Anti-choice lobby has a limited approach

IN his letter on abortion (January 8), Rory O’Donovan seeks to draw a distinction between pro-choice campaigners and care for the life of the unborn.

It is a gross injustice to women to suggest the decision to terminate a pregnancy signals a lack of care for the unborn.

Since Mr O’Donovan has never carried a child, one cannot expect him to understand the experience, but to suggest that a woman is not acutely aware of the potential life inside her, of the future prospects of that life and of the world of experience it will be born into — that is just preposterous.

Mr O’Donovan’s suggestion that people who seek a legal choice in the matter have “more in common with those who show concern over the carbon emissions resulting from a trip abroad than the implications for the life of an unborn child” is, I suspect, made in a somewhat sarcastic spirit — but it is in fact very relevant.

Concern over global warming is all to do with the future and those who come after us. While anti-choice campaigners have a deep concern for the life of the unborn child, the reality is that beyond attempting to secure the child’s future, they are powerless over the circumstances into which he or she will be born — and they show little concern about that.

The fact is that women already have the “veto over the lives of their unborn children”, which Mr O’Donovan is so against.

It is a responsibility conferred by virtue of their physical make-up and by modern medical science, and a number of Irish women each day choose to exercise that responsibility by ending their pregnancy, often with no guidance whatsoever.

If the anti-choice lobby was less concerned with salving its own conscience and more with the lives of the mother and and her unborn child, surely it would advocate legislation that includes mandatory counselling for women in crisis situations so they can be sure the decision they make takes into account all the ethics?

Nicki ffrench Davis

Georges Quay

Cork