possible to postpone the operation until after the birth of the child, nor to have recourse to other efficacious remedies." Well, the incident happened in a culture which is massively influenced by catholicism, and, in this case, its close-to-absolute anti-abortion line. The doctors are cuplable too, to a degree, as are policy makes who have muddied the waters, but this particular medical tragedy wouldn't have happened in pretty much any other country in Europe, and that's largely because of the deep hold that catholicism has over Irish society. The Catholic church in Ireland for decades fostered a climate where abortion was a mortal sin, nothing less. To quote a piece of doctrine that even 99% of Catholics wouldn't be immediately familiar with and claim that it absolves Catholiscism of guilt is bullshit. Most of the clergy were happy to have people labour under the impression that abortion is always wrong. They themselves didn't fail to treat this woman but they created an environment that facilitated savageries like this one to happen. In any remotely civilised country, free from the kind of draconian religious stranglehold on people's minds that the Catholic church has currently in Ireland, this would never have happened.