Sir, – According to a recent IpsosMRBI Poll (March 3rd), 63 per cent of Irish people would like to see abortion made legal where a woman’s health is at risk, with 50 per cent in favour legalising it if the child has a severe physical or mental handicap. If these views become part of our law, they will be effective in making abortion available, but ineffective in limiting that availability. The equal right of mother and child will be a thing of the past.
A rule is of no use if there are no structures in place to ensure that it is observed. Suppose abortion were available in cases of severe physical or mental handicap, what criteria would be used to decide what is and what is not severe? Under what conditions would a handicapped child be allowed to live?
What doctor is going to decide that an unborn child is only “moderately” handicapped, and so must be allowed to live, when a mother is distressed by the news that that her child is handicapped at all? The pressure will be in favour of more handicaps being labelled “severe” until the concept of “severity” becomes entirely subjective. This development will take place quietly and relentlessly.
Suppose abortion were available where a woman’s health is at risk. Nobody could deny that an unwanted pregnancy is stressful, but what if a doctor, seeing a patient under such stress, decides to reassure her by allowing an abortion on the grounds that her mental health is at risk? How could such a judgement be challenged? By whom? And in what forum? As with “severe” disability, the concept of “risk to health” would soon be emptied of meaning.
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One in 19 pregnancies in Ireland ends in abortion. The comparable rate in developed countries where abortion is available, is one in five (with Scandinavia being one in four). They might not have known what would happen when they legalised abortion: now, we do. – Yours, etc,
EDMOND GRACE, SJ
Jesuit Community,
Dublin 2;
SEAMUS MURPHY, SJ
Department of Philosophy,
Loyola University,
Chicago.