Today marks ten years since Savita Halappanavar died of sepsis, having been denied an abortion that could have saved her life. Lynn Enright reflects on the death that galvanized the nation and how there is more to be done.
27th Oct 2022
Whenever and wherever abortion is illegal, there are horror stories. Stories so grim and so gruesome they make you weep. A tale of a suicidal child forced to carry the foetus of the man who raped her; news reports of a young woman rooting through blood-soaked rubbish before reporting her housemate, who took illegal abortion pills alone, to police. In 2012, came a story so bleak that it changed a nation.
. I still remember the heavy sadness I felt after hearing about the case for the first time on the 7am news. They had done it, they had finally done it, they had allowed their right-wing, misogynistic laws to kill a woman. The Eighth Amendment – the piece of law that acknowledged “the right to life of the unborn and with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother”, introduced into the Irish constitution in 1983 – was destined to be cruel.
Abortion is healthcare. That assertion has become a rallying cry in recent months, as feminists respond to theof Roe vs Wade in the US. The case of Savita Halappanavar makes a clear case for the veracity of the statement. Abortion is healthcare and abortion is a necessity in a society that values the lives of women. Ten years on from the death of Savita Halappanavar, women and pregnant people in Ireland are safer.