Sir, - Both the pro-choice lobby and the pro-life lobby put forward their cases very strongly and their opinions are mirrored by many people throughout this island. Some of us however, remain confused.
Daily the newspapers are filled with tales of drug addiction, alcohol addiction, abuse, violence, theft, suicide and stories of hundreds of our children in care of the various health boards. Everybody has the right to life but what kind of lives do these stories reveal? Children born to parents who do not want them pass into adulthood without experiencing the love and attention that all children are entitled to. Their need for love and nurturing is not met.
It is many of these poor children who, through no fault of their own, turn to the various forms of addiction to fill the emptiness inside. They attempt to nurture themselves in the best or only way they know how. The substance of choice provides temporary solace but soon the spiral of addiction starts. Addiction, we all know, tears lives apart. It leads to ill health, misery, violence, abuse, further unwanted children, prisons packed to capacity and, sadly, to suicides. If, at conception, these individuals knew their destiny, would they choose life?
Those who choose to have the children they conceive and who nurture and care for those children in the best way they know how are to be admired. Maybe those who choose to go the other route also deserve respect for having possibly saved one more child the misery and indignity of a life filled only with pain. I feel huge sympathy for anybody having to make this decision. Must we make it all the more difficult for them with our criticisms? - Yours, etc.,
Orla Farrell, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.