Liz Dunphy: Savita Halappanavar should not have had to die for reproductive rights to change

Ireland owes Savita Halappanavar a great debt and a great deal of gratitude for making this country safer for other women, writes Liz Dunphy.

People gathered at Emmet Place, Cork, during a candlelit vigil organised by Cork Womens Right To Choose group in memory of Savita Halappanavar in 2012. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Wax dripped like tears from flickering candles which burned brightly around a photo of Savita Halappanavar at a vigil for her in Cork in the days after her death.

The people cried too. Women and men, teenagers, parents holding their young children in their arms and by the hand, knowing that Savita could have been them, their daughter, their mother, their sister, their friend.

The candles threw shadows across her beautiful face. Her doe eyes and wide smile in that photo have become etched deeply into our collective memory as an icon, a powerful symbol of change in Ireland.

A candlelit vigil in memory of Savita Halappanavar at Emmet Place, Cork, in 2012. Picture: Denis Minihane

Savita had a right to life, but that life was not protected because of misogynistic, backwards laws that still viewed women primarily as vessels to carry babies, rather than individuals with valuable lives of their own.

Dr Sandra McAvoy, then lecturer and co-ordinator of the Women’s Studies department in UCC, was involved in organising that vigil.

She had recently been of huge help to my friend Laura Kinsella and I in a video project we were working on at that time, sharing women’s abortion stories in an attempt to humanise a debate that had become reductively polemic and rabid.

It felt deeply depressing and unfair that even though we all knew the law was wrong, despite the dedicated work of brilliant women like Dr McAvoy and so many others working to improve the safety of and opportunities for women in Ireland, this young woman died because of deaf ears and intransigence.

People were angry and upset, and things started to shift.

The political climate changed. Even politicians who had been staunchly anti-abortion, such as Simon Harris, admirably changed their stance, and the ground that the anti-abortion lobby had held so firmly for so long began to tremble.

Fine Gael's Minister for Health Simon Harris, speaking at the launch of the Fine Gael Vote Yes campaign to repeal the Eight Amendment of the Constitution in 2018. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Savita's death, aged 31, and 17 weeks pregnant, was a clarion call for long-overdue change in Ireland’s cruel laws around women’s reproductive rights.

Women all over Ireland will forever be grateful to Savita.

The outpouring of love and grief she inspired prompted people of all ages to become active in politics, fighting for change they knew the country needed.

Savita died in a Galway hospital of sepsis at 1.07am on October 28, 2012, after having repeatedly asked for an abortion over two days as her baby was dying. But it was refused because medics could still hear a foetal heartbeat. Irish law at the time protected the right to life of the unborn as equal to the right to life of the mother.

An inquest found that Savita died as a result of a mismanaged miscarriage, and that laws had prevented an abortion that could have saved her life.

Praveen Halappanavar with a picture of his wife Savita, who died in Galway University Hospital. Picture: The Irish Times

Savita was not from this country, but she died because religious doctrine rather than science or basic human rights were allowed to govern our hospitals and our laws for too long.

Abortion had been legal in India, where Savita was born, since 1971. 

Savita’s appalling death proved that abortion is healthcare, basic healthcare that some women unfortunately need. No one wants an abortion, but sometimes they need it, for whatever reasons.

During her life, Savita had brought light and life to the Irish community she moved into.

Savita first came to Ireland in 2008. She moved from Belgaum in the south-west Indian state of Karnataka when she was in her 20s.

Savita was a dentist, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend, and a skilled classical Indian dancer. 

She taught dance to children of the Indian community, and brought Indian and Irish children together for Indian dances in Galway.

Her anniversary falls near the Indian festival of light, Diwali, which seeks to dispel the darkness of ignorance. It celebrates and symbolises the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, righteousness over treachery, and truth over falsehood.

Savita’s death helped spark the Repeal the Eighth Amendment campaign, known as Repeal, which galvanised and politicised people across Ireland who came together to say: 'No More'.

A scene from a protest at the Dail in 2012 after the death of Savita Halappanavar, who died at University Hospital Galway. Picture: Gareth Chaney Collins

Six years after Savita’s death, a referendum on May 25, 2018, repealed the 1983 amendment, Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, which guaranteed the equal right to life of the unborn and the mother by a majority vote of 66.4%, which would pave the way for abortion legislation in Ireland.

That vote felt monumental to women of my generation.

I was in London when the referendum result was announced.

Women I had never met before, some wearing Repeal T-shirts, embraced me on the street when they heard my Irish accent. Some also cried in strange emotional knots of joy and relief, and sorrow that it took so long.

It felt like such a historic victory for women’s rights after such a protracted and bitter battle.

I wish Savita did not have to die for this. But Ireland owes her a great debt and a great deal of gratitude for making this country safer for other women.

She died 10 years ago, on October 28, 2012. Marches, demonstrations, and moments of silence across the country will mark her death and remember her life on Friday.