This was the unanimous verdict of the jury at the Savita Halappanavar inquest into her death and the death of her baby. It was the delay in aborting the latter that sharpened the focus on this case at a time when Ireland is debating the introduction of legalised abortion.

The coroner’s court was a chilling place for Praveen, the deceased’s husband, this week as the staff of University Hospital Galway gave their evidence.

According to the post-mortem the 17 week old foetus was healthy when she was contaminated by the E.coli infection that killed her mother. This infection was a highly toxic strain producing the septicaemia that ended her life. The autopsy findings were “almost certain that the microbe was present in the deceased’s bowel” from where it migrated to the baby with fatal results for both mother and child.

An expert witness stated that termination of pregnancy would probably have saved the mother’s life. The difficulty for the hospital staff was the baby was alive and at that time is was not evident that a termination of pregnancy, as requested by the mother, would be a solution. A further difficulty was the ambivalence of the law in this situation with its requirement that there be a real and substantial risk to the mother’s life before obstetricians can intervene but gives them no guidelines to quantify that risk.

It is the devising of these guidelines without opening the door to widespread abortion that will be exercising our legislature for much of the remainder of this year.

In the meantime Praveen claims he has neither heard why his wife died nor who is responsible. The official response of “systemic failure” may not satisfy him and the usual absence of finding anyone at fault may not be allowed to pertain in this case.

What does the Bible have to say?

The cries for vengeance were quenched by the teaching of St Paul in Romans Chapter 12 verses 17 to 19 where he says that it is in the Lord’s province not ours. The desire for justice is strongest when it is someone else who is perceived to be at fault and weakest when the blame could be laid at our own door!

It could be said that God too lost a loved one through a miscarriage of justice. The laws did not save Jesus. In fact they were set aside to permit injustice. The only law that could not be quashed was the law of love and in Jesus prayer for the forgiveness of those who were bent on killing him, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”(St Luke chapter 23 verse 34) we have the christian response to injustice.

Praveen may take the case to the European Court but the law is a blunt instrument to right wrongs. It can never bring back the dead. A better course is to turn to the Lord and follow the way he took leaving the work of justice in God’s hands.