Madam, - While I am sympathetic to the desire of Amnesty International Ireland to respect the diverse opinion of its membership by choosing not to promote the organisation's new abortion policy, it is disappointing that Amnesty has chosen to follow rather than lead discussion of this difficult issue in Irish life.
The current situation, in which the courts seek to manage the exigencies of individual hard cases, demonstrates the vacuum of responsible political leadership on this question. Amnesty might well have begun to fill this vacuum. A public debate on abortion grounded in the human rights concerns of women is not something we have ever had in this country.
Regretfully, given that pragmatism has prevailed over principle within Amnesty's Irish section, such a debate remains a long way off. - Yours, etc,
CATHERINE O'ROURKE, Rosemount, Derry.