BIRTHING STONE
for Savita Halappanavar
Savita Halappanavar [17 weeks pregnant] presented with back pain at [University Hospital Galway], was found to be miscarrying, and died of septicaemia a week later…She asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. This was refused, [her husband] said, because the foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”. She spent a further 2 ½ days “in agony” until the foetal heartbeat stopped. The dead foetus was removed and Savita was taken to the high dependency unit and then the intensive care unit, where she died.
- The Irish Times, November 4, 2012
When entering labour, the women of Innismurray would go to the slab just outside the graveyard and squat before it, looking out over the graves. The woman would reach up and grasp the slab by inserting her fingers into slots and her thumbs into two holes. Then she would pray.
I.
Let us pray
for the best view
of graves
your heart pierced
by a sword
glows
in frames
across the nation
lucky you
worn slots
for your hands
to slide into
Hallelujah
full
embrace
of stone
II.
Let us pray
for the best view
of graves
put things
in perspective
across the nation
the captions say
the chain
around the neck is
evidence
of the Vikings’
exemplary
brutality
what
a
relief
for us
III.
Let us pray
for the
best
view
of graves
Lord hear
our
prayer
across
the nation
thrusting
fingers
into
the cervix
in His
side
and so
doubting
this
death-in-life
did Thomas not
check
for
a
beating
heart
three
times
three
times
three
times
none
IV.
Let us pray
for the
best view
of graves
in the
country
we were in
at the time
a Catholic country
the country
we were in
a country
a country
a cunt
we were in
at the time
any time
ordinary time
the 30th Sunday
in Ordinary Time
in the country
we were in
in ordinary time
in the country
Lord hear
the womb
open
for three
days
in a country
time is a country
time is a cunt
V.
Behold
the ashes
in the hold
of a plane
flying
an immense
throng of mothers
and those
with child
out of the country
they were in
at the time
They departed
in tears
who will
console them
who will
lead
them
to brooks
of water
on a level road
so that none
shall stumble
this time
NOTES ON THE POEM
Inishmurray island is off the coast of Co. Sligo, Ireland.
The date Savita Halapannavar died was the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time according to the Catholic Church calendar. Jeremiah 31: 7-9 was the first reading on that day at Catholic masses worldwide. Regarding the difficulty of explaining his wife’s death to her family in India where he took her ashes on November 3rd, Praveen Halappanavar told The Irish Times, ‘So I had to explain the whole thing, about the law there [in Ireland] and how [when] the foetus is live [...] some people even laughed at me. “That’s crazy,” they said. And I just had to tell them, that’s the way it is, that unfortunately that’s the country we were in at the time.’ Savita Halappanavar’s death highlighted the fact that abortion is illegal in Ireland and that there was a lack of legal clarity regarding whether doctors can terminate a pregnancy if the life or health of the mother is at risk. Due in great part to Irish and international debate after Halapannavar’s death, both houses of the Oireachtas (the Irish legislature) passed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, which allows for abortion if a woman’s life is at risk, including from suicide. On 30 July 2013, President Michael D. Higgins signed it into law. However, as The Guardian reports, ‘The legislation is unlikely to stop the abortion trail of women from Ireland to Britain. […] [A]bout 4,000 Irish women travelled to British hospitals and clinics to terminate their pregnancies last year.’ Additionally, ‘[t]he new law does not include those women seeking terminations because of rape or incest,’ and also does not extend to women whose fetuses that will not survive a full-term pregnancy or for long after birth.