News from the Barroughter & Clonmoylan Bogs Action Group
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Barroughter-Clonmoylan-Bogs-Action-Group/195445003875984
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Monday, August 12, 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013
The image above is from the Facebook page of Precious Life. There is no death worse than abortion and it is a scourge, a great evil. There is a holy anger across the country regarding this ultimate treachery of the Kenny government. People across the country will continue to fast and to pray. Prayer and action continues. Ireland’s unborn babies are under attack.
Again we ask you to pray the rosary daily. We need a revolution in prayer, a spiritual revolution. Dark forces working in the lodge and in the open, have for centuries, been attacking Christian civilisation. Bureaucrats in the EU, Dublin 4 liberals and the vile media continue to agitate for abortion.
With praying the rosary, you are encouraged to join various pro-life demonstrations or hold one of your own to show your opposition to this ideological attack on our unborn child and our Nation. The abortion industry and these wretched abortionists profit from the exploitation and death of babies. From time to time, a mother dies because of an abortion. An abortion always kills a baby.
At confirmation we become Soldiers of Christ and must defend him and the unborn child in the public sphere.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/c-case-woman-seeking-legal-advice-over-treatment-29239316.html
GEMMA O'DOHERTY – 03 MAY 2013
THE woman at the centre of the 'C Case' has revealed she is seeking legal advice about her treatment while she was in the care of the State.
In 1997, when she was 13, Miss C was taken to Britain by a health board social worker for an abortion after being brutally raped.
This was permitted by the High Court following testimony from a psychiatrist for the State that she was suicidal.
Her parents were opposed to the abortion but failed in their legal bid to have it stopped.
The 29-year-old Dublin mother-of-two, who deeply regrets the abortion, is seeking answers from the State as to why it left her so badly scarred. She also wants to know why she was put into care for five years after the abortion and given powerful sedation against her will.
In an exclusive interview with the Irish Independent tomorrow she says: "I didn't want to become a mother at 13, but that baby didn't deserve to die."
"I grieve for my lost baby every day": Full interview in tomorrow's 'Weekend Review'
Irish Independent
Sunday, April 28, 2013
By now readers and supporters of Thought and Action will have heard of ‘Attack The Tax’, an excellent initiative in relation to the household charge and property tax. Thought and Action remains opposed to a tax on the family home.
The well attended meetings organised by Attack The Tax have been largely ignored by the media. The alternative media and the old fashioned leafleting and talking to people has worked. This is countering the blatant lies and spin from the likes of Michael Noonan and Revenue.
The Westmeath Examiner and the Derry Journal are among those regional newspapers to have given coverage to the campaign. Meetings of ‘Attack The Tax’ continue weekly and check out www.attackthetax.com for updates and a venue near you.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
The inquest into the death of Savita Halappanavar opened yesterday in Galway. It is well documented her death has got nothing to do with ‘being denied an abortion’ and there was never any ‘Ireland is a Catholic country’ conversation. These are allegations which have no basis in fact. In reality, Savita Halappanavar died of Septicemia.
The media, the pro-abortion groups used her death to agitate for the direct and intentional killing of the unborn child through abortion. They exploited a tragic death to push their own agenda. Many, who attended the ‘Vigils for Savita’ soon became aware their presence was being used to agitate for abortion. Many left in disgust.
Whilst abortion is contrary to Catholic teaching, one opposes abortion because it is always wrong to directly and intentionally kill the unborn child in the womb. It is always the direct taking of human life, it is always murder. It is contrary to the law of God and the moral law.
It appears Savita Halappanavar died ESBL E. coli strain. It must be remembered her daughter died also.
It’s disgusting how people have used their deaths to agitate for ‘legalising’ abortion.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Last night #16M trended on Twitter. On Saturday (16th March) #16M is taking place. It is a non political party, non union organised rally at Leinster House in Dublin.
“March 16th 4pm the people of Ireland will meet at the Dáil to say we deserve a better deal on bank debt & austerity. Not affiliated to ANY Union or Pol Party”
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
http://www.turfcuttersandcontractors.com/
Fighting for YOUR right to cut Turf in the Republic of Ireland
Press Release
The news that four turf cutters have been sent summonses for doing what people have done for centuries is a final betrayal from a government which came to power on the back of a series of lies. As with so many organisations in the country the TCCA has been betrayed. The Taoiseach himself in a conversation with our Chairperson Michael Fitzmaurice in February of last year informed him that "turf cutters had been wronged". Well if that is the case then why make the same mistakes all over again. In fact our Taoiseach has gone so far as to describe our Chairperson as a "patriot". Our organisation happens to agree. He has however a funny way of treating a patriot.
The recommendations of Judge Quirks’ report on the peat lands forum have been ignored. He described turf cutters as "hardworking, decent, respectable and law abiding citizens". This is not how we are being treated.
The TCCA has painstakingly put together detailed proposals which were accepted by our members. These were passed by Dáil Eireann on March 7th of last year. They had previously been described by Minister Deenihan as "That's the way designations should have been done in the first place".
If the government wants this situation resolved it needs to start listening to "patriots" like Michael Fitzmaurice. It need to follow through on its commitments made in Dáil Eireann on March 7th last. It needs to really start listening to the stakeholders and to stop the intimidation and threats. After sixteen years and €750 million, successive government have failed to resolve a single bog with active turf cutters. At this stage it should have become obvious that the only way of resolving this issue is to work with the stakeholders.
Last year people were constantly warned that they would face penalties to farm grants and outright prosecution if they cut their turf. This did succeed in bullying some people into applying for the compensation package. However the majority resisted and at the end of what was an atrociously wet year 26 out of the 29 SAC bogs which had been cut in 2011 were subsequently cut in 2012. As is the norm in any given year there was less cutting on some of these bogs and on others there was more activity.
One such example of a bog where more turf was cut is Moanveanlough in County Kerry. This bog happens to be in the neighbourhood of Minister Jimmy Deenihan. The curious thing for turf cutters in this and many other areas is how so many have apparently taken compensation yet at the same time so many are still cutting turf. Moanveanlough bog is a good example of this. Even though more people cut turf in 2012 than in 2011, 27 are still recorded as having applied for compensation. So either the department are paying people who do not satisfy the criteria of the scheme or they are massaging the figured to make the compensation scheme appear more successful than it actually is.
We have as an organisation fought this battle through many different fora. We will now it appears fight it through the courts. As always we are ready for the battle.
The TCCA are now asking all politicians regardless of political persuasion to condemn the act of summoning ordinary decent people to court for doing what they have for centuries. We are also asking that government politicians, who got elected on the back of promises to turf cutters which have now been reneged upon, to resign with immediate effect.
Regardless of threats of state intimidation against its own citizens we will again this year continue to do what we have for centuries. We will when the weather permits be vindicating our rights. We will not be run off our lands.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
The following is a press release from Direct Democracy Ireland (DDI)
Posted on March 5, 2013 by Ben Gilroy
Direct Democracy Ireland (DDI) wish to announce that Ben Gilroy will be running as our candidate in the up-coming bi-election in Meath East. He is currently the party leader and presided at the official launch of DDI as a new national political party in November 2012, thus changing our status from a political organisation that supported independent candidates at the last election.
Ben is a long time resident of Navan with a young family, and for many years ran his own business in the town until the policies of the establishment political parties caused such a huge loss of trade and ultimately his business.
Since then though Ben has been very busy helping families and businesses the length and breadth of the country to defend their homes against banks and receivers. He was instrumental in setting up the group ‘People for Economic Justice’ and is renowned for his constitutional stands against county sheriffs, the videos of which have become viral on the internet. Many families and businesses remain in their property today because of Ben and this group fighting for the rights of the people against vested financial interests.
This despite all government efforts to make it easier for the banks’ to repossess.
For Ben, after so many years contributing to the economy as a self employed businessman and then finding he was not entitled to any assistance, the subsequent worry for his family’s future brought into focus that the country is very sick and something radical is needed to fix it.
In the last five years we have seen the establishment political parties saddle the country and the sovereign people with an odious debt, which is probably illegal under international law. Subsequently we have seen austerity measures imposed including pay cuts, cuts to welfare, pensions and carers allowances, massive job losses, tax and levy increases, as well as huge increases in fuel costs that are causing people to literally die of cold. The desperation around the country is so apparent that from official figures
alone two people every week are taking their own life, however the figures if properly recorded would show a much bigger tragedy.This scandal has been swept under the carpet by the establishment parties to their shame. We also have the return of the scourge of mass emigration seeing the best and brightest talent leaving in their hundreds of thousands. It may massage the unemployment
figures for the government but it is dire for the country’s future prospects as the skilled workforce is depleted in a way not seen since the 1950s.Governments seem completely detached from the reality of life in this country, and the new stealth taxes on water, homes, and waste are the straw that has finally broken the camel’s back. People just have no more to give and are having to choose between paying bills or feeding their children, yet government threatens them with force, fines and even prison if they refuse. It has never been more clear that the established political system in Ireland is broken and will always be broken unless we radically change it now.
Standing as an Independent TD was an option but was not going to be effectual if the ‘them and us’ culture of Irish politics is ever going to be changed. So DDI grew into a fully fledged political party so that we could gain the strength and numbers to make the change the political system needs. However rather than a ‘party’, DDI prefer to be called a ‘political service’ because our core principles are to empower the people in the running of their country.
We want to attack the root causes of the problems and hardship and bring the real lives of people back into focus. Issues like negative equity and untenable arrears are strangling the economy and need a radical solution that will include debt write down. Similarly business rents, rates and charges that are preventing homegrown business from growing or forcing them out of business need positive action instead of empty government promises.
Most importantly we intend to challenge under international law the imposition of this odious bank debt on the sovereign people and the payment of bondholders, as this is the root cause of the financial and social crisis facing us. We also intend to challenge the legality of any contracts made by the government in the sale of our sovereign assets to private interests.
This country per capita is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet our natural resources from fishing, mining, forestry, oil and gas, are being given away by successive governments, sending all revenues overseas. There is no reason why we cannot challenge these contracts and make Ireland self sufficient in both energy and food, and it is about time we had politicians with a will to do it.
In DDI we hope to change the face of politics in Ireland by returning the power enshrined in our original constitution whereby the people had equal right to call referendums and act as a counter balance on government. This power was unlawfully taken away by the governments of the day without reference to the people. We wish to return this power as well as the power to recall TDs and Senators who are not performing as true representatives of the people.
This provision for Direct Democracy was given to us by our founders and if it were in place five years ago the infamous bank guarantee would never have been allowed happen because whatever unscrupulous acts the European bankers asked the government to do in the dead of night would have been met with the response ‘Well we could do what you ask but our political system means that within the week the people will call a referendum and nullify it, so you had better come up with a better idea’ We want to move away from the system that masquerades as democracy in this country.
It is a system run only by the few that sit at the cabinet table and it uses the party whip to completely nullify the views of all the other TDs and those they purport to represent. In effect voting for anyone under a party whip system is a wasted vote because these TDs do as they are told by the most influential handful of members at the top of the cabinet table.
What we actually have is a quasi dictatorship with no accountability and no recourse for the people during the government’s tenure. Hence any corporate or geopolitical body who can exert influence on those top three or four at the cabinet table therefore dictate Irish national policy. This is wrong and at DDI we plan to end the whip system.
Ireland has for too long been ruled by family dynasties in the three main parties, keeping control of the country in the hands of a close nit political class. The lure of the gravy train of high salaries, expenses, pensions and ‘jobs for the boys’ makes for career politicians who may not be in it for the right reasons. This is not a monarchy or a royal court. We are supposed to be a Sovereign Republic and DDI believe this situation must be changed to attract people into politics who are in it for the good of the country and future generations and not for themselves.
For too long now we have seen the results of the concentration of power in the hands of a few in the Dail and the terrible effects of their unaccountability, and now they wish to remove the only counterbalance left against their power by abolishing the Senate. The current political class has failed again and again and the cycle can only be broken when people stop voting for the failed policies and broken promises of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour and their junior partners, and start to vote for a radical change that ousts these dinosaurs of political thinking. It is time to insist on the power returning to the people with direct democracy as the founders of this state always intended to be. Only then will we have an honest, stable government and economic and environmental policies that shift the balance in favour of the people and the country’s future.
Direct Democracy Ireland
www.DirectDemocracy.ieAll correspondence to:
National Office:
D House
Finnegans Way,
Trim,
Co. Meath
Ireland.015240547
A final reminder in relation to the turf cutters who appear in Loughrea District Court tomorrow. Show your solidarity and support.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Barroughter-Clonmoylan-Bogs-Action-Group/
“NPWS OFFICE, The Westbridge, Loughrea, Co. Galway. This is the assembly point for our SOLIDARITY GATHERING on Wednesday March 6th at 11am. We will assemble there to show our solidarity with the FOUR IRISH TURF CUTTERS who will be before Loughrea District Court next Wednesday. This case is about the right of the citizens of Ireland to own private property and to use that private property for the benefit of their families. In the name of God and of the dead generations of Irish turf cutters support the four accused men and stand up for what is right for Irish people and oppose what is wrong. WE ASK ALL PATRONS NOT TO INTERFERE WITH THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE DISTRICT COURT AND STAY A SUITABLE DISTANCE FROM THE COURTHOUSE. Loughrea welcomes all our friends and supporters to "THE TOWN"
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Via Awaken Longford
http://awakenlongford.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/criminal-investigation-of-allied-irish-bank-plc/
March 2, 2013
“Yesterday evening, 01/03/2013 a Criminal Complaint was lodged and a statement taken by An Garda Siochana at the Bridewell Station in Dublin. The criminal acts complained and alleged in the statement pertain to Allied Irish Bank plc and include reckless lending, operating a Bank without a valid Bank License and breach of Liquidity Laws among others, this only the second such complaint made in the history of the State, the first having been made on February 14th 2013 at Malahide Garda Station, to date no “Pulse” incident number has been provided by An Garda Siochana for the first complaint, that in itself is the basis of a subsequent complaint to the Garda Ombudsman, the Dept of Justice and the Minister himself. The complaint lodged last night has been assigned a Pulse incident number, we will await the outcome of the Garda investigation of this Criminal Complaint.”
Sunday, February 24, 2013
TNS Radio is the 1st radio station to interview Tom in relation to his case against AIB.
http://www.tnsradio.com/31/post/2013/02/truthful-irish-special-tom-darcy.html
Saturday, February 23, 2013
A message from the
Barroughter & Clonmoylan Bogs Action Group
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Barroughter-Clonmoylan-Bogs-Action-Group/195445003875984
“CLONMOYLAN BOG. The 900 families in our 3 bogs will NEVER surrender OUR BOGS to the Irish State or the EU. dictators no matter what happens. Turf will be cut in all 3 bogs in six weeks time. The people of Ireland are standing shoulder to shoulder with us. Thanks to the hundreds who have sent support so far. The place to be is Loughrea on Wednesday March 6th next.”
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
By Peter Flanagan and Donal O'Donovan
Saturday January 12 2013
AS much as 70pc of Start mortgages are in trouble, according to new accounts for part of the business.
Accounts just filed for Lansdowne Mortgage Securities No2 – one of the companies that the subprime lender used to finance its aggressive push into the Irish market – show that €107.8m of the company's loan book is at least one month past due but not classed as "impaired". Some €57.5m, or about 23pc of the company's book, is more than a year past due.
Taking into account the €63.6m worth of loans that the company classes as "impaired", more than 70pc of the firm's €242.7m loan book is in trouble of some description.
At the height of the boom, Start Mortgages bundled up hundreds of millions of Irish home loans and sold the debt on to investors in the bond markets. It is now seen as the lender most likely to repossess homes over unpaid debts. Start Mortgages has become a frequent visitor to the courts.
The lender was behind one in three of the 124 repossession orders handed down by the High Court in the first half of 2012, according to figures from the courts service.
Nine lenders, including big players AIB and Bank of Ireland, were responsible for the other two-thirds of cases.
Start was one of the more aggressive lenders in Ireland during the property bubble, often making home loans when Irish banks were unwilling to lend.
The loans came at the cost of higher interest rates than traditional lenders charge.
Lansdowne Number 2 was incorporated in November 2006, right at the peak of the boom.
For the year to the end of March 2012, the company saw losses more than double to €4.8m, driven by an increase in loan impairments from €8.1m in 2011 to €11.5m.
- Peter Flanagan and Donal O'Donovan
Irish Independent
Sunday, January 6, 2013
An article from Gene Kerrigan. See below our comment. There are few who believe that power is wielded in parliament. As Thought and Action and others have declared time and time again, parliamentary democracy is a total sham. The electoral road is a road that leads you to a dead end! It is a charade.
At an election, you can pay a lot of money to gain a small ‘victory’ here or there but ultimately you are pouring money down the drain if playing by the system’s rules.
So what is the alternative? A counter power is being built up. What the counter power is is a beacon of light to our people. A new milieu, a new type of man must emerge. An obvious initiative is to set up a usury free co-operative bank/loan system, establish a guild or a network of small businesses which will help employ your own people. There are a million and one things people can be doing instead of pouring money down the drain of a crumbling system.
It’s time to build up the Counter Power in 2013.
We, the people, are in "distress and difficulty". This is according to Pat Rabbitte, Minister With Responsibility for Vicious Slagging. And the "all-pervasive negativity in the media" is making things worse. He thinks the media is irresponsible. In fact, he fears that the media might be taking us towards some sort of fascist nightmare.
Mr Rabbitte says the people are afflicted with "a very cranky media" that engages in "the constant denigration of politics". And we do so carelessly. "I don't think the media give a damn about where this is going to bring politics," he says.
"What is the alternative to politics?" he asks. "Hand over the running of the country and the economy to some kind of dictatorship?"
So, we're cranky, irrationally negative, without a sense of responsibility. What if he's right?
After all, there's no doubt there's a lot of negativity around. This column, for instance. Hard as I try, I can't find a good word to say about picking the pockets of the blind, docking money from carers – and – well, leave aside the effects of the past four years and just look at last week's headlines.
Motor tax up, just to balance out that 18 per cent increase in public transport fares. The 10 quid cut in child benefit came into effect last week. A 120 per cent rise in the cost of renewing a 10-year driving licence. Health insurance costs up almost 50 per cent from next year. One fears to scratch ones arse, for fear that some ministerial zealot slaps a tax on that. In the Indo, Charlie Weston reckoned the latest raft of charges will cost families up to a thousand extra euro a year.
Spend and they hit you, save and – well, taxes on savings interest go up by three per cent. They take another fiver a week off us by tweaking the PRSI allowance.
The services we get for our taxes are sliced ever-thinner. Funds of about €35m have been diverted from suicide prevention (this emerged days after the funeral of a government minister who took his own life).
And on and on and on. In such circumstances, it's hard to avoid a certain level of crankiness.
The current Government seems to see themselves as patriots. Making "tough decisions", and suffering the pain of having to deliberately, knowingly hurt their most vulnerable fellow citizens. And doing so to achieve a greater good – the return of economic sovereignty and the recovery of the economy.
Meanwhile, the Government publicly grovels to its EU betters. We'll continue to pay the banking debts of Irish and German bankers and bondholders, and we'll asset-strip our citizens and force our kids to emigrate – but any chance you might reduce the burden a wee bit, please Frau Merkel? And, if you won't cut it, will you a least spread it out over 40 years? And God be good to you.
Mr Rabbitte's Government believes – with justification – that most of the media support this strategy. And he finds it hard to understand why the media don't shower them with hugs and kisses.
Perhaps we can enlighten him.
The media bit is easily understood. The media shares with bankers, bondholders and politicians
the hope that normality can be resumed, with all the old hierarchies and inequalities in place. This requires the cost of the crisis to be shifted to the usual mugs.
But the media has to maintain credibility with its customers – and to that end, it can hardly ignore the dreadful damage being done to the citizens. Neither can it ignore the fact that, for instance, Mr Kenny is on €200,000 a year, while the French prime minister is on €177,000 and the UK prime minister is on €172,000. Nor the fact that Pat Rabbitte is on €169,000, while a French minister is on about €119,000.
Mostly, though, the media batters nurses and teachers and other public sector monsters of its vivid imagination.
Beyond government delusions and media cynicism, there lies reality. As one authority summed it up, the Minister for Finance "reduced social welfare payments, punished the blind, disabled, widows, carers and the unemployed and he taxed the poorest at work". And why?
"It was so that the taxpayer can take on liability for debts the country never incurred, and arose from private arrangements between private institutions. What a disaster and an obscenity."
This authority was, of course, Michael Noonan, three months before he became the Minister for Finance and began inflicting on citizens policies that he knows are "a disaster and an obscenity".
We know this reality – of an economy ransacked to help pay the debts of others; of politicians who knowingly take on policies they have stated to be a disaster for the country; who knowingly engage in activities they believe to be obscene.
And no amount of pious patriotic posing can obscure this reality. Exceedingly well-paid individuals, who can look forward to astonishingly generous pensions, are inflicting years of pain on people innocent of reckless or dangerous actions – and who are being forced to endure hardship in order to pay the debts of others.
The danger to democracy lies not in dissident views expressed in the media – or even in the cynical views of those in the media who support the policies but affect to find the consequences unacceptable. The danger to democracy lies in the clear, deliberate demonstration, by Fine Gael and Labour, that voting changes nothing.
Politicians always played fast and loose with election promises – but before the 2011 election, those currently in office severely condemned the policies being followed. And immediately took up those policies once elected. Never in the history of ditched election promises has there been such a blatant and unmistakable rejection of the principle of representational democracy.
For Mr Rabbitte to now cast aspersions on others' commitment to democracy is amusing.
Mr Rabbitte has achieved a certain reputation for witty banter, one that makes him an odd person to protest against robust media criticism. He is no stranger to personal taunts. The most obvious being his Prime Time verbal assault on Fianna Fail's Pat Carey. Rabbitte shouted down Carey, for coming on TV with "your oul' palaver about this and that", his voice rising, "you ought to be ashamed", "that's the problem with you, you don't have any shame", and so on.
When Labour TD Colm Keaveney voted against social welfare cuts last month, he had previously voted for austerity and had reached a line he couldn't cross, for whatever reason. Rabbitte might have taken this as a regrettable fraternal disagreement. Instead, he launched into a highly personal attack on "political narcissism", and "selfish acts of departure". He spoke of those "pirouetting on the plinth, parading their struggle with their conscience".
Anyone who follows Keaveney, Shortall, Broughan and Nulty beyond the pale can presumably expect similar personal taunts from Mr Witty Banter.
However, macho boasts about the "courage" of those who hang on when the "going gets tough", would be more impressive if not coming from a politician who will retire on a pension as large as his neck is hard.
- Gene Kerrigan
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
The truth is continuing to emerge as Kitty Holland backtracks on her story published in the Irish Times.
BY HILARY WHITE
Mon Dec 03, 2012 13:26 EST
DUBLIN, December 3, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Kitty Holland, the Irish Times reporter who broke the story about the death of Savita Halappanavar that launched a global crusade against Ireland’s pro-life laws, has admitted that the story of Mrs. Halappanavar asking for an abortion may have been a little bit “muddled” in the retelling.
In an interview this weekend on Newstalk 106, Holland appeared flustered and defensive, deflecting blame for the uproar onto Mrs. Halappanavar’s husband, Praveen. She told radio interviewer Marc Coleman on Newstalk 106, that the story may have been garbled and there may have been “no request for a termination” after all.
Coleman asked, “You’re satisfied that he did request a termination?” Holland responded, “Oh, I’m not satisfied of anything.”
“I’m satisfied of what he told me,” she said, “but I await as much as anyone else the inquiry and the findings. I can’t tell for certain. Who knows what will come out in that inquiry? They may come back and say she came in with a disease she caught from something outside the hospital before she even arrived in, and there was no request for termination.”
Covering, Holland added, “One may even wonder are requests for terminations recorded at all in Irish maternity hospitals.”
Asked about discrepancies in the reports on the timeline of Mrs. Halappanavar’s care – particularly when, exactly, she started receiving antibiotics after her admittance to hospital – Holland replied, “All one can surmise is that his recollection of events is…the actual timeline… may be a little muddled.” She said that “at one point” Mr. Halappanavar told her that she was only given painkillers, and never received any antibiotics.
Holland later told the state broadcaster RTE that her coverage in the Irish Times “never suggested” that an abortion might have saved Mrs. Halappanavar’s life.
Within hours of the publication online of the Times report, the worldwide media responded with a frenzy of coverage, running sensationalistic headlines like that of the India Times tabloid that said, “Ireland murders pregnant Indian dentist”. Since then, abortion campaigners around the globe have concentrated their forces on demanding that the Irish Republic, one of a tiny handful of western nations that still protects unborn children in the womb, institute legalized abortion on demand. The story as it is being retold everywhere is that Mrs. Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist from India living in Galway, went to hospital while miscarrying her 17-week-old daughter and, fearing for her life, asked for and was refused a “termination” and died later of a massive infection.
Savita’s husband, Praveen Halappanavar, went to the press and said that she would not have died had she been able to have the abortion. The hospital and the government have launched investigations, but Mrs. Halappanavar’s husband and family have refused to allow Savita’s medical records to be made public. He has now announced that he intends to sue the Irish government in the European Court of Human Rights after Irish Health Minister refused his demand for a public inquiry.
Mr. Halappanavar accused the hospital’s “Catholic ethos” and Ireland’s pro-life laws for causing his wife’s death, demanding that they be abandoned. That demand has been taken up by Savita’s relatives in India and the Indian ambassador to Ireland, as well as abortion activists worldwide. Demonstrations in India demanding a change to Irish law have even been organized by the leading Indian opposition political party. The Irish government has responded that no decisions can be made until they have seen the results of an internal inquiry by the Health Services Executive, though some members of the Labour party have echoed the calls for legalization.
Holland responded to questions about discrepancies in her Times report compared to her later reporting in the Observer. After her initial article in the Irish Times on November 14th, Holland three days later wrote in the Observer the disclaimer, “The fact that Savita had been refused a termination was a factor in her death has yet to be established”.
Coleman asked her why that sentence was included in the Observer but not in her original article for the Times. Holland responded, stammering, “Well, I suppose throughout the original article …umm… I mean it was quoting the concerns of the husband, Praveen. And, at no point … I mean … there was … you know it was hinted at in the headline, which obviously I didn’t write. You know, ‘refused a termination’ was in quotes. Umm, but you know I was reporting the concerns of the husband, and what he said he was concerned about and what he said happened in the hospital.
“Whereas my piece in the Observer was a more kind of background piece from my point of view, so it was obviously important for me to say quite explicitly that, you know, it has not been established that a lack of access to a termination…”
Coleman told Holland that there are a lot of concerns about the “contrast” between the November 14th report and her later reporting: “It did travel around the world very quickly, the assumption that this woman had died precisely because of a lack of termination.”
“Well, I mean, what I wrote were the concerns of the husband, and I suppose what readers took … decided to infer from that is … what the concerns were of the husband and what he stated happened from his recollection of events in the hospital.”
“The fact that a healthy… as far as we know… healthy 31 year-old woman who was 17 weeks pregnant entered a hospital in 21st century Ireland and was dead a week later is a tragic story anyway, and would have been a big story anyway. A maternal death is very rare.”
She continued to reiterate that she was reporting “the husband’s recollection or take on the events, and the concerns that he was wanting to talk about that took it off around the world.”
Developing…
Saturday, December 1, 2012
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