A Chara, - On reading about the "Miss D" case, I felt compelled to write about a personal experience of mine.
On Christmas Eve 2004 we received a new resident in our Home, Mario Junior. He was born in September 2004, in the local hospital where I am chaplain. He suffers from both hydrocephaly and hydranencephaly, which means that part of his brain tissue is absent and that he has fluid in his brain. His 17-year-old mother had abandoned him. Thanks to some hospital nurses, he managed to survive beyond what was expected in the hospital, but by and large he was untreated by the staff.
The hospital doctors informed me that he only had a short time to live. One of the doctors even remarked that it was a waste of money to try to save him as he was sure to die very soon. It was shocking to realise that this very special and loveable baby, Mario Junior, had spent 100 days in a state hospital, that nothing had been done for him, and that some people considered spending money on him a waste.
As a result, he was denied appropriate treatment including the insertion of a valve to drain fluid from his brain. The necessary valve was inserted and the quality of Mario's life was considerably improved.
Mario Junior has enriched all of our lives. We have no words to thank him.
Every person is a gift. It is not for us to decide who deserves to live or not. - Is Mise,
Padre LIAM HAYES SVD, Hogar Santa Teresa Del Niño Jesús, Obera, Misiones, Argentina.
Madam, - The "Miss D" abortion case has again highlighted the adolescent stage in which we, as a nation, are currently entrenched.
By refusing to recognise the estimated annual 6,000+ cases of Irish women travelling to the UK for abortions, the country is effectively sticking its head in the sand and damaging the image of a developed, grown-up state we may now be trying to sell to the rest of the world.
The argument that having abortion or termination procedures, or whatever else we may feel least uncomfortable calling it, available in this country giving rise to increased promiscuity and greater transmission of STIs does a great disservice to the population as a whole. Such dark ages of misinformation must surely now be finally shelved. Or how many more letters of the alphabet must we get through before we, as a people, eventually deal with the matter rather than shirking our responsibility by leaving it to unelected members of the judiciary? Bearing in mind of course that what goes no further than a political, moral or lawful debate for many of us changes the lives of those at the centre of such hard cases.
In an environment where most politicians have a malleable backbone, to put it mildly, it's likely that this will be an election issue that few will take a stand on, one way or the other. However, in a few short weeks, with elections out of the way for another five years this non-straighforward, emotional matter might be something our politicians and the country as a whole considers. Our hypocritical, Oirish solution to a universal conundrum must be examined. - Yours, etc
KIERAN SULLIVAN, Georgestown, Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford.
Madam, - Ms D is faced with a terrible predicament.
Should she proceed with an abortion, the knowledge that she has been the instigator of her baby's death may be harder to live with than allowing her baby to live and die with dignity. - Yours, etc,
LYNN KEE, St Mochta's Green, Clonsilla, Dublin 15.
Madam, - I see you have received some correspondence stating that the continuation of Miss D's pregnancy would be monstrous and abominable.
If Miss D decides not to continue with her pregnancy, her child will be dismembered, and the remains disposed of as medical waste, by people who claim to practise medicine.
That's truly monstrous. - Is mise,
LEO TALBOT, Moy Glas Way, Lucan, Co Dublin.