The coat hanger isn’t sterile. It isn’t even clean. If the woman, or girl, is alone she thrusts it blindly upwards into the vagina. She’s hoping it will get into her uterus and do something. She may or may not know that to get into the uterus the coat hanger has to navigate the small …
Category Archives: abortion
When abortion was illegal in Canada
Henry Morgentaler died this week. He was the man who almost single handedly brought down the Canadian abortion law. Sickened by what was happening in filthy, clandestine clinics he began doing safe, albeit illegal, procedures in his office. He was arrested but always maintained that a jury would never find him guilty. And he was …
Irish Catholic Bishops reveal ignorance in statement on death of Savita Halappanavar
The Irish Catholic Bishops have seen fit to clarify the church’s view on gynecology given Savita Halappanavar’s death from sepsis at 17 weeks in her pregnancy and the concern that evacuating her uterus was delayed because the fetus still had a heart beat. The full statement is here, but this is the excerpt I find …
How sick must a pregnant woman be in Ireland for her doctor to say her life is at risk?
While a full analysis of the tragic case of Savita Halappanavar’s death from sepsis at 17 weeks in her pregnancy is not possible without access to her medical records, there is a key piece of information provided by her husband that supports his claim that a termination was not allowed or was delayed because of …
The panel investigating Savita Halappanavar’s death must change and why
The Irish Health Service Executive has appointed a 7 member panel to investigate Savita Halappanavar’s death from sepsis at 17 weeks in her pregnancy. The problem? There is only one international expert and three of the doctors on the panel work at Galway, the hospital where she died. Her widower is understandably upset and has …
Continue reading “The panel investigating Savita Halappanavar’s death must change and why”
Did Irish Catholic law or malpractice kill Savita Halappanavar?
This is what is known. Savita Halappanavar was 31 years old and happy to be pregnant with her first child. Then, at 17 weeks, tragedy struck and she was “found to be miscarrying.” Her husband reports that she was in “severe pain” for three days at the hospital and a termination was requested. He says …
Continue reading “Did Irish Catholic law or malpractice kill Savita Halappanavar?”
Anatomy of an unsafe abortion
I was in clinic when I heard the overhead STAT page to the emergency room. As I sprinted down the stairs, I ran through the possible scenarios. I wasn’t on call, so the day to day gynecologic emergencies weren’t my purview. I hadn’t operated on anyone in the past few weeks, so unlikely to be …
Dr. Jen Gunter 