Emma Watson pens open letter to late Savita Halappanavar

Emma Watson has penned an open letter to Savita Halappanavar as part of Porter magazine's Incredible Women list.

The Harry Potter actor and women's rights activist penned the letter to Savita due to her death in 2012 as a result of a septic miscarriage in University Hospital Galway. The 31-year-old had requested her pregnancy be terminated but was told that an abortion could not be carried about because Ireland is a "Catholic country." Savita's story became a big part of the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment in the following years. Her image is synonymous with the thousands of other women in Ireland directly harmed by the law. Watson's open letter appears in the fashion magazine this month alongside Meryl Streep's letter to female journalists, urging them to be vigilant in a "fake news" era. She used her letter to praise journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in a car bomb late last year while investigating corruption in Malta. Streep wrote:

"We need to protect, defend and thank the current crop of journalists around the world, because they, their scruples and their principles are the frontline defence of free and informed people. “Journalists today, investigative journalists, and especially female journalists, are vulnerable and come under a special scrutiny online."

“They must vouch for their stories," she continued, "put their names on them, and as a result they attract the cowardly, the bullies, the brotherhood of bots and their easily aroused armies of haters.”