Sir, - Dr Connell's sophist pronouncements on the effects of contraception on women's lives and his belief that a planned child is less loved or less acceptable than an unplanned child has left me with a total sense of despair. Firstly, I would like to speak for the pre-contraception women of Ireland. Many of these women died early, worn out by successive births. Their children were left motherless and for the most part ended up in institutions, where they were subjected to terrible physical - and worse, sexual - abuse from the religious in whose care they were abandoned.Most women of my time were obsessed with their fertility, a certain time of every month becoming a time of fear or relief depending on whether one was pregnant or not. For the husbands it was equally stressful, as their wives were certainly not spontaneous partners in their sexual unions. Many men ended up in the pubs, as there wasn't much joy at home. Most women in my age bracket - sixties or over - look with envy at our children's freedom to have children or not, and we rejoice for them in that freedom.What has always amazed me is that the Catholic Church keeps opening this contraceptive wound that only women have to carry in their consciences, especially if their faith is very important to them. I have long come to the conclusion that the only interest the church has in its female members is their fertility and hence the continuation of a Catholic flock.I understand that when questioned priests and bishops have to toe the party line; but why, why, why keep scratching away at a festering wound by highlighting a problem the Church cannot come to terms with? Women are in the main the ones who will either engender a love or distaste for the Catholic faith.
By alienating the mothers the Church are cutting off much of the next generation from what should be a loving relationship with God and the wonders of a spiritual dimension in one's life. - Yours, etc.,Gwen Woods,Clyde Lane,Dublin 4.