In October 2012, Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian woman living in the Republic of Ireland, died from a septic miscarriage. Doctors at University Hospital Galway detected a fetal heartbeat, but, fearing prosecution, they refused to perform an abortion that would have saved her life. Ireland’s now-repealed 8th Amendment recognized “the right to life of the unborn” and the state guaranteed, “with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother,” that it would “defend and vindicate that right.” The state failed: both Savita and her fetus perished.
Memorial in Dublin to Savita Halappanavar, who died from a septic miscarriage because doctors refused to perform an abortion. Photo: Buzzfeed.
Pro-choice activists have written widely about the dangers that will befall American women if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Still, these stories sound melodramatic to many anti-abortion activists. Like anti-vaxxers who have never seen polio, most opponents of abortion have never seen women suffer the agony of carrying an unwanted fetus, and believe these horrors to be the province of “third-world” countries. The example of Ireland is difficult to ignore, however, because the country is western, wealthy, and highly developed. Proponents of fetal-heartbeat laws such as the measure in Alabama that a federal judge blocked on October 29th, which made abortion a class A felony punishable by life imprisonment, should learn from Ireland’s experiences so the ranks of our obituary pages don’t swell with American Savitas.
Alabama’s law refuses exceptions in cases of rape and incest, and here, too, legislators can learn from Ireland. In 1992, in the X Case, Irish courts attempted to block a 14-year-old rape victim from leaving the country for an abortion. The girl was suicidal because of the rape and psychological trauma of pregnancy. After initial rulings that the child would be forced to carry the pregnancy to term, protestors held signs that declared “Ireland Defends Men’s Right to Procreate by Rape.” In the end, Ireland’s Supreme Court ruled that X could obtain an abortion because her life was at risk. The original actions of the Irish government in X’s case, like Governor Kay Ivey’s statement that the Alabama law is a “powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is…a sacred gift from God” are nakedly hypocritical: they demonstrate a clear preference for the life of the fetus over the mental and physical well-being of women.
Savita and X were paradigm-changing cases in Ireland because both figures were innocent victims who could not be written off as “sluts” who sought abortions in order to avoid taking responsibility for their “sins.” Savita was a married woman; X was a child who was victimized by a predator. Both Savita and X represented the familial nation in crisis: their families were at risk not because of abortion, but because they could not access one.
Ireland has learned from its past and the government has put the nation on a cultural and legal path toward fully valuing women in society. Also on October 29th, the Irish government welcomed the report of the Working Group on Access to Contraception, which endorsed the provision of free contraception, including long-term methods such as intra-uterine devices and implants. Guaranteed access to contraception and sex education will prevent more cases like these two tragedies–and minimize abortion rates.
Yet Alabama fails on this measure, too. The state does not require sex education in schools, and schools that do offer sex ed endorse abstinence over information. It is unsurprising, then, that the state has some of the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the country. It is misogynistic to refuse to provide information on sexuality and contraception, and then force women to bear the burden of an unwanted pregnancy.
To be sure, anti-abortion activists will argue that even if abortion is legal only in cases of rape and incest, a flood of women will cry rape–so abortion should just be outlawed altogether. But Ireland also shows that this scenario is pure fantasy: after the X case, Ireland recognized suicide risk as grounds for abortion, and Ireland didn’t see a glut of pregnant women claiming to be suicidal. This theory represents a deranged view of women as manipulative Eves, willing to do anything to erase evidence of their alleged wrongdoing. Regardless, women deserve to have the law dignify our full humanity by allowing us control over our bodies; arguments about rape and incest are adendums to that point.
Spurred by activism in the wake of Savita’s death, in 2018, the people of Ireland voted by an overwhelming majority to legalize abortion. Upon the repeal of the 8th Amendment, Irish people left notes at a memorial to Savita expressing sorrow that the measure was too late to save her. America must learn from Ireland before we have a Memorial to the Women Who Died in Forced Pregnancy.
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