Abortion girl a propaganda victim
To begin, Mr Mullen states: "A child is going to be killed."
This calculated distortion seems to have been designed to attract attention to the piece.
However, regardless of your personal opinion on abortion, the fact is that when an abortion is carried out, it is a foetus which is terminated, not a child. He claims to wish this "unfortunate 14 year old... peace of mind and a better life than she has had to date." Writing a column such as this about the predicament she found herself in is a rather disingenuous way of expressing that wish. He then declares she had "become a mother too young."
Has this 14-year-old borne another child already? She did not become a mother, but became pregnant. He claims to want to discuss abortion 'with sensitivity,' yet he seems only to stop short of giving the foetus a name in the characteristics he attributes it.
Writing about this emotive subject in such a manipulative and cynical manner shows he is sensitive only to views of the lunatic fringe of the so-called pro-life lobby.
His column is typical of their views: any attempt at debate on abortion, and the current farcical attitude towards it in this country, is met with cries of 'murder,' 'baby-killer,' and the flaunting of blood-smeared photographs.
The reality is that nearly 5,000 Irishwomen a year travel to England for abortions.
The Government has only institutionalised this practice by refusing to pass legislation which puts into law the previous Supreme Court rulings.
Any health board which is acting in the place of the parents of a child in care has a responsibility towards that child, and that responsibility includes making difficult decisions. I am not suggesting that abortion in this situation is the only alternative and I feel that late-term abortions are horrendous but they do occur.
The law permitting them may be cruel, but let's face facts: neither Mr Mullen nor the pro-life campaign (which threatened legal action against the health board to prevent the 14-year-old travelling to England) gives a damn about this girl, or the foetus, apart from using her as a political football. They certainly wouldn't be contributing to the care of the girl and the baby she would have had if she did not have a termination.
The situation is doubly difficult for this girl when people like Mr Mullen can exploit her for the predicament she is in, use her to bash the health board, the Government, and the British legal system from afar, when the only reason this came to light was because she was already in health board care.
Does Mr Mullen think that other 14-year-old girls or even younger do not become pregnant and go to England for abortions? It is ridiculous to presume that it has not happened in the past, and that it will not happen in the future, but in the style typical of such gutter journalism, he decides to exploit an individual already in a very tragic position. Shame on him for writing such an obnoxious column and on you for publishing it.
Myles Fenlon,
Glenomena,
UCD Belfield,
Dublin 4.
