Sir, - There is little point in the Government commissioning research if the findings are not published. Deputy Liz McManus is right to query the delay in publishing the draft report on crisis pregnancy and abortion carried out by researchers in Trinity College (The Irish Times, February 6th). When Michael Noonan was Minister for Health he commissioned this work to investigate why so many women with unplanned pregnancies opted for abortion. Mr Cowen has had the researchers' report since December. Abortion can never be the preferred end to any pregnancy and we need all the information we can get to address the situation here.
The increased availability internationally of pharmacological methods of abortion such as RU486, which blocks the hormones which sustain a pregnancy, will have an impact in Ireland too. If heroin, cocaine, cannabis, etc., are smuggled in, why not these drugs also?
Recently, Professor Walter Prenderville, in an address to the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists published in the Irish Medical Times, suggested that it is the aesthetics rather than the ethics of abortion which most Irish obstetricians find unacceptable. Could the findings in the yet unpublished report suggest the same is true of Irish women? The mantra "Abortion is totally unacceptable to Irish people" is patently not true when one looks at the abortion figures. - Yours, etc.,
Senator Mary Henry MD,
Seanad Eireann, Dublin 2.