Madam, - Your Editorial of November 13th, 2003 states that only half of sexually active women and only a quarter of sexually active men use contraceptives. I wonder how this figure was obtained as I saw no mention of it in the report of the same day by Eithne Donnellan on the Crisis Pregnancy Agency's strategy.
Whether or not these figures are accurate, however, does nothing to support your sweeping assertion that abortion and contraception are not closely linked. As has been pointed out repeatedly, there is no lack of access to contraceptives in Britain where there is large-scale abortion. Of course, with the increased use of abortifacients - the morning after pill, etc. - the link is strengthened.
What was most depressing in the Crisis Pregnancy Agency report was the lack of emphasis on the option of adoption. With infertile couples in Ireland now dependent on adopting foreign babies, it means that only those who are very well off can afford to adopt.
On July 26th you published a poignant article by Martina Devlin about "baby hunger" and what she had gone through in in-vitro fertilisation. Also as Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor, reported on September 11th this year, there are unmeasured risks associated with IVF.
It is very hard to understand why it is so acceptable to consider abortion as an option with one part of the hospital carrying these out and the other providing IVF. On the one hand there is the claimed right to choose to abort and on the other the right to have a child. Does this not suggest that the child is looked on as a commodity here and not a person? - Yours, etc.,
Mrs MARY STEWART, Ardeskin, Donegal Town.