IMO agm vote was regrettable

Women owe Drs Mary Favier and Mark Murphy a vote of thanks for trying to drag the Irish Medical Organisation into the 21st century.

It is shocking that the motions that these two doctors put to the agm were defeated. The very limited motions addressed women’s existing constitutional right to life, abortion in cases of rape and incest and fatal foetal abnormality.

Your report ‘Doctors refuse to back X case motion’ (Saturday, Apr 6) raises so many issues. Not least, whether IMO members who voted against the motions know that women who meet the X case test already have a right to an abortion in this country, including those whose lives are at risk from suicide, and that this right was endorsed in referenda in 1992 and 2001.

The photograph (p.4) of retired Fianna Fáil politician Dr Rory O’Hanlon voting at the meeting is a reminder of the failure of past Irish politicians to legislate on women’s X case entitlements. That failure has been strongly criticised by Irish judges, international commentators and the European Court of Human Rights. That court requires Ireland to introduce ‘effective and accessible procedures’ by which women who meet the X case test can have a termination. That is why the present government has been forced to take action.

Your report implies that key opponents of the motions were doctors who trained and practised in 1960s and 1970s Ireland, when Catholic Church control of medical ethics and social policy was close to absolute. Contraceptives were banned. Their legalisation was as bitterly opposed as access to abortion is today. Symphysiotomy was practised. Magdalene homes flourished, and the state upheld men’s right to rape their wives with impunity.

In recent years, Ireland has taken huge steps towards recognising women’s rights to life, to bodily integrity and to controlling their fertility. It seems particularly regrettable that a medical organisation voted as the IMO did on Friday, and not only because of the message it sent out about attitudes to women and their rights. It also implies that women must choose their doctors carefully.

Dr Sandra McAvoy

Douglas Road

Cork