Abortion poll dealt with key questions

DR AUDREY DILLON of the Pro-Life Campaign dismisses the findings of the recent MRBI poll on abortion on the basis that it “made no distinction” between different grounds for abortion.

This is incorrect.

The poll measured respondents’ attitudes to legalised abortion under a number of different circumstances, including the threat of suicide, other risks to the woman’s life, rape and the foetus’s inability to survive outside the womb.

A majority answered in favour of legalised abortion in all cases except on demand (and the 25-34 age group even voted ‘yes’ to that).

Incredibly, Dr Dillon then goes on to argue that a poll commissioned by her organisation is more credible precisely because it didn’t bother with any of these distinctions but simply asked whether or not people wished to see abortion legislated for in Ireland.

It seems that the Pro-Life Campaign’s yardstick for measuring the reliability of research is based not on the questions asked but on whether or not the Pro-Life Campaign approves the answers.

Wendy Lyon

Queen Street

Dublin 7