‘Abortion should be safe, legal and rare’
The death after a miscarriage of Savita Halappanavar once again dominates bitter debate on abortion laws, writes Maeve Sheehan
THE obstetrician Peter Boylan has criticised remarks by a pro-life senator about Savita Halappanavar as “repugnant”, “outrageous” and deserving of an apology.
Dr Boylan, who was an expert witness at Ms Halappanavar’s inquest, said the remarks by Senator Ronan Mullen during a radio interview overstepped the mark of decency, judgment and good taste.
The former Master of the National Maternity Hospital also criticised what he said were attempts to question his professional reputation following his appearance at the Oireachtas Committee examining Ireland’s abortion laws 10 days ago.
Mr Mullen responded that the use by Dr Boylan and others of Savita Halappanavar’s death to campaign for abortion is disturbing and calls for an apology.
Dr Boylan was one of two consultants to tell the committee that Savita Halapannavar’s death was caused by the Eighth Amendment, which gives equal protection to the mother and the unborn.
Afterwards, Senator Mullen took issue on the airwaves with this assertion, and went further when asked on RTE’s Today with Sean O’Rourke programme whether Ms Halappanavar would still be alive if she was given a termination when she asked for one.
Mr Mullen replied: “If there was abortion on demand she wouldn’t have been in the hospital because she wouldn’t have been pregnant and she wouldn’t have been having a miscarriage.’’
His words appeared to imply that Savita would have aborted her baby. However, Senator Mullen has since clarified that he was not talking about Ms Halappanavar’s personal circumstances and “never would” do so. “To suggest I was is bad faith,” he said.
The latest divisive debate coincides with the fifth anniversary of the death of Savita Halappanavar. Thousands of people were expected to attend silent vigils organised by pro-choice groups all over the country in her memory yesterday.
She died of sepsis in Galway University Hospital in October 2013. She was suffering a miscarriage but her request for a termination was refused because of the presence of the foetal heartbeat. She was told to “await events” which meant allowing nature to take its course. While awaiting events, she developed sepsis which was mismanaged by her medical team. She gave birth to a dead baby. Savita died four days later.
Mr Mullen has disputed the role of the Eighth Amendment in her death. In his contentious radio interview, Mr Mullen pointed to three reports that found medical mismanagement of sepsis caused her death, and added that the doctors involved in the case did not try to hide behind the law, “though it might have suited them”.
Speaking for the first time since the controversy broke, Peter Boylan said this weekend that while she died from sepsis, “the back story of how she got there is missing from the death certificate, which is just a bare statement of fact”, he said. “The facts are so clear about the Eighth Amendment and its effect in Savita’s case, that there is no way around it really.”
He points to transcripts from Savita’s inquest that bear this out. Asked if she felt constrained or inhibited by Irish law in her treatment options for Savita, her consultant responded: “Yes, because termination of pregnancy which is what she was requesting was not legal in the context in which she requested it.”
He said she died of “fulminating sepsis and septic shock. The locus of the infection was her womb. Had her womb been empty, as it would have been following a termination, she would not have developed sepsis. Both myself and Professor Arulkumaran are in complete agreement on this point. Had she had her termination, she would be alive today”.
Professor Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, who headed the Health Service Executive’s independent review of her death, told the Oireachtas Committee that “even at the last minute they were using a hand probe to see whether the baby’s heartbeat was present or not. Any junior doctor would have said it was a serious condition and they must terminate. They were just keeping her going because of the mere fact the heartbeat was there. The legislation played a major role in making a decision.”
“So, to say the law didn’t influence their management is categorically wrong. It just flies in the face of all of the evidence,” said Dr Boylan. He said in any other country in Europe, bar Malta, her pregnancy would have been terminated but that did not happen here because of the Eighth Amendment.
There have been attempts to make him out as “an abortionist”, he said, or “somebody who is pro abortion — which I am not”.
He was asked, again by Ronan Mullen at the Oireachtas Committee hearing, how many abortions he had carried out in his time working in the UK and the US. Dr Boylan felt the question was inappropriate. He declined to answer it. He was the only one of the expert panel of three to be asked. The Senator surmised that people “will draw their own conclusions about Dr Boylan’s answer”.
“I am very happy to answer it now and the answer is zero because it did not arise,” said Dr Boylan. “The majority of the committee were excellent, they paid attention. It was very collegiate, respectful and they listened. But I do take offence at somebody — in a position like his, where he is a senator in our Senate — who uses his position to try and rubbish my professional reputation”.
He said: “I think it [abortion] should be safe, and legal and rare. So, to say I am a pro-abortionist is incorrect. I am pro safe abortion, that if it is going to happen, that it is going to be safe.”
He said he was “very happy” to support the movement to repeal the Eighth “because I think it’s fundamentally wrong and it’s hypocritical, it’s caused endless problems for doctors and for women primarily in this country. I am very happy to speak when I’m asked”.
Dr Boylan wrote to the Oireachtas Committee to “correct the record” on what he said were fundamental inaccuracies. Mullen, for his part, has also emailed the Oireachtas Committee to correct what he says are Dr Boylan’s misrepresentations of his remarks. He believes the work of the Committee is biased. He has criticised the decision to take a vote not to let the Eighth Amendment stand as is, before all the witnesses have been heard. Both he and Mattie McGrath, the independent TD, have threatened to walk out.
As he bluntly put it on his local radio station, Galway Bay FM: “I don’t give a shite what words came out in the middle of an interview. It was clear in the context of what I was saying that I was in no way talking about Savita personally and as I say, anyone who suggests otherwise, is not speaking in good faith. They are trying to further use that unfortunate woman and her family... to campaign. They are ‘twisting it to make an abortion point’.”
In another statement last week, he said his point “was and is” that claims that Savita would have been alive but for the Eighth Amendment were misleading. “They are only true in the sense that anyone who was ever refused an abortion for whatever reason, and who later got ill and died in the context of their pregnancy, through poor medical treatment or otherwise, could also be said by pro-abortion campaigners to have died because of the restrictions on abortion,” he said.
“I acknowledge that one sentence used by me in the Sean O’Rourke interview could be reworded to more accurately express my meaning. But my meaning was clear anyway, both in the full context of that interview and in later radio interviews. Therefore, I can only conclude that the criticisms are not in good faith and are instead intended to deflect from my criticisms about the misuse of Savita’s case.”
The Committee on the Eighth Amendment is to make recommendations to Government on the Eighth Amendment and Ireland’s abortion laws, based on the report of the Citizens’ Assembly. It will meet again in November.
‘I am very happy to support repeal’