IRELAND (LifeSiteNews) — BBC Radio host Lisa Shaw died May 21, 2021, three weeks after her first COVID shot. At an inquest held yesterday, the coroner determined that Lisa died from complications from the COVID injection.
Lisa’s death is a terrible tragedy. For her family it is deeply personal. Their dignified statement at the end of the coroner’s court speaks of heartbreak and loss.
The findings that her death was caused by complications of the COVID vaccine are personal to people who never knew Lisa because of their natural sympathy for a bereaved husband and child but also because many have taken a COVID vaccine and understandably want to know what went wrong.
But the few Irish reports of Lisa’s death and the coroner’s determination on Thursday are not going to explore this question. Beyond briefly reporting the bare facts of her death and a small number of quotes from the testimony of the experts, the only message is that what happened to Lisa Shaw is very rare. Nothing to see here, move on.
And yet, following yesterday’s verdict on Lisa’s death, this would be a sad but opportune time — even at this late stage of the vaccine roll out — to engage the necessary question of what went wrong or what can go wrong with a COVID vaccine.
However, it is clear from the minimal coverage of both Lisa’s death and today’s findings that this will not happen in the Irish mainstream media.
I can’t help contrasting this with another terribly tragic death of another woman, Savita Halappanavar, and the coverage of the coroner’s findings in her case.
From the moment the media carried the story of the tragic death of Savita in Ireland, they used it to push their agenda. Abandoning fact, they built the narrative that Savita died because she did not have an abortion. When the coroner found that Savita’s death was caused by an infection and systemic failures within the hospital that meant that the seriousness of her situation was missed until it was too late, he was ignored.
Though it was clear that Savita’s death was not caused by Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion, the media continued with its narrative. They largely ignored the coroner in order to remove the 8th Amendment, indicating that the only way to honor the late woman’s memory was to eliminate the protection for unborn babies from the Irish Constitution.
I have wondered how Savita would feel knowing that her death did not become a catalyst to save lives by improving hospital protocols and staffing ratios, but was rather used to usher in the deaths of thousands of babies.
And Lisa – how would she feel knowing that, rather than her death by COVID jab being a caution to others, maybe sparing someone else the suffering she endured, it would be passed off by the mainstream media as an “incredibly rare” occurrence?
May Lisa and Savita rest in peace.
Kathy Sinnott is a pro-life and disability rights activist who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Ireland. She organized Ireland’s “Rosary on the Coasts for Life and Faith.”