DUBLIN – Pressure mounted Thursday for the Irish government to draft a law spelling out when lifesaving abortions can be performed — a demand that came after a pregnant woman who was denied an abortion died.

Activists protested Thursday night in Belfast a day after thousands rallied in London, Dublin, Cork and Galway in memory of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist who died a week after doctors said she was starting to miscarry her 17-week-old fetus.

Despite her rising pain, doctors refused her request for an abortion for three days because the fetus had a heartbeat. She died in the hospital from blood poisoning three days after the fetus died and was surgically removed.

Irish gynecologists demanded Thursday that the government close a 20-year-old hole in the country’s abortion law that leaves them fearing prosecution if they abort a fetus to protect a woman’s life.

“We would like to be able to practice medicine in a safe environment legally. The current situation is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us,” Dr. Peter Boylan of the Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said Thursday. “If we do something with a good intention, but it turns out to be illegal, the consequences are extremely serious for medical practitioners.”

Halappanavar died Oct. 28 but her husband went public with the situation this week after taking his wife’s body back home to India for cremation.

In India, newspaper headlines Thursday accused Ireland of committing a murder.