CATHOLIC bishops have insisted that "Catholic teaching" had no role to play in the death of pregnant Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar.
It is the first public comment by Catholic bishops on the issue that has sparked a debate on abortion around the country.
Ms
Halappanavar's husband said that she had been told by doctors that
"this is a Catholic country" when requesting an abortion to try to save
her life.
The statement from the bishops came as the members of an
independent committee set up to inquire into Ms Halappanavar's death
were announced.
The standing committee of the Irish Bishops'
Conference – which is made up of seven bishops from around the country –
discussed the case at their meeting in Maynooth.
In a statement,
they said that they wanted to re-affirm their position on the right to
intervene where a mother's life was at risk. "Where a seriously ill
pregnant woman needs medical treatment which may put the life of her
baby at risk, such treatments are ethically permissible provided every
effort has been made to save the life of both the mother and her baby,"
they said.
And the bishops insisted that the Catholic Church had
never taught that the life of a child in the womb should be preferred to
that of a mother.
"By virtue of their common humanity, a mother and her unborn baby are both sacred with an equal right to life," they said.
They
said there was a difference between medical treatments that did not
intentionally seek to end the life of the baby and abortion, which was
the "direct and intentional destruction of an unborn baby and is gravely
immoral in all circumstances".
According to a spokesman for the
bishops, the statement was intended to show that Catholic teaching could
not be given as a reason for the tragic death of Ms Halappanavar and
her unborn baby.
The bishops said the deaths of Ms Halappanavar
and her unborn child were a "devastating personal tragedy for her
husband and family".
"We share the anguish and sorrow expressed by
so many at the tragic loss of a mother and her baby in these
circumstances and we express our sympathy to the family of Mrs
Halappanavar and all those affected by these events," they said.
It
is the second intervention by the bishops in the abortion debate in
recent months.
Last October, they urged Catholics to lobby local TDs to
reject any liberalisation of abortion laws.