Sir, - Tony Allwright (December 10th) suggests that while few people would disagree with a woman's right to control her body, abortion is about the right to control someone's else's body, namely the child's. This line of argument, while ostensibly recognising women's right to reproductive control, in fact undermines that very right.
First of all, to give equal weight to the life of a woman and an unborn foetus is completely to devalue women's lives, health and subjectivity. In equating women with foetuses, women are denied personhood and agency. A woman's feelings, personal freedom and bodily integrity are sacrificed at the expense of a foetus. The foetus is perceived as being a person, and indeed the only "person" in the equation who counts.
Secondly, abortion is always one barometer of the degree of control which women have over their bodies. To present it as being a separate issue is absurd and yet again implies the view that women are merely carriers of foetuses, rather than full adults in their own right.
Finally, the abortion debate reflects a wider cultural ideology of womanhood and motherhood in Irish society which is detrimental to women. It remains unacceptable in Irish society for a woman to choose not to sacrifice any aspect of her well-being for others. Instead, she is to choose to yield all reproductive control and even continue with an unwanted pregnancy, or risk social censure.
It is clear, given the thousands of Irish women who travel to England every year, that if the option of abortion was not available abroad, we would be faced with large numbers of desperate Irish women experiencing severe injury and death though unsafe, illegal abortions. It is time for the Irish State to recognise that Irish women are choosing to have abortions and that it is the responsibility of this State to provide them on Irish soil under safe, supportive conditions. - Yours, etc.,
R≤is∅n Ryan-Flood, The Gender Institute, London School of Economics, London WC2.