Remember Savita in Ireland?
Fast news tends to mean emotional reporting that can produce hysterical reactions and counterproductive efforts at corrective actions.
Such was the case with Savita Halappanavar, who died in an Irish hospital of infection. She thought she was miscarrying and asked for an abortion, which Irish law does not permit. She died of infection after a week in the hospital.
The media went wild and claimed that her death was due to the lack of an abortion. As a result, the Irish law was changed, ostensibly to save further victims like Savita.
However, a recent report by Ireland’s Health Information and Quality Authority “shows that Savita’s death had nothing to do with the abortion law. It was caused by incompetence.”
There were basic errors made in her care that failed to note the changes in her condition that warranted different procedures. As a review of her records shows, there were “a number of missed opportunities” which might have changed the outcome of the case. Nine of the people involved in her medical care have been disciplined.
BioEdge reports little effort by the media to correct the false impression they trumpeted to help get the abortion law changed. It reports a statement by Cora Sherlock, a solicitor and deputy chairman of Prolife Campaign. She said, “Those who pushed the distorted version of the story hardest from the start have never bothered to set the record straight in light of all the reports that have contradicted their initial presentation of the case.” She added, “These journalists and politicians were happy to hard wire a false account of what happened into people’s minds and to this day they have no intention of disturbing their original narrative.”
