Sir, - Like Joe Foyle (June 13th), I believe the figures for "Irish" abortions are overstated. The uncritically accepted "6,000 plus" figure is not a verifiable official statistic but rather the returns made by the private abortion clinics to the authorities. These same clinics have been castigated by the inquiry into the functioning of the Abortion Act for inaccurate statistics.
If indeed, 6,000 Irish women had abortions annually we would expect to encounter quite a lot of post-abortion morbidity, both physical and psychological, entering the Irish healthcare system; we do not. For more direct evidence I am aware of two recent surveys of clients of private abortion clinics indicating a rate for Irish residents of about 2,000 per annum.
There is an incentive for British residents, especially those seeking a late abortion, to give an overseas address as it is a way to circumvent the theoretically quite strict criteria for Britons to procure an abortion. The most telling evidence for this practice was an admittedly small survey of abortion clinic clients giving Irish addresses that found at least 60 per cent were British citizens using an Irish address for precisely this purpose (incidentally this survey was quoted in the Dail debates Vol 450, page 339). - Yours, etc.,
Dr M. G. Salter, Dundalk, Co Louth.