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”.