for religious stupidity, combined with arrogance and ably supported by science, as at the symposium.

Science and religion formed an unholy alliance and it was not science that made Dublin Declaration unholy. Science makes mistakes and admits to such instances. Religion does not make mistakes and there is never any need for it to admit to any. Savita did it, by proxy, by dying.

The context of Dublin Declaration on Maternal Healthcare makes my declaration – Dr. Savita Halapannavar died at the hands of a merciless religion – an incontrovertible, irrevocable one. It is for you to choose between the two.

Raghuram Ekambaram

References

1.    Dublin Declaration: Abortion is not medically necessary, Josh Craddock, Live Action News, September 10, 2012 (http://liveactionnews.org/international/dublin-declaration-abortion-is-not-medically-necessary/)