10,000 in Ireland protest death of dentist denied abortion
DUBLIN, Ireland — About 10,000 people marched through Dublin and observed a minute's silence Saturday in memory of the Indian dentist who died of blood poisoning in an Irish hospital after being denied an abortion.
10,000 in Ireland protest death of dentist denied abortion
Associated press
November 18, 2012
DUBLIN, Ireland — About 10,000 people marched through Dublin and observed a minute's silence Saturday in memory of the Indian dentist who died of blood poisoning in an Irish hospital after being denied an abortion.
Marchers, many of them mothers and daughters walking side by side, chanted "Never again!" and held pictures of Savita Halappanavar as they paraded across the city to stage a nighttime candlelight vigil outside the office of Prime Minister Enda Kenny.
The 31-year-old Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant with her first child, died Oct. 28, one week after being hospitalized with severe pain at the start of a miscarriage. Her death, made public by her husband last week, has highlighted Ireland's long struggle to come to grips with abortion.
Doctors refused her requests to remove the fetus until its heartbeat stopped four days after her hospitalization. Hours later she became critically ill and her organs began to fail. She died three days later of blood poisoning. Her widower and activists say she could have survived, and the spread of infection been stopped, had the fetus been removed sooner.
