52 weeks

Now I was going to try and keep this blog all about “important” things.  But then I realised it is my blog.  And since I have not got a huge following (as yet) it is OK to sometimes just write.

I am a very amateur photographer, and so love taking random shots of people, things and so on.  I was going to do the 365 project which involves taking a photo a day for a year.  This is far to much for me to do, so I am doing a 52 week one.  Where I will post a photo I have taken and use it in a blog post.

I am sure you are aware of the story of Savita Halappanavar, from Ireland.  It has done the rounds in news this week.  It is a tragic and horrific story in equal measure.  It highlights Ireland’s law (or lack thereof) on abortion.  Savita was 17 weeks pregnant, and died from blood poisoning.  Doctors had confirmed she was having a miscarriage, and over the course of the following three days, ignored her and her husbands requests to abort the pregnancy.  Savita is said to have been in more and more agony, but as doctors detected a foetal heartbeat, they say they couldn’t carry out an abortion.

This story makes me sad, angry and wondering where common sense has gone.  I am not religious at all, and respect any-ones right to their beliefs.  But in 2012, I believe that religion should play NO part in law.  It should play no part in a woman’s body.  It is her body, her womb, her life and most of all, her mind! We are capable of coming to a decision about our own bodies.  No doctor should have the right to deny a woman an abortion on any grounds, but especially in this case.  The mother could have been saved, the baby could not.   So why did this happen?  Sadly we know why, it is because it goes against catholic beliefs.  She was not catholic.  This was not her belief.  She died on the name of a religion that held no importance to her.  It is so sad.

This brings me to my photo.  I had seen  the image elsewhere and i thought it quite powerful.  It seems fitting to this blog.  An egg shell, like life, is fragile.  The tally marks, a little like you would find in a prison cell.  Like the many woman who seem to have to face a pregnancy they do not want to carry(for whatever reason), it must seem like a prison sentence.  If only the medical term “confinement” wasn’t so fitting in some cases.  So I had an egg, and I recreated the image.