Expert: Abortion would have improved chances of woman who died from ruptured uterus

[enlightenment]

1. Oh, I think there's blame to share here:

The report found that when Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist living in the western city of Galway, was hospitalized for back pain 17 weeks into her pregnancy, doctors identified she was miscarrying and the fetus could not survive.

But they consistently missed evidence for days pointing to an existing case of sepsis, or blood poisoning, as the cause. Blood test results were left uninspected and successive shifts failed to read earlier medical notes as vital signs worsened.

The report found that doctors placed too much emphasis on measuring the fetus' heartbeat and too little on investigating why Halappanavar's white blood-cell count was jumping, her blood pressure was falling and her heart rate and temperature were rising. All were signs of growing internal infection linked to a rupture in her uterus that a night-shift doctor identified in notes, but a day-shift doctor failed to read.

No, they couldn't legal abort - but they could have done their damned jobs. They "missed" signs of infection that would have been obvious to the greenest intern. Treating the infection wouldn't have killed the fetus, but it might have saved the mother.