Paul KeenanThe Pro Life Campaign (PLC) has accused The Irish Times of “a rush to judgement” in linking the death of Savita Halappanavar to the issue of Ireland’s abortion laws.
In the wake of the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) report on the October 2012 death of the expectant mother at Galway’s University Hospital, the PLC said the contents of that report now required the national newspaper to “ask searching questions” of itself in how it published a story which was picked up by the international media on the basis of an incorrect suggestion that abortion restrictions were to blame for the woman’s death.
Obscene
“It is actually obscene the way some politicians and The Irish Times in particular linked this tragic case to abortion from the very start and refused to withhold judgment until the full facts emerged,” the PLC’s Dr Ruth Cullen said. “We now know from [the] report and earlier reports that this story was never really about abortion and that the key issues in the death of Ms Halappanavar were basic deficiencies in patient care and the catalogue of failures in monitoring and recognising the grave risk to her life caused by serious infection.
“This should be a moment when The Irish Times and others ask some searching questions about the way they covered the story. Praveen Halappanavar and Savita’s extended family deserve answers to all the questions at the centre of this tragic story.”
