Who Was Savita Halappanavar? Indian-Origin Dentist US Is Being Reminded Of Amid Abortion Rights Debate

2012 Savita Halappanavar death case in focus again as leaked draft opinion of US Supreme Court suggests 1973 Roe Vs Wade decision that gave women the constitutional right to abortion may be overturned.

File photo of right to abortion activists protesting in front of a photo of Savita Halappanavar in Dublin in 2021. ( Image Source :Getty )

New Delhi: In October 2012, Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old pregnant dentist, reached University Hospital Galway in the Irish capital of Dublin with some serious complications. She was in severe pain, and was admitted the same day. Doctors told her that her 17-week pregnancy was going to fail, but did not perform an abortion. Savita died of septicaemia on October 28, 2012, eight days after being admitted. The case became the focus of debates and protests in several countries across the world over the strict abortion laws in Ireland.

Nearly six years later, in May 2018, Ireland voted by a clear majority to repeal the Eighth Amendment that effectively banned termination of pregnancies under most circumstances.

Another four years on, the case is in focus again as a leaked draft opinion suggests that the Supreme Court of the United States could overturn the historic 1973 Roe Vs Wade decision that gave women the constitutional right to abortion, and allow individual states to regulate the procedure more heavily or even ban it altogether.

With the leak causing an uproar among activists demanding open access to abortion, and women who are now possibly on the verge of losing the right to abortion, many are reminded of the case of Savita Halappanavar, the dentist from India's Karnataka who lost her life in Ireland because she could not exercise her right to abortion.

Two women consoled one another as they looked at written notes left on a Savita Halappanavar mural as the results in the Irish referendum on the 8th Amendment concerning the country's abortion laws took place in Dublin, Ireland, on May 26, 2018. 

What Was Roe v. Wade Case?

The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was called a landmark ruling as it legalised abortion across the US, with the majority opinion finding termination of pregnancy during the first three months an absolute right.

Roe v. Wade was the name of the lawsuit.

Jane Roe was actually a pseudonym for plaintiff Norma McCorvey, a 22-year-old unmarried and unemployed Texas woman who was pregnant for the third time in 1969 and sought to have an abortion. The US Supreme Court finally ruled in her favour in 1973, though she had by then given birth to a girl who she had put up for adoption, according to an AP report.

McCorvey had sued Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, whose job was to enforce a state law prohibiting abortion except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger.

In her petition, McCorvey had alleged that the Texas law was “unconstitutionally vague and violated her constitutionally protected right to personal privacy”, the AP report said. Her question before the US apex court was: “Does the Constitution recognize a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion?”

It did, indeed, the 7-2 majority opinion delivered by Justice Harry Blackmun found. It was, however, made clear that the protection had to be balanced against the government’s interests in protecting the health of women and “the potentiality of human life”. 

The court also said a woman’s decision on abortion during the first trimester must be left to her and her doctor.

In 1973, when the court ruling came, abortion was by and large legal in only four states, while 16 others allowed it under limited circumstances. In the remaining 30 states, there was a total ban on abortion, but the SC decision nullified them because Constitutional rights are superior to state laws in the US. The court, however, allowed states to impose certain regulations during the second trimester and take steps to protect foetal life in the third.

In 1992, when Pennsylvania abortion laws were challenged in Blackmun’s court, it upheld the right to abortion, but made it easier for states to impose regulations, the AP report said.

Texas state has since banned most abortions after about six weeks.

The newest case that threatens to undo the Roe vs Wade decision is the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization lawsuit that challenges Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks.

If the ban is upheld, as suggested in the leaked draft, it could result in different abortion laws in different states.

'How many Savitas will die in the US?'

With the leaked draft suggesting that the Roe vs Wade decision would be overturned, the 2012 Savita Halappanavar death is back in focus.

In a long thread, Twitter user Dr. Jennifer Cassidy, an Irish national and Diplomacy Scholar at the University of Oxford, sought to remind the US of Savita’s case and said how the people of Ireland “deeply remember” her. 

“Please learn from us. Our history, our horrors…” she wrote.

Cassidy also quoted Jo Kaur, founder of the Riaan Research Initiative, to ask: “If Roe v Wade is overturned: How many Savitas will die in the US?”

THREAD: As Roe v Wade trends.

The people of Ireland deeply remember Savita Halappanavar. If the people of the United States have not heard this story, please read. If you feel comfortable.

In Oct 2012, Savita arrived in an Irish hospital, complaining of lower back pain that… pic.twitter.com/4mBhGtXmWX

— Dr. Jennifer Cassidy 🇺🇦 (@OxfordDiplomat) May 4, 2022

During the inquest proceedings into Savita’s death, her husband Praveen Halappanavar had said they had asked the medical team at the Ireland hospital to perform a termination of pregnancy, her first, after being told that a miscarriage was inevitable. The doctors had diagnosed infection as a result of ruptured membranes and, later septic shock, and the couple made three requests in all for an emergency termination, according to a 2013 report in The Guardian.

"This is a Catholic country – we cannot terminate (pregnancy) because the foetus is still alive," Halapannavar claimed to have been told by the doctor who was treating Savita, said the report.

He also said the requests were turned down even though Savita told the doctor that she was a Hindu and not an Irish citizen, the report said. Savita died on October 28. 

The inquest unanimously delivered its verdict that the dentist’s death was due to “medical misadventure”. 

It was a clause in Ireland’s constitution, giving protection to an unborn child, that made abortion illegal in almost all circumstances. Prof Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, the chair of an official investigation into Savita;s death, had said the clause known as the eighth amendment tied doctors’ hands, The Guardian had reported in 2018.

A referendum was carried out that year for voters to decide whether to repeal or retain the clause, and Ireland voted by a landslide to repeal the near-total ban on abortion.

Nearly two in three voters opted to repeal the clause. Even then Ireland taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar had campaigned for a repeal. 

After the leak of the SC draft, US President Joe Biden said the “basic fairness and the stability of our law demand” was that the court not overturn the Roe Vs Wade decision.