Madam, - The letters from Prof Maureen Junker-Kenny and Rev John McCarthy (April 30th) on James Watson's recent remarks at Trinity College require a response.
Dr Watson did not make any "equation of health (or lack of 'genetic mistakes') with worthiness to live", as Prof Junker-Kenny asserts. What he did was make an equation between the health of a future child and quality of life, both for the mother and for the child itself.
It is possible that some of Watson's language may have been a little unfortunate. For example, to believe that "genetics is all about having healthier, better children" as he was reported as saying, does seem a little poor in philosophical thinking.
But to label his view as that of an old-fashioned eugenicist is a more than a little unfair. What he defends is a woman's exclusive right to decide on her own reproductive capacity up to and including the decision to have an abortion. It is an unsurprising view held by very many, and has a very respectable philosophical tradition (though many others would disagree with its central conclusion).
The argument is about the "right" of a mother to control the processes in her own body with the sometimes competing "right" of a foetus (or unborn "baby", if you like) to continue to live within the maternal matrix. It has nothing to do with respect for the lives of children who have already been born. It certainly has nothing to do with the Special Olympics, as was suggested in both letters.
Please let's not mix up the arguments. - Yours etc.,
JAIME HYLAND, Heinrich-Mann Strasse, Berlin, Germany.