Deafening silence on maternal deaths now that abortion is legal

Gript and others reported on June 28^th that: “three maternal deaths have occurred in one week in Ireland”, revealing that a woman had died at University Hospital Kerry and that deaths were also confirmed at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda and Cork University Hospital.

The “alarming rise” in the number of women dying in childbirth has prompted Mary Fitzgibbon, a maternal safety advocate and registered nurse, midwife and nursing lecturer, to say it is “Recent events clearly show that the government is not prioritizing maternal safety” (emphasis added).

Well, indeed, why would they? Only the lives of pregnant women and their children are at stake, and that is not glamorous. Prioritising maternal safety will not get three friends of Taoiseach Simon Harris, Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Green Party Minister Eamon Ryan on CNN, while pulling out the old lectern to recognise the State of Palestine most certainly will.

Ms Fitzgibbon also highlighted a 9 million euros financing gap for the National Maternity Strategy last year and said the government needed to be challenged on the deficit “urgently”.

It is the media – in particular the public broadcaster RTE – who would be responsible for challenging this decision, but for one reason or another, 9 million euros The black hole in the National Maternity Strategy is not at the top of RTE’s priorities.

Bashing health services for pregnant women isn’t on the mainstream media’s agenda right now – but Taylor Swift concerts and imaginary waves of hate crimes are.

Stephy Scaria, a nurse who lived in Abbeyfeale, tragically died after a caesarean section at Cork University Maternity Hospital last Friday.

Separately, University Hospital Kerry has confirmed that a maternal death involving another woman has occurred at the hospital, with Radio Kerry reporting that Kerry Hospital said that “in line with HSE policy on all maternal deaths, an external review will take place, while the coroner has also been notified.”

Additionally, a woman also tragically died at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda last week. Naomi James died on June 23, last Sunday, after giving birth to a baby boy, Cal. Naomi leaves behind her beloved husband and their 4 children.

The Journal reported: “Naomi James, who loved ones described as “amazing and beautiful”, died at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda on Sunday June 23 after giving birth to a baby boy at home. She suffered postpartum hemorrhage, known as bleeding, after giving birth. His son survived. It is understood that an ambulance was called to the house after Naomi gave birth to her baby, arriving at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda between 45 minutes and an hour later. Hospital staff worked desperately to try to save his life, and several people were extremely distressed by the experience. »

As previously reported on Gript, after the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar from sepsis, then Minister of Health Leo Varadkar established the National Maternity Strategy Group to develop standards and processes in maternity services .

Mr Varadkar said funding for the strategy group would be ring-fenced. “However, his successor, now Taoiseach, Simon Harris, then diverted “most” of this funding to fund abortions. »

I checked the Irish Times website on Friday 28th^th and I haven’t seen a single report on these maternal deaths. Three in one week for a country like Ireland is significant and tragic. There were at least five songs on the Taylor Swift concert, so it’s good to know where their priorities lie.

On the RTE website that same day there was also no report of these maternal deaths and of course there was a whole section devoted to Ms Swift. Taoiseach Simon Harris, who has never been more ridiculous, had to intervene to say that he had a “score to settle” with Taylor Swift. Something about a rock on a beach or some such nonsense.

This is the same Simon Harris who transferred funds earmarked for the care of pregnant women to fund the termination of the lives of unborn babies.

Note the very great contrast, the enormous disparity, the gargantuan distinction between the way the media covers these three separate tragedies of women dying in childbirth and the way the media covered the tragic death due to sepsis and medical negligence of Savita Halappanavar.

The media coverage of this case has been wall-to-wall, hysterical and non-stop. It has become international. This was so ruthlessly pushed by the Irish media, RTE and the Irish Times, that I remember reading this on a very specialist parenting site in London, and no, it wasn’t Mumsnet. “Ireland Murders Pregnant Indian Dentist” was the headline on indiatimes.com.

Barely a day had passed and the case was settled: Savita Halappanavar had been killed because there was no abortion in Ireland. That was the storyline that had to be followed and the media stuck to it, aided by campaigns such as a particularly gruesome Liam Neeson video for Amnesty, which spoke of ghosts from the past haunting Ireland and bringing death, instead of images of Catholic symbols and overgrown churches.

The silence surrounding these last three maternal deaths is deafening, shocking and revealing. Because what doesn’t make the media hysterical is just as important as what makes them hysterical. If a person’s tragic death can be used to advance a political agenda – say, getting abortion on demand in Ireland – then that’s what you’ll hear about all day long. The lack of abortion on demand may have little or nothing to do with that death, but the media will never let the facts get in the way of their agenda. And that’s certainly not the case in the case of Savita Halappanavar. (See page 56 of the report.)

The report into Savita Halappanavar’s death found a “failure to provide the most basic elements of care in her case”. The Hiqa report said there were 13 separate occasions when a potentially life-saving intervention could have been performed but was lost.

Victoria White hit the nail on the head when she said that “the terrible story of Savita’s death is not about abortion. This is a story of medical negligence of appalling proportions.

White said Savita Halappanavar “had it all at her fingertips. And it was snatched away by our health service. Her death means we can’t take care of people properly, especially pregnant women. Her legacy should certainly not be the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, or even the removal of the Eighth Amendment. It should be a proper, safe, functioning health service that treats all our citizens equally.”

White continued: “Never again,” read signs during protests following Savita’s death. But the hard truth is that it will take much more than a new abortion law to ensure that what happened to Savita never happens to another woman again.

These latest maternal deaths prove that the slogan “Never Again” was a lie. They demonstrate that by advocating abortion on demand, the media has done more than promote this particular evil. She also squandered an opportunity to pressure the government to provide better maternity care for all women.

It is therefore not surprising that three mothers died in one week: it is a shame, but it is not surprising. These women and their gruesome deaths cannot be used to advance the abortion-on-demand agenda, or any other media-cherished cause, and so they are barely mentioned in the media.

There are no demonstrations or signs for them. We have no right to receive a statement from the Prime Minister condemning the deplorable state of the health service that would allow such a thing to happen. Don’t you know there’s a Taylor Swift concert? Can’t you just get away from me?

Repeal activists spent much of their time terrifying pregnant women by telling them that without abortion on demand, they were on the brink of death. That the Republic, with its pro-life laws, was a dangerous place for a pregnant woman. These were lies.

The terror campaign was successful and they got the law repealed, but we still have tragic maternal deaths. In fact, funds that should have been spent on maternal care (recommended after the Savita Halappanavar case) have been diverted by the current Taoiseach, Simon Harris, to fund abortions.

Abortion on demand has not improved maternal care. How is this possible? But the abortion regime has reduced resources for maternal care. It has done the exact opposite of what the Repeal campaigners had promised – but at the time you knew they were lies.

The Repealers got what they wanted; on Friday night, government figures confirmed that there were 10,033 abortions in Ireland in 2023, a shocking figure. Well done to the Repealers for this victory. They must be pleased.

What is increasingly clear is that the rise in maternal deaths is being ignored. because ensuring abortion on demand was more important than providing safe and effective care to pregnant women. I wish Liam Neeson would make a video about this.

---

Laura Perrins, is an Irish lawyer who lived and worked in the UK for many years, where she was the founder of the Conservative Woman website. She has also written for the Daily Mail, the Catholic Herald and Chapter House. She regularly writes from Ireland on her Substack.