The Savita Case | Susan Rea

Susan Rea discusses the intricacies of debate.

      I’m not politically or socially aware, even though I’m not a bad person, and I’m not a stupid person. It’s embarrassing to occasionally realise how little I know about our government, or the situation in Gaza, or any number of the other stories on the news every day. And I’m not alone in this ignorance, not at all, certainly not among people my age and most probably not among the Irish population as a whole. But every so often a news story comes along that seizes the attention of the average person which challenges us to form an opinion, to participate. It’s the kind of news story that pervades the daily phonecall from your Mam. “Did you hear about Savita, and isn’t it awful?”We’ve all heard about the terrible circumstances surrounding the recent death of Savita Halappanavar, who was denied a medical termination to her pregnancy in UHG. It’s opened up a massive and highly emotional debate about our abortion laws, in this country and worldwide.Central to this of course is the tragic loss of human life, the heartbreak of a young family torn apart. But I gladly eat my dinner to the soundtrack of RTE News reporting hundreds of unnecessary deaths in foreign wars I don’t know much about. So why does the Savita case register with me so much? Why were more than one thousand people so upset about the preventable death of a woman they’d never met, that they lined the streets, lit candles, cried, in protest? Because abortion is a touchy subject. It’s a subject, we’re told, you must have an opinion on. Are you pro-choice? Are you pro-life? Are you modern or outdated, secular or spiritual? Media reporting Savita’s death urged the message to us in the weeks preceding Christmas in no uncertain terms: get off the fence.It’s dangerous to approach this debate with that attitude. By definition, abortion is not a black and white issue, and it’s unhealthy to think we should all decide one way or another. No one thinks abortion should be available without a considered decision. But no one thinks a woman should die as Savita did, when death seemingly could have been avoided. It’s an extremely complex and morally creviced debate that we shouldn’t only consider when there’s a convenient posterchild.It’s easy to get carried away in the emotion of this story. Pictures of Savita looking happy and beautiful are everywhere, accompanied by signs like “her blood is on your hands”. What a horrific accusation! The fact is that your local TD is not to blame for killing this beautiful, educated, loved woman. Her doctors are probably not murderers either. Your local priest did not foresee her death, the Catholic church are not rejoicing in it. We’re all humans that value human life, and this debate should be about defining the boundaries of those values, and not about demonising people.I struggle with my own views on abortion, but I agree with the portion of the Irish population that support the precedents of the X Case being put into place. Who wouldn’t support termination when the mother’s life is at risk? It’s bizarre, upsetting even that the entire debate in Irish media is about bringing in this very tentative first step towards the legalisation of abortion. To me and most of Ireland, being able to legally prevent another death like Savita’s is common sense.The main argument the pro-life movement have put out in response to this case revolves around the lack of evidence that abortion could have prevented the death. They’re arguing that until the medical enquiry is finished, we can’t know if aborting Savita’s pregnancy would have saved her life. They’re missing the point! Leave the intricate details of Savita’s particular case to the private grief of her family. We have to recognise that this is one single case, with hundreds of factors and particular details pertaining to a single patient. It’s not helpful for two totally opposing viewpoints to battle it out for tiny victories in the details of one case. While it was a provocative tool for getting people like me to think about the issue, Savita’s death should not be the central part of the Irish debate on abortion.The problem here is that at the moment, it’s possible a woman could die as a result of this legal grey area. That should be concerning enough, whatever the outcome of the Savita enquiry.Don’t polarise your opinions. This isn’t a good versus evil war, it’s a muddy pond that no one knows the perfect way out of. If, like most of us, you’re not expertly informed about the pro-life and pro-choice camps, don’t jump onto the bandwagon of an opinion you can summarise with just two words. The wider debate is going to take a long time to tease out, and rightly so.