Most of the Indian media houses that are now making an uproar over the death of Savita Halappanavar, have actually maintained a stoic silence over maternal mortality and unsafe abortion in India all through the year.
For past 2 days, one of the lead news
headlines in Indian media has been the death of Savita Halappanavar - a 31-yearold pregnant Indian woman. Savita died in a hospital in Ireland of septicaemia
after the doctors refused her abortion, despite having several
days’ of severe pain and bleeding. The doctors had their own reason to do that:
abortion in the Catholic country is strictly banned.
Now, our media is discussing this a lot; highlighting the rigidity of the Irish law, the religion and the culture and
also questioning the actions of the doctors etc etc. Very praiseworthy!
However, one question that keeps
returning to my mind is this: Savita died more than 2 weeks ago, on 28th
of October. Why did it take so long for the news to come out?
The answer, according to me, lies in the fact
that news of medical malpractice doesn't usually come out on its own, unless we make an active effort to bring it out.
