Sir - Mary Stewart (January 12th) advocated adoption as a solution to unwanted pregnancies. While this would clearly be an ideal situation, the fact remains that adoption is the least favoured option for women with crisis pregnancies, probably because it involves all the stress of pregnancy and labour without the joys of motherhood. The unacceptability of adoption as a solution to unwanted pregnancies is reflected in the fact that only 1,115 babies under the age of one were adopted in the UK in 1991, compared with 12,641 in 1968.
Furthermore, Mrs Stewart's remark that termination results in "crises for most of the mothers in guilt and, often, physical problems" indicates a breathtaking lack of knowledge of the subject under discussion. There is no evidence to suggest that "most" women are damaged, either physically or emotionally, as a result of termination. On the contrary. P.K.B. Dagg in the American Journal of Psychiatry (1991) noted that in the long term "the majority of women express positive attitudes to the abortion and only a small minority express any degree of regret." With regard to the "physical problems" that Mrs Stewart mentions, she might like to note that the death rate from pregnancy is about 10 times greater than the death rate from abortion (Journal of the American Medical Association, 1992). The physical risks to women from termination are extremely slight when the procedure is carried out by a competent medical practitioner. Nevertheless, ill-informed scaremongering forms much of the abortion debate in this country.
Finally, Mrs Stewart seems amazed, in these "enlightened times" as she calls them, that the media is ignoring adoption as a solution to unwanted pregnancies. I am also amazed, but for a different reason: that approaching the 21st century Irish women are still denied the reproductive rights which are a "given" in most of the world's developed nations. - Yours, etc.,
Jennifer O'Farrell, Bellevue Park, Booterstown, Co Dublin.