(Pro Life Campaign) On Tuesday, RTÉ’s [Raidió Teilifís Éireann, an Irish public service broadcaster] Scannal aired the second part of a two-part special into the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012.
While the programme did include some excellent points from Pro Life Campaign spokespeople and Senator Rónán Mullen, RTÉ clearly made a conscious editorial decision to cut short these interventions and insert them into parts of the programme where the context wasn’t clear and where the one line points being made would have been lost on the viewing public. If the remarks by the pro-life contributors hadn’t been edited and were allowed to develop, it would have been a very different programme. It comes as no surprise that the programme makers weren’t prepared to let this happen.
The programme never challenged the settled media narrative that Ireland’s pro-life laws were responsible for Savita’s death. Instead, the two-part special rehashed all the same media speaking points that are completely at variance with the facts surrounding the case and the key statements contained in the report of the Coroner’s Inquest.
Twelve years on from Savita’s death, it’s unbelievable that RTÉ is still pushing the same line that has been widely disputed – and even debunked.
If RTÉ is going to keep commissioning documentaries about the case, then at the very least they should make room for the viewpoint that holds Savita’s death had nothing to do with Ireland’s then pro-life laws and everything to do with the mismanagement of her care from the time she was admitted to hospital.
The Scannal programme repeatedly referred to Savita’s death taking place after being denied an abortion. Yet it’s abundantly clear from the Coroner’s Inquest report and the testimonies of the doctors who treated Savita that if they had been aware of the seriousness of her condition earlier they would have intervened. And they were clear on this point too – that the law would not have stood in their way.
In keeping with other taxpayer funded RTÉ programmes on abortion, the Scannal series completely overlooked this critical evidence and instead reinforced the original narrative which propelled the public outcry in 2012 and subsequently led to the dismantling of legal protection for unborn babies in Ireland and the door being opened to abortion on demand.
READ: ‘PREVENTABLE’: How pro-abortion media is weaponizing reporting on maternal deaths
In 2018, an inquest in England found that a 38 year old mother, Reeta Saidha, died after “insufficient monitoring and missed opportunities” at the hands of hospital staff after sepsis developed during her pregnancy. The details of her case are almost identical to Savita’s yet her death received almost no media attention while Savita’s case received wall to wall coverage.
Why is that? Could it be that the media was simply using Savita’s case to open the door to abortion in Ireland? Abortion, as we know, has been legal in England since 1967. Could it be that the media didn’t think it would benefit their narrative by reporting on Reeta’s case?
Would it not have served the public interest better for RTÉ to have commissioned a programme in 2024 asking these kinds of questions for a change rather than parroting the settled media position on the Savita case over and over?
Or what about the evidence published in the Irish Medical Journal earlier this year concerning the woman in Limerick who nearly died following an abortion, due to the presence of an undetected ectopic pregnancy. This is a case that directly relates to the new abortion law and its potentially adverse impact on women’s health and lives. Has RTÉ given a second’s thought to producing a programme on this case or on any of the other cases that have come to light since the law changed?
The fact that RTÉ has never once in its history commissioned a programme that puts the pro-abortion side on the defensive answers the two questions posed above.
No RTÉ documentary on abortion would ever be complete without Catholic imagery and very dated pro-life footage overpowering the screen, juxtaposed with footage depicting the pro-abortion movement as caring, sophisticated and human rights based. For those who prefer caricatures to impartial content, Scannal’s two-part special didn’t disappoint.
Ultimately, the real issue here is not the documentary makers, it is RTÉ’s decision to air the programme. RTÉ executives are fully aware of the deep seated bias at the station when it comes to abortion but they have chosen to do nothing about it.
They’ve obviously made the cynical calculation that senior members of government wanting to curry favour with the media will continue to act as convenient cash cows for the station, at least for the time being, while refraining from demanding better standards in return.
Clearly, RTÉ hasn’t factored in the explosion in people tuning into alternative media outlets and abandoning what is increasingly referred to as the legacy media. The move from one to the other may be happening at a slower pace in Ireland but in keeping with trends elsewhere, the move away from traditional media outlets like RTÉ is guaranteed to accelerate. If RTÉ bosses had any interest in holding onto viewers, they would take steps to rebuild trust and restore impartial programming at the station. Right now, there are no signs that’s going to happen. By the time it dawns on them where things are headed, it will be too late to recover the lost ground. While it’s very upsetting having to put up with the same old same old from RTÉ day in, day out, there’s a quiet comfort in knowing their days may be numbered.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published at Pro Life Campaign and is reprinted here with permission.
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