"The baby weighs 485 grams.* For now, thanks to the abortion law, I have to lie down. And there is nothing they can do. They'll wait until it dies or something begins, and if not, I can expect sepsis," Izabela said in a text message to her mother, private broadcaster TVN24 reported. (Reuters)
Izabela, a 22 year old Polish woman, died from the sepsis she predicted, and her death has sparked last weekend’s massive Polish protests against the increasingly draconian abortion laws in Poland, just as Savita Halappanavar’s did in Ireland. (Why so little coverage in the U.S.?)
Polish antiabortionists are pretending that Izabela’s death resulted from a misunderstanding of the law which states that abortion is permissible if the life of the pregnant woman is at risk.
Not so. Isabela’s doctors acted unethically and yet rationally in terms of their own self-interest. The punishment for “killing” a fetus with a heartbeat, regardless of whether it will die soon anyway, is years in prison. Punishment for allowing the unnecessary death of a woman suffering from a stalled miscarriage is perhaps an increasing price for malpractice insurance.
Expect more miscarriage deaths in this country when Roe is overturned.
* 17 ounces