Madam, - I wish to commend the compassionate article by Breda O'Brien about the general response to the plight of the young women at the centre of yet another "right to travel" controversy ( Opinion & Analysis, May 5th). It seems everything we do needs a euphemism and we are experts at it.
As Ms O'Brien points out, whatever this young woman does or is let do is a response to the sad and difficult news that she is pregnant with a child who will have a severe disability and will probably not live long. I too listened to Liveline and other media coverage where the public consensus seemed to be that the only response to this crisis was a termination. This in a country that refuses to offer this service. I admit to finding the question of abortion very challenging morally and because of this I find that I must be pro-choice despite my personal concern about ending life in this way.
However I was moved to write because of the inherent assumption in the public's response that the only option on hearing of the imminent arrival of a severely disabled child is to terminate that life. I have spent more than 20 years working with children who have some very profound disabilities and their families.
Firstly, doctors are not always correct in their predictions about pregnancies form scans and prenatal tests. Secondly each child is a different person with a different personality and disability affects each of them and their families differently.
Love is a complex emotion. For some parents it is instant - love at first sight; for others it is a struggle; for many that struggle is a journey with great reward at the end of it. The children I have met over the years stay with me and the joy I have felt when a child who is limited in their ability to tell me about themselves gives me a smile or a look cannot be described.
There is no belittling the difficult journey, the tears, the exhaustion experienced by parents of a disabled child, but one thing is certain: they are not helped by a knee-jerk reaction in the media. Compassion and the freedom to act compassionately are what are needed here for the HSE, for the judiciary and above all for the young women and her family. - Yours, etc,
ISOLDA O'CONNOR, Skibbereen, Co Cork.
Madam, - The use of the term "disabled" in the headline to Breda O'Brien's article on the D case, and the manner in which the subject has been addressed by several of your correspondents, need to be challenged.
It is, of course, understandable, that those who support the current draconian legal situation with regard to abortion would prefer to avoid discussion of the specific circumstances D finds herself in. This does not, however, require everyone else to ignore the facts and debate the issue entirely on their terms.
This case is not about making a judgment about the "quality of life" of a disabled child. It is not about those mothers to whom Breda O'Brien refers who do not regret carrying an anencephalic child to term (unlike D, one assumes, they would have had the benefit of a choice in the matter). Anencephaly is not a "disability" as the term is commonly understood. It is a severe abnormality which offers no chance of survival. Let us be quite clear on this: if a born human being suffered from a comparable condition, there would be no question over the right of the next of kin to withdraw life support, if that was their wish.
Those who oppose D's right to terminate her pregnancy are, in effect, condemning her to remain, against her wishes, a human life-support machine for the next five months - an entirely fruitless and cruel exercise, given the circumstances. The tone of smug moral sanctimony running through many of the letters printed on this are a little hard to take, coming, as they do, from people with no compunction about ignoring D's choice in the matter and treating her as a means, rather than an end. - Yours, etc,
FRANCIS COLGAN, Sutton, Dublin 13.