Family & Life took great pains to avoid offence

IT is hard to know where to start when a gentle 18-second message about motherhood and positive choices is branded as “irresponsible”, “manipulative” and showing “a complete disregard for human life” (Irish Examiner, September 26).

Have we now reached a stage when even showing motherhood is “controversial”?

Family & Life’s cinema advertisement took great pains to avoid offence. The ‘A-word’ is never mentioned, there is no effort to shock and its message is solely directed at adults.

Its critics have much to say about choice. They seem to have forgotten that parenthood is much more than a consumer choice.

One of the fallacies of the ‘right to abortion’ movement is to pretend that motherhood can be reversed by abortion. Buying a house or a car is a choice that can be reversed, although often with no little expense and pain.

Not so with motherhood. Motherhood is not in the same category.

In recent years medical science has revealed how comprehensively pregnancy soon after conception engages a mother physically and psychologically like no other experience.

Abruptly terminating a pregnancy carries serious risks that may not be immediately apparent but are nonetheless real.

It can hardly be otherwise.

Of course, there are times when having a child is “non-ideal”, yet there are other options that do not involve the taking of a life.

David Manly

Family & Life

26 Mountjoy Square

Dublin 1