Death of Savita Halappanavar

Sir, – No one should be misled by the statement of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference (Home News, November 20th) into thinking that Catholic moral teaching would have permitted action to save the life of Savita Halappanavar. What she needed was precisely “the direct and intentional destruction of an unborn baby” as the only available means for saving her life. The bishops reiterate their opinion that this is “gravely immoral in all circumstances”. They just did not have the courage to point out the implications of their doctrine for this particular case. – Yours, etc,

Sir, – “This is a Catholic country”. These callous words were spoken to Praveen Halappanavar, more than once it seems, in the days before the death of his wife. If the speaker believed her life was in danger, they should, and could, have acted under the law of this country to prevent her death. If they sincerely believed that all was well, then they should have reassured him. But, instead of focusing on their patient and on keeping her husband informed, it seems they preferred to make statements about Ireland and Catholicism. Now, the life of Savita Halappanavar has been lost and the public life of this country has been poisoned to a degree unequalled in recent times. – Yours, etc,

Sir, – Of all the many demeaning discriminations that Irish women have had to fight since the founding of this State: legal restrictions on jury service, inheritance, rights to the family home, working after marriage, and the infamous “criminal conversation law”, in which a wife was defined as her husband’s chattel, with a cash value, none is more degrading than the current one: being defined as a category of persons whose lives are not worth more than a seventeen-week non-viable fetus. – Yours, etc,