The journey to Andanappa Yalagi’s home is quite like thedebate over his daughter’s death. While the world moves on just like the busysix-lane Pune-Bengaluru highway, the long road separates the quiet of Yalagi’shome from the stormy debate that rages in Belgaum city and out in the largerworld. It is only when the humble aging man opens the door that you see thebeautiful face peering from the wall that hits you.
Savita Halappanavar may have gone far away from the lives ofthose who loved her but remains a darling forever.
“She was the youngest. She had two elder brothers, both softwareengineers” says her father Andanappa fondly. His eyes still moist with nights oftears and rage of losing his beloved child. “She was in Ireland for the past fouryears but never had any issues of racism or discrimination”, recollects Savita’sfather. He and his wife Mahadevi had visited Savita and her husband Praveen notvery long ago.
While Praveen Halappanavar worked as an engineer at themedical devices manufacturer Boston Scientific, Savita had taken time off herdental practice to concentrate on the pregnancy.
The darling of the Yalagis was quite a celebrity in theIndian community at Galway. “They cancelled their annual Diwali festival as shewas one of the main organisers of the event” says the family. But what happenedin Galway still haunts her father.
“She was begging to abort her child but they kept on tellingher that they could still hear the foetal heartbeat”, says the grief strickenfather. While Yalagi shudders to recount what his daughter went through,sketches of what happened to Savita emerges.
Days after her parents left for India, Savita was admittedto the hospital. She was in her seventeenth week of pregnancy when doctors toldher she had a miscarriage. She was upset and in tremendous agony. On October22, when the consultant came on the ward rounds, Savita asked if they could notsave the baby, could they induce to end the pregnancy?
The consultant said: `As long as there is a foetalheartbeat, we can’t do anything.’ The next day too, the consultant said toSavita that ‘it was the law that this is a Catholic country.’
Savita is said to have told the consultant that she wasneither Irish nor Catholic’ but they said there was nothing they could do. Thatnight she vomited repeatedly and collapsed in a restroom, but doctors wouldn’t terminatethe fetus because its heart was still beating. The foetus died the followingday and its remains were surgically removed. Within hours, Savita was placedunder sedation in intensive care with blood poisoning. Praveen held her handand watched helplessly as her heart, kidneys and liver had stopped working. Shewas pronounced dead early Oct. 28. She was cremated on November. 3.
“It was a lethal combination of medical negligence andreligious aspect of Irish Law that killed Savita”, says her father. ThoughIreland’s constitution officially bans abortion a 1992 Supreme Court rulingfound the procedure should be legalised for situations when the woman’s life isat risk from continuing the pregnancy.
Five governments since have refused to pass a law resolvingthe confusion, leaving Irish hospitals reluctant to terminate pregnanciesexcept in the most obviously life-threatening circumstances. Only this timewhen it came to his daughter they did not heed to the judgment of 1992.
But Yalagi is overwhelmed by the support of Irish people.“Where their laws failed, the Irish people have shown their support in largenumbers. We live for that day when the law is amended and the guilty doctor punished”,he says, standing in the doorway with his hands folded and looks back into theemptiness behind him. His eyes searching for a fleeting glimpse of his darlingdaughter who would chase him behind the sofas in the living room. All thatstands there is her beautiful smile framed forever in time.
