As an organisation that hears first-hand from the women who bear the burden of Ireland’s archaic abortion laws, the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar was shocking and sickening.

And yet not as surprising as you’d think.

Given that abortion laws in Ireland are among the strictest in the world, a tragedy of this kind wasn’t so much a matter of if, but when. The circumstances in which Savita died are truly abhorrent. Admitted to hospital experiencing a miscarriage at 17 weeks, despite being told that the fetus “wasn’t viable” she was made to suffer for days, left begging for an abortion that she was refused as long as there was a foetal heart beat.

For days now, I’ve been putting myself in Savita Halappanavar’s shoes.

I’m expecting. Seventeen weeks in, piercing pain sends me to the hospital. For three days, I’m miscarrying. There’s no hope for my child and my own health is fading. For three days, I’m in physical agony and doctors refuse my pleas to terminate the pregnancy to save my life. The child won’t survive, but there is a “heartbeat” and doctors fear terminating will violate my country’s laws. The unthinkable happens.

The tragedy that ended Savita’s life put a human face on the abortion issue. People are demonstrating in droves and even the Indian government is pressuring Ireland to change its laws. One demonstrator held a placard reading, “Savita had a heartbeat, too.”

In Ireland, abortion is against the law in most cases. But Savita should have received a legal abortion; under the constitution abortion is allowed when a woman’s life is in imminent danger. And Savita’s husband reports that doctors told them an abortion wasn’t an option, despite her repeated requests and severely declining health, because Ireland “is a Catholic country.” What that meant for Savita was that the health-care providers at Galway University Hospital made decisions based on their values (as dictated by the Catholic Church) and disregarded the value of her life.

We have to hold governments accountable.

Much has been said about the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar in Galway, Ireland last month. Even before seeing the outcome of the official investigation we can conclude that her death was the result of a combination of factors: inhumane laws, lack of guidelines on how to apply the laws that do exist, fear of prosecution on behalf of doctors, medical incompetence, influences of the most conservative wing of the Catholic Church over hospitals, and — as pointed out recently by Jodi Jacobson — a general climate of misogyny, poisoning both the medical establishment and society at large.

Savita [a Hindu] said: ‘I am neither Irish nor Catholic’ but they said there was nothing they could do.

Last month, a woman was admitted to a hospital in Galway, Ireland. She was 17 weeks pregnant with a wanted child. She was experiencing severe back pain. She was found to be miscarrying the pregnancy.

Within days, she was dead.

Why? Because she ended up in a Catholic hospital, governed by an ethic that even a non-viable fetus doomed to die is more important than a living, breathing 31-year-old woman.

It really is that simple.

Now, years later, the Irish government has resigned themselves to do what every country with a housing collapse ought to do – reset the market.

It’s fitting, really, that Mitt Romney’s first significant experience in the Old World involved riding a bicycle, since his latest seems to require a helmet, with or without the bike. One thing we do know is that a gangly, draft-dodging 20-year old yammering about Golden Tablets and whatnot is considerably less newsworthy (and funny) than a presidential candidate (!) making an even bigger ass of himself, once the charm of youthful earnestness has long since been so utterly trampled under the stomping hooves of arrogant, plutocratic cluelessness. If he had any sense, Romney would try one of two things: A) Get his act together, or B) Make the trip onto a comedy tour, before it’s too late.

The pattern I’m seeing in Europe these days is that each “solution” is given less and less time to work before the markets go right back into crisis mode. And indeed, that’s where we are. The Spanish bank bailout lifted spirits on Friday, and by Monday everyone went back to the same worries. Global markets dipped. Spanish debt yields are soaring, approaching the 7% danger zone seen as impossible for sustained financial management of a sovereign. And now people are worried about Italy too.

In Greece, creditors and the government continued their work on a debt deal that would give a haircut to debt holders and set a new interest rate going forward, reducing Greece’s debt level. After hedge funds appeared to be playing a game of chicken by holding out on a deal, cooler heads may have prevailed.

The American people are now very favorably inclined towards the idea of an independent presidential candidate challenging both Barack Obama and the eventual Republican nominee next year, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll