{"id":716,"date":"2012-11-23T03:16:48","date_gmt":"2012-11-22T21:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/?p=716"},"modified":"2014-02-07T11:52:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T06:22:43","slug":"does-the-law-protect-or-persecute-lessons-from-the-death-of-savita-halappanavar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/does-the-law-protect-or-persecute-lessons-from-the-death-of-savita-halappanavar\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Law Protect or Persecute: Lessons From the Death of Savita Halappanavar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Savita’s death raised a lot of legal questions. But apart from the most obvious and pressing need to legalize abortion to prevent maternal death, it is important also to realize that such law such protect the people involved – most importantly the woman! Here’s a look at some changes that would be helpful in improving the quality of women’s lives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Will doctors decide differently if the laws protected them?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s abortion law is very stringent. Women are allowed to avail of the procedure only when their life it at risk. But in Savita\u2019s case, her life was<\/em> at risk and she was still denied abortion, because the doctor\u2019s understanding of the case was given precedence over Savita\u2019s complaints of pain, or her plea to save her life. This is the unfortunate result of a law that gives the doctor more power over the patient, and also threatens to punish the practitioner if he or she makes a lenient decision in favor of the patient.<\/p>\n

Abortion is a personal decision, and has to be made available for all women as and when they need them. But the sheer access to medical knowledge might make doctors better judges of the risk to women\u2019s lives. In these cases, a law that protects the doctor from undue prosecution is more likely to encourage the physician to make a decision that favors the patient.<\/p>\n

It’s Time To Legalize Abortion and Call It A Right:<\/strong><\/p>\n

For a very long time now, anti-choice groups have claimed that the lack of abortion care does not kill women. Savita is now the public face of the argument to the contrary.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thanks to the global furor, pro-choice organizations might be able to hold governments accountable for enforcing abortion laws when a woman\u2019s life in under threat. But hopefully Savita\u2019s death will go beyond obstetric emergencies, and open doors to\u00a0discussion on the strain pregnancies cause on a woman\u2019s body. Any physical or mental complication that threatens a woman’s life, or compromises its quality has to be given importance. Such a law is best enforced if it\u2019s coupled with a rights-based approach, which allows every woman to decide the outcome to her pregnancy. While a doctor\u2019s opinion or counseling may be required to make an informed choice, the patient\u2019s own decision must be prioritized.<\/p>\n

Liberalizing Laws:<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Ireland\u2019s battle for abortion rights started well before Savita\u2019s death. Earlier this year, an anti-choice poster that read \u201cAbortion ripped her life apart\u201d fueled public protests, and encouraged several women to talk about about traveling to U.K. for an abortion. Savita\u2019s death is bound to pressurize Ireland to change laws that will help Irish women, and immigrants alike.<\/p>\n

But this is also a great opportunity for other countries to liberalize their laws to make sure they protect women, rather than prosecute them. In India, Savita\u2019s country of origin, abortion laws were recently threatened by campaigns against sex-selection. Hopefully, this shocking incident gives Indians an opportunity to consider abortion in new light, and see it as a medical procedure that preserves and improves the quality of life of women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Savita’s death raised a lot of legal questions. But apart from the most obvious and pressing need to legalize abortion to prevent maternal death, it is important also to realize that such law such protect the people involved – most importantly the woman! Here’s a look at some changes that would be helpful in improving…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":4097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[276,308,292],"tags":[198,15,7],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-access-and-barriers","category-international-campaign-for-womens-right-to-safe-abortion","category-laws-and-international-conventions","tag-legal-battles-for-abortion","tag-safe-abortion","tag-womens-rights"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/blog-featured-image-logo.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O7nG-by","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1410,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions\/1410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}