Ireland’s justice minister says she is “concerned” about the young woman and baby at the center of renewed debate over the country’s highly restrictive abortion laws.  Despite last year’s change allowing suicidal women to get the procedure, and a panel of experts agreeing she was at risk of suicide, the woman was coerced into having a caesarean.

The woman can’t be named because of confidentiality laws.  She’s identified as an immigrant, and that residency status might be the reason why she didn’t go to England to get the procedure as thousands of Irish women are forced to do every year. 

Published reports said the young woman had been raped, and sought an abortion under the 2013 Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, which came into effect on 1 January.  It allows the procedure if the patient is suicidal, and the case was referred to a panel of three experts.  Two psychiatrists determined she was at risk of suicide, but an obstetrician declared that the fetus was viable and that it should be delivered.

With the nightmare of having to delivery her rapist’s baby in front of her, the patient went on a hunger strike, refusing all food and liquids.  But as officials sought permission to forcibly hydrate a rape victim, the woman agreed to undergo the caesarian nearly 25 weeks into her pregnancy.  The infant will go into state care.  The woman is reportedly recovering.

“I can’t comment, as you can appreciate, on individual cases but obviously I would be concerned, and people reading the accounts will be concerned, for the woman and the baby involved,” said Irish Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.  “Clearly we passed legislation earlier in the year and we obviously will continue to monitor that legislation and see how it is being implemented.”

The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act was passed after the unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012.  She pleaded with staff at a Galway hospital for a termination after being told she was having a miscarriage, explaining that she wasn’t even a Roman Catholic.  But the hospital staff refused, at one point telling her “it was the law, that this is a Catholic country.”

Days later, the 31-year-old died from infection.