Madam, – No sooner does Enda Kenny begin to look like having a real prospect of becoming taoiseach than he demonstrates his and his party’s unsuitability for office by insisting that legislation for abortion, which has been mandated by the people in numerous referendums, should be dealt with by a cross-party committee (Front page, December 28th).
The requirement for legislation for abortion is not a call for unrestricted access to pregnancy termination. It is something that is needed so that medical practitioners, social services personnel and, above all, the women and their families who are confronted with crisis pregnancies in this State can have clarity as to their options. To continuously defer legislation demonstrates nothing less than criminal irresponsibility on the part of our so-called legislators.
Governments are put into power to govern. Political cowardice of the sort demonstrated by Mr Kenny’s words in your Front page story makes one question the worth of the alternatives we have available when the present coalition is sent packing in a few months’ time. Should we, the voters, be considering the old adage about the devil you know being better than the one you don’t? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – What a tirade from Desmond FitzGerald (December 28th) against those in the “pro-life brigade”. No, my clock did not stop in 1982, nor am I aware that it should be any more acceptable to kill a baby in the womb in 2010 than in 1982.
The reason that “a woman having an abortion should impact on my life” is that I find it extremely difficult to stand by and not raise my voice against the killing of an innocent baby. I also find it difficult not to object to executions as a friend was executed in Florida some years ago. But, as to “helping actual living people”, I, and many others opposed to abortion, do write to prisoners on death row and have been known to help those in crisis pregnancies, etc.
Mr FitzGerald does a disservice to the many who are not Catholic and who voice their objection to the barbaric practice of abortion. After all, this is a matter of human rights and I cannot see how it is acceptable for a woman to kill the baby in her womb, when it is not acceptable to kill anyone else. Mr FitzGerald does not seem to be aware of the many Catholics who are helping the homeless, poor or lonely. Or is he suggesting that it is only those in favour of abortion who do this? The abuses suffered by children and adults is horrendous, but, in my opinion, not more so than the slaughter of the innocents in the womb. As every possible assistance is available for those with crisis pregnancies, surely deliberately killing the baby is not a positive option. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – “Women who want to avail of their right to choose an abortion, for whatever reason, should be allowed to do so in Ireland.” Thus Desmond FitzGerald (December 28th) writing from London’s Canary Wharf.
Perhaps Mr FitzGerald has hit upon the formula for restoring Irish prosperity, by making Ireland the destination of choice for women of other countries, such as Britain, where no such “right” has any recognition in law.
Of course the problem might be that Ireland has availed of the right to make her own laws and that right has been upheld by the European Court of Human Rights. – Yours, etc,