Tag Archives: Savita Halappanavar

Last night.

Kildare Street, Dublin 2.

TDs, including Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald (above left), joined activists from The Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women’s Healthcare at a candle Light vigil outside Leinster House to remember the death of Savita Halappanavar – 9 years ago yesterday – and to ‘highlight the imperative’ for the new National Maternity Hospital to be ‘public and secular’.

RollingNews

Savita by street artist ‘Aches’ before and after the referendum in Portobello, Dublin 8

Anyone?

Yesterday: Any Other Business

Previously: Long Shadows

Meanwhile…

Hmmm.

Savita Halappanavar’s father Andanappa Yalagi and mother Akhmedevi

“My dear brothers and sisters of Ireland, I am Savita’s unfortunate father Andanappa.

Speaking on the historic event of repeal of the 8th amendment. The day of the people of the island who now know the pain and the memory of our loving daughter Savita.

No family in future should have to undergo what we have gone through, the worry and sorrow that’s still persistent in our hearts even after some six years. The life that Savita had, she had a very long life to lead, but it was cut down mercilessly, dead.

Savita loved the people of Ireland. Lots of people say that Savita’s death hurt the entire Irish society.

I strongly feel that the younger daughters of Ireland should not have the fate of Savita.

I hope that people in Ireland will remember the fate of our daughter Savita on the day of the referendum and vote Yes so that what happened to us won’t happen to any families. And by doing this you will be paying a great debt to the departed soul. Thanking you very much.”

Andanappa Yalagi, in a video released by Together 4 Yes this morning.

Together 4 Yes

Friday: “Irish Doctors Can Always Intervene”

Previously: Savita Halappannavar on Broadsheet

Savita_s_death_9670

Savita Halappavanar

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the death of Savita Halappavanar.

Miscarrying and denied a termination for medical reasons on grounds of legality, Savita’s requests to Galway Maternity Hospital were met with the now-infamous refrain of “this is a Catholic country”.

The following four years saw initial outrage at her treatment solidify into a sustained pro-choice movement, mobilising and campaigning with increasing visibility for a repeal of the Eighth Amendment.

Sinéad Redmond, of AIMS Ireland, writes:

Savita Halappanavar died on this day 4 years ago in Galway University Hospital. She died in suffering and in pain, because she was pregnant, having been denied basic medical care she and her husband Praveen repeatedly requested.

She died because abortion is illegal in nearly all circumstances in Ireland and even now remains so; but she also died because she was a pregnant migrant woman and a woman of colour in Ireland. Migrant women are twice as likely to die in pregnancy in Ireland as women born in Ireland and the UK.

Nora Hyland, Bimbo Onanuga, and Dhara Kivlehan are all names of migrant women who’ve died in or after pregnancy in recent years in Irish maternity hospitals who should be alive now with their children. Only a few months ago Malak Thawley died in an operating theatre of the NMH after basic surgical equipment “could not be found” to stop her bleeding to death.

Our maternity service is not a sufficiently safe place for migrant women, Traveller women, and women of colour; the denial of access to abortion in it only renders it more so, as demonstrated most recently and horrendously with the barbarities the Irish state perpetrated upon Ms Y.

I remember #Savita and I remember the tears I cried for her on hearing how she was left to die unnecessarily. I remember Bimbo and how she was told she was exaggerating the pain which was a symptom of the uterine rupture she later died of, and how it took her partner and AIMS Ireland THREE YEARS of fighting to even get an inquest opened into her death.

I remember Nora Hyland and how she died of a massive cardiac event after waiting over 40 minutes for a blood transfusion that never came, and with three times the recommended dose of Syntometrine in her body, a component of which is known to have adverse cardiac effects.

I remember Dhara Kivlehan and how her doctor told her husband as she went undiagnosed of a fatal liver disorder that it was harder to diagnose Indian people with jaundice, a key indicator of liver failure.

I remember all these women, their partners, and their families and how they were not only mistreated appallingly by the Irish maternity system in life, not permitted as pregnant women to have the final say on their own bodies because of the existence of the 8th amendment, and how further indignity and injury was heaped upon their grieving families by the Irish state and maternity hospitals in refusing to address properly the causes of their death, apologise for them or treat their partners with the respect they deserved.

I remember and I fight for change that sometimes seems as though it will never come, especially on days like today where the darkness closes in early and the memory of the horror and outrage and grief of 4 years ago weighs heavily on me. But I do fight.

Solidarity and love to those of you who fight with me, those of you who’ve fought for years and decades longer than me, and those of you who’ve seen more suffering caused by Irish law and Irish maternity hospitals than I can imagine. We will remember and we will bring about change.

I said this last year, and the year before; I say it again this year, and will every year until everyone in Ireland with a womb owns their own body.

Meanwhile…

A candlelit vigil for Savita will happen at the Spanish Arch in Galway at 6pm this evening.

AIMS Ireland

10624623_833259203384993_7829500905625749597_n934855_833258706718376_7544928805905474669_n 1461738_833258713385042_3312909022811726002_n 1939843_833260460051534_1905628117631022624_n 10409193_833258773385036_6540206716584676231_n 10671345_833258836718363_230948143899089968_n 10689843_833260620051518_6503893490984896103_n

Pictures from last night’s vigil for the late Savita Halappanavar in Eyre Square, Galway.

Yesterday was the second anniversary of the 31-year-old dentist’s death at University Hospital Galway.

Meanwhile, in Dublin…

90360083
90360092
90360091-1

A vigil at Stephen’s Green, Dublin last night.

Taken by Sinister Images (Facebook)

Previously: Free Today?

Hala

Praveen Halappanavar and his late wife, Savita

Galway Independent writes:

A vigil for Savita Halappanavar will take place in Eyre Square today, on the second anniversary of the 31-year-old dentist’s death at University Hospital Galway. The memorial will take place in front of the Browne Doorway, where photographs of Savita will be on display. From noon, members of the public are invited to leave their thoughts on Savita in the form of written messages. Galway Pro-Choice will collect these messages and present them to Savita’s family and friends. The public are also free to leave flowers at the site. At 6pm, there will be a candlelit vigil, to which everybody who wishes to commemorate Savita is welcome.

Meanwhile…

Screen Shot 2014-10-28 at 10.48.42

Activists, including Nell McCafferty, centre, arriving in Dublin from Belfast in 1971

A number of pro choice activists will travel from Connolly Station in Dublin today to Belfast, in order to bring abortion pills back to Dublin with them. Abortion pills are banned in Ireland.

They will arrive back at Connolly Station at 2.30pm.

The action recalls how members of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement took the Contraception Train, from Dublin to Belfast, in 1971 to bring back condoms and the Pill, which were illegal in the Republic of Ireland at the time.

Galway Independent (Facebook)

Greet the abortion pill train (Rosa)

Contraception Train (RTÉ, 1971 footage)

Previously: Illegal Abortion In Ireland