Dear Dr Connell,

I write to you as the mother of three children, all of whom were assisted into life by in vitro fertilisation. I am affronted personally and on their behalf that you ascribe a life without meaning to three human beings whom you do not know on the grounds that they are "technological produce", which they plainly are not.

They are children. They are loved and cherished. They are the blessings we count every day, believe me. Parents who have waited as long as we did for our children will tell you the same thing. Our children are never, ever taken for granted.

If you were actually concerned with real parents and children and not cyphers of "contraceptive culture", you might perhaps hesitate before you pronounce on the evils of reproductive technology and contraception. Moreover, the agonising process of infertility treatment makes great demands of a couple, tests their commitment and love for each other, and calls for "patience, understanding and sacrifice".

Claiming that the in vitro child has been produced "to order" is at odds with the fact that most couples on an in vitro treatment programme fail to conceive. A growing number of men and women in the world today experience infertility. Ill-founded and prejudiced opinions like those expressed in your paper reveal a profound ignorance and lack of compassion.

You also overlook one central fact about all children, wanted and unwanted, planned and unplanned, and it is this: they are all the same. Nothing about their conception, pre-conception, or birth changes the fact that they come into the world totally dependent on their parents or parent.

In the real world - far from the ruminations of theologians such as yourself - all parents and all children negotiate family life as best they can. It must be obvious that factors such as poverty, health, age and individual particularities of personality and personal history will play a large part in determining the outcome of these relationships; more, I would have thought, than the circumstances of conception.

I cannot understand how you can speak of a child as not belonging to the family "in a personal sense". What on earth does this mean? Parents and children, and that includes all children, are human beings. Their relationship can only be personal. There is no such thing as an impersonal or a personal relationship with a child.

Where is the evidence that the parents of the planned child, or the child who is born as a result of in vitro fertilisation, have developed a "sense of consumer ownership" or that a "properly personal relationship . . . problematic"?

Why will the fact that I consider myself lucky and fortunate to have three beautiful children result in resentful, unhappy children? Why will it contribute to "the chaos of broken families"? Why should children conceived in love, as my children most certainly were, not be regarded as anything but a gift? It should be obvious that my children are wanted children, but they are not planned children. Unlike others more fortunate, I never expected to have children. I hoped to have children. Very, very different.

Parents who plan their children, or who undergo infertility treatment, do not do so in the spirit of a mail purchase order, where the "product" can be returned or exchanged. Their decisions are morally informed. It may not be in line with Humanae Vitae but that is not the point.

The parents of all children strive to love their children well, feed and care for them, steer them through life, and make them independent. Parents like me know themselves to be privileged, and appreciate that they have been given the opportunity to love and be loved in return.

That is what parenthood is, an invitation to love, and that is a gift, no matter whence it comes. In their hearts, where it counts, all parents and all children know this.

Yours sincerely, Nuala O'Connor, Ventry, Co Kerry.