This Sunday, Holding broke a shocking story around abortion in Ireland which showed that women’s lives are being put at risk by the blind and willful determination not to provide ultrasounds when women have abortions.
Presenting an alarming and disturbing case where a woman could die, medical experts working at Limerick Maternity Hospital said the practice of not offering ultrasounds before prescribing abortion pills could lead to mother’s death
They are very clear on this point – writing that currently it is “not customary” to offer such scans before an abortion, and because the symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy can be masked by the symptoms expected after taking the pill in abortion, it can result in women. dying
In 2018, when Carol Nolan TD called for changes to abortion legislation that would ensure ultrasounds are offered to women to date a pregnancy and avoid the risk of an ectopic pregnancy, the Minister for Health refused to Simon Harris his proposal says it will be. “A terrible use of what people are properly taught is a scarce resource in the health service”.
I think the woman in Limerick Hospital who may have lost her life – after suffering massive blood loss and requiring immediate resuscitation – would disagree. But will Harris, or the current Health Minister, Stephen Donnelly, be held accountable for this appalling case?
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The Irish media establishment is certainly interested in the issue of abortion and devotes considerable effort to investigating and commenting on any suggestion that, despite our rising abortion rates, our laws should be liberalized further.
However both media – including the public service broadcaster, RTÉ – apparently uninterested in a shocking case in which a woman nearly died because of a policy of not providing ultrasounds to women seeking abortions, leading to the symptoms of a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy rupture being masked.
That’s unusual, isn’t it? Women’s lives are endangered by the state’s policy on abortion, but the national reporter and the national newspapers continue to ignore this explosive story.
If it was a case where a woman nearly died because she was denied an abortion, it would, of course, make headline news, endlessly fueled by commentary calling for a change in Irish laws.
The media is eager to cover claims that Savita Halappanavar died because of the 8th amendment, for example, despite the fact that three separate inquiries found her death to be caused by medical negligence, and that the hospital missed 13 opportunities to identify the infection. or intervene to save his life.
Now we have constant reporting about the supposed need to criminalize people who pray at abortion centers – while journalists work to try to set up pro-life volunteers who seek to help women with unexpected pregnancies.
But when medical experts reveal that our abortion policies led to a woman being rushed to hospital in an ambulance – bleeding, in severe medical distress, and in need of life-saving intervention – the media remains comfortable mouth is shut.
A search on RTÉ News website this morning did a report from two days ago on an expected US Supreme Court abortion decision, but not on the Limerick case.
As usual, we see what can be described as a wall of silence. Of course, this is not the first time this has happened. Women’s lives don’t seem that important to Irish news reporters when the story can disrupt their entirely positive spin in support of legal abortion.
THE CASE
Medical experts – working in Obstetrics and Gynecology – already wrote the case in the March edition of Journal of the Irish Medical Organization, it said it provided insights into “a serious and life-threatening event ie maternal collapse due to a ruptured EP [ectopic pregnancy] after termination of pregnancy.”
A woman was prescribed abortion pills, but – as was routine practice – the GP did not perform an ultrasound, and the fact that her unborn baby was lodged in her fallopian tube, and not in her womb, was not obtained.
This is called an ectopic pregnancy and it is very dangerous, because, as the baby grows, the tube can rupture leading to massive bleeding, organ failure, shock, and death. In fact, undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy is still the leading cause of death in pregnant women.
Identifying the symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy – abdominal pain, genital bleeding – is key to diagnosis and life-saving intervention. But if a woman with an ectopic pregnancy takes abortion pills prescribed by her GP, and no ultrasound is done, then the symptoms of a ruptured tube can be mistaken at first for the symptoms of an abortion pill.
That’s what happened to the woman who was taken by ambulance to University Maternity Hospital Limerick deals with severe pain and hypovolemic shock – an emergency condition where severe loss of blood or other fluids causes the heart to be unable to pump enough blood around the body, which can be cause many organs to stop working.
She is seriously ill, and in a life-threatening situation, requiring “immediate resuscitation” before her ruptured fallopian tube can be removed.
In other words, this woman almost died. He has took abortion pills under the care of her GP two weeks earlier, but as no ultrasound was done, the fact that her unborn child was not in her womb, but in the fallopian tube, was a no known complications.
And when the symptoms of a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy began – the pain, the bleeding – they were believed to be symptoms of taking the prescribed abortion pills.
Doctors note that offering an ultrasound to check against an ectopic pregnancy is “out of the ordinary” when a woman asks for abortion pills – and warn that this could result in masking the symptoms and signs of an ectopic. pregnancy in abortion patients and can lead to death due to misdiagnosis and the overlap of symptoms of ectopic pregnancy and abortion.
Their statement should act as a loud, ringing alarm bell to the Minister for Health about the provision of abortion and how it endangers women’s lives. But it will likely be ignored, as in Baby Christopher’s case, as abortion rates rise.
THE GOVERNMENT REJECTED THE ULTRASOUND AMENDMENT
That’s because the government – and the NGOs they side with on this and many other issues – refuse to include an ultrasound provision when the abortion law is being finalized because they don’t want women considering abortion to know the humanity of their unborn. son
In 2018, when pro-life TDs demanded a completely significant change, proposed by Carol Nolan TD [a member of the lower house of the Irish Parliament] to the law that will ensure that ultrasounds are offered to women precisely so that their pregnancy can be dated and the risk of an ectopic pregnancy is ignored, they are shouted.
As noted above, the then Health Minister, Simon Harris, with his usual sarcasm, accused them of denying women ‘choice’ and said that to “subject” every woman to an ultrasound would be “a terrible use” of “scarce resources in the health service”.
During the debate, Kate O’Connell, then a Fine Gael TD, in a display of histrionics typical of her contributions to this issue, said the “amendment in its essence is designed to cause pain and to try to impose some kind of offense” . Sinn Féin’s Louise O’Reilly, whose behavior towards Carol Nolan throughout these debates was frankly deplorable, came out with some blather about the shame, while the current Health Minister, Stephen Donnelly, indulged in dark utterances about controlling women.
Therefore, the advice of Doctors for Life and pro-life nurses and midwives – who warned that ectopic pregnancies would be missed, and that women’s lives could be at risk – was largely ignored.
As medical experts said this week, it is a political, not a medical decision not to provide ultrasounds before prescribing abortion pills. And that decision led to at least one case where a woman, in pain and shock, nearly bled to death in a Limerick hospital.
I say at least, because the HSE [the Health Service Executive] said 1 in every 80 pregnancies is ectopic. There were 8,156 abortions in 2022. Did 100 of those involve an ectopic pregnancy? Did the other woman almost lose her life? Is data being collected on what happens to women under this abortion regime? If not, why not?
The Limerick case was written up in a leading Irish medical journal. RTÉ should launch an investigation or haul the Prime Time Minister to demand answers and urge policy change. Don’t hold your breath for that to happen.
But somehow with the changing media landscape, the truth can no longer be completely hidden.
LifeNews Note: Niamh Ui Bhriain writes for Life Institute.
