LIZ McMANUS, TD,
Sir, - The Tánaiste, Mary Harney, is already in a hole. Why is she still digging?
In her letter of February 5th, she makes misleading claims in her defence of the PD U-turn on the abortion referendum. Her claim that the Government amendment will protect medical interventions in pregnancies to save a woman's life is erroneous. In fact, it would reduce the current protection, which includes saving a woman's life when there is a risk of self-destruction.
It would also circumscribe medical interventions in requiring that these must be carried out only in "approved places" (to be defined by the Minister for Health) and allowing for a conscience "opt-out" clause for doctors - even though the medical intervention is perfectly legal.
The Tánaiste's claim that the morning-after pill will not be rendered illegal is also erroneous. While the amendment does remove the possibility of the use or prescription of the morning-after pill being regarded as a criminal offence, it does nothing to clarify the status of the pill under the 1983 constitutional amendment.
She calls the Government proposal "an honest compromise", but how can this be so when it is essentially the same proposal to exclude suicide as grounds for a termination of pregnancy - a proposal resisted tooth and nail by the PDs in 1992 and defeated by the Irish people?
This is a dishonest deal struck by the PDs, who are clinging to Government for as long as they can regardless of any cost to principle or political integrity.
There is a clear alternative which the Labour Party is putting forward - to vote No to this proposal and to legislate in line with the X case.
Isn't this the position the PDs used to hold? - Yours, etc.,
LIZ McMANUS, TD, Labour Party Spokesperson on Health, Dáil Éireann, Dublin 2.
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Sir, - The letter from the Tánaiste was misleading and breathtaking. Apart from playing politics with women's lives, she has abandoned any credibility she once held, by advocating a Yes vote in the referendum.
On October 21st, 1992, Mary Harney, speaking in the Dáil said: "Most people do not like the notion of abortion. . .In my view, it is the lesser of two evils where a woman's life is at risk, where her health is seriously at risk, or if somebody has been raped or the subject of a sexual crime such as incest. It is also the lesser of two evils where somebody may take their own life.
"In these limited circumstances - and they are limited - the option of terminating a pregnancy should be available to Irish women in Ireland. In this debate, as in many others, we will continue to export our problem to Britain."
The latest referendum, if passed, will criminalise women with the sanction of a 12-year prison sentence and will exclude the risk of suicide as grounds for having an abortion.
The Alliance for a No Vote is a broad umbrella of progressive groups and leading NGOs opposed to this referendum. - Yours, etc.,
RICHIE KEANE, Alliance for a No Vote, Harty Place, Dublin 8.