Abortion refusal: New inquiry into woman's death

[NewsCaster]

Hundreds of women in Ireland are protesting, calling for legislative change after the death of Savita Halappanavar, who died after her requests for an abortion were rejected by her Irish doctors. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.By Lorraine Turner and Conor Humphries, ReutersDUBLIN, Ireland - Ireland has opened a new investigation into the death  of a woman denied an abortion of her dying foetus, as the government scrambled  to stem criticism of its handling of an incident that polarised the  overwhelmingly Catholic country.

Follow @NBCNewsWorld Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old  dentist, was admitted to hospital in severe pain on Oct. 21 and asked for a  termination after doctors said her baby would not survive, according to her husband, but in a country with some of the world's most restrictive abortion  laws, surgeons would not remove the foetus until its heartbeat stopped days  later.

He husband, Praveen Halappanavar believes the delay contributed  to the blood poisoning that killed his wife on Oct. 28. He has said he would not  cooperate with an investigation already launched by the country's health service  because he did not believe it would be neutral.




NBCNews