Sir, - Once again, politicians are running scared on the abortion issue. Once again, the antiabortion lobby has called its powerful forces into action, and once again the real needs of the thousands of Irish women who have abortions every year are conveniently ignored by everyone.
There has been much hypocritical ranting by those who cannot bear to think that one woman may have had an abortion performed on Irish soil, but who can tolerate the ongoing exodus. Indeed they oppose any attempt to reduce the number of crisis pregnancies through increased provision of contraceptives and of sex education.
We should stand up to this hypocrisy. It is time that we as a society faced reality, and called on our legislators to provide for safe, legal abortion in this country, as part of a comprehensive women's reproductive health service. - Is mise,
Herbert Place,
Dublin 2.