7
0
Amanda from the Anti Racism Network speaks at a pro-choice rally which was was held in Dublin on 20th of August, 2014.
Pro-choice campaigners want to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland which gives explicit recognition to the right to life of an unborn child.
The two women mentioned in this speech were Savita Halappanavar from India and Bimbo Onanuga from Nigeria.
Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist, died on 28 October 2012 at University Hospital Galway in Ireland due to complications of a septic miscarriage at 17 weeks' gestation after being denied an abortion.
Pregnant at 17 weeks with her first baby, she went to the hospital with her husband Praveen on 21 October 2012 complaining about back pain.
Her water broke early on the morning of 22 October and Savita asked if anything could be done to save the baby. She was told that the miscarriage was inevitable. On 23 October, having understood the baby would not survive, she asked for a termination.
Halappanavar feared the foetus was dead and likely to give her sepsis. Her request was turned down after medical staff said they detected a foetal heartbeat and so a termination was not legally possible in Ireland.
Midwife manager Ann Maria Burke attempted to calm an upset Savita and explained that the termination cannot be carried out because Ireland is "a Catholic country", a statement she later said was not meant in a hurtful way and a statement that she was sorry for making if it sounded bad afterward.
Savita had told her she was not Catholic, she was Hindu, so why impose the law on her.
At the time of Halappanavar's death there was legal uncertainty regarding the precise circumstances in which this exception to preserve the life of the mother would apply in practice, as the matter had not yet been clarified by legislation.
The baby's heartbeat stopped on the Wednesday, 24th of October.
In preparation for a termination, Savita delivered a stillborn girl.