Sir, - According to your editorial (May 17th) "it is well established that abortion rates are not influenced by legislation: some states that have liberal abortion laws have among the lowest rates of abortion and some that have draconian legal prohibitions have among the highest rates of abortion".
If so, this defies common sense. Intuitively, most people would assume that if abortion is widely available this in turn leads to it becoming normalised and thus more widespread. This intuitive view is borne out by the facts. The present Irish abortion rate is approximately one in 11. This compares to a British rate of approximately one in five. Abortion is not available in Ireland. It is easily available in Britain.
Frequently, those who support the view that liberal abortion laws do not result in a high abortion rate cite the Dutch experience. Allegedly, the abortion rate in the Netherlands is similar to the Irish rate, despite the easy availability of abortion in Holland.
The Dutch figure does not stand up to closer examination. According to the Dutch State statistical agency: "Figures on abortion, though available from the early 1970s, are not complete. The data refers mostly to abortions performed in abortion clinics. Therefore, data such as age, nationality, parity of most women who have abortion in a hospital are not known. Moreover, not all reports are available to us." (Central Bureau voor de Statistiek, Voorburg, March 1997.)
Moreover, it appears that the Dutch figure does not include what are officially classified as "menstrual extractions", which are carried out from 16 to 44 days after the missed period. This procedure may account for many early abortions. In short, the Dutch abortion figures do not include all abortions carried out in Holland and therefore are not comparable to the Irish or British figures.
The conclusion from the available evidence is that far from it being well established that abortion rates are not influenced by legislation, the opposite is in fact the case. - Yours, etc., John O'Reilly,
Secretary, Pro-Life Campaign, Gardiner Street, Dublin 1.