Cathal BarryThe Pro Life Campaign (PLC) has criticised the Government for failing to implement fully sepsis in pregnancy guidelines more than two years after the death of Savita Halappanavar.
PLC Deputy Chairperson Cora Sherlock told The Irish Catholic “the fact that to this day sepsis guidelines are still not properly in place shows that ideology trumps safety when it comes to the priorities of the current Government”.
“That’s not a cynical view, it’s just the reality of what has happened,” she said, insisting that it “says so much about the priorities of the present Government that sepsis in pregnancy guidelines have still not been fully implemented”.
Ms Sherlock said the Government “chose to use the Savita case to introduce abortion instead of introducing sepsis guidelines, which was the real issue at the centre of this tragic case”.
“It is revolting the way the Savita case was exploited by campaigners inside and outside of government to get abortion legislation over the line even though the treatment of sepsis during pregnancy was what needed to be addressed,” she said.
The PLC also criticised Children’s Minster James Reilly after he called for the repeal of the Eighth (Life Equality) Amendment.
Opportunity
“Minister Reilly never turns down an opportunity to talk about widening the grounds for abortion but he has no track record on delivering proper perinatal palliative care provision in Ireland. He would be better served devoting some time to this as well as listening to parents who were pressured to go down the road of abortion in similar situations and now deeply regret the decision,” Ms Sherlock said.
Meanwhile, Independent TD Mattie McGrath has called on Taoiseach Enda Kenny and senior Fine Gael ministers to clarify the intentions of the main Government party in relation to calls for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment.
“My major concern here is that in all the talk of removing the Eighth, there has been a complete absence of any mechanism which proposes to even acknowledge the life of the unborn child at the constitutional level.
“There is a palpable sense that the whole debate is already being manipulated and dragged toward a pre-ordained end; that of unlimited abortion without any kind of legislative restraint,” he said.