Why no constitutional protection for unborn?

I READ with great interest Fergus Finlay’s column about constitutional protection for children (Irish Examiner, November 7).

Coincidentally, I had just been reading a copy of a letter I sent to the Irish Examiner six years ago in relation to another of Mr Finlay’s columns, this one in connection with a proposed constitutional amendment to protect the unborn.

The contrast between his attitudes to the two referenda could hardly be more stark. In November 2000, with 75% in opinion polls favouring a referendum, he wrote that an Oireachtas committee’s proposal for another plebiscite filled him with dread and “it mustn’t be allowed to happen”.

In November 2006, he writes that nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of constitutional protection for children.

I would love to think Mr Finlay has changed his mind about protecting the unborn as well as the born.

However, I suspect that his position with respect to the unborn is unchanged.

If so, then he is saying, in effect, that a week before you are born you should have no constitutional protection whatever and a week after you should have whatever protection it takes.

I can think of a number of adjectives to apply to such a position — ‘rational’ and ‘considered’ are not among them.

Jim Stack

Moneygorm

Lismore

Co Waterford