Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Maternal death rates in hospitals with pro-life policies

DarwinCatholic has a great post about the Savita Halappanavar tragedy, with an important clarification about Catholic teaching on abortion and the life of the mother. The most interesting part was this statistic:
In this regard, Irish law and medical practice are in line with a Catholic understanding of the principle of double effect, which is to say: Not only did Irish law not mandate that the hospital decline to treat Ms. Halappanavar, but Catholic teaching does not either.  And, indeed, Ireland is right to be proud of its record of caring for the health of both mothers and children. The percentage of women who die of pregnancy related complications in Ireland (6 out of every 100,000 pregnancies) is half that of the pro-choice UK and less than a third of that of the United States.