Madam, - The dissenting opinion to the recent decision in the Polish abortion case concluded: "Today the Court has decided that a human being was born as a result of a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. According to this reasoning, there is a Polish child, currently six years old, whose right to be born contradicts the Convention."
Strangely, that's not the "substantive issue" Dr Conor Kostick (April 4th) spots in the Court's judgment.
For him, the "substantive issue" is what Doctors for Life have noted: That Ireland is in a similar position to Poland with regard to that ruling.
I would have thought the substantive issue was an actually existing human being, who one day, as a grown-up Mr Tysiac, will find out that his mother wanted him not to exist. An existing human being is a more substantive issue than a legal similarity.
I agree with Dr Kostick regarding another letter on this topic that "the reference to the Nazis here is inappropriate". He's not entirely accurate, though when he continues: "not least because legislation of May 26th, 1933, banned abortion in Germany".
It wasn't as simple as that, since abortion remained as a legally favoured option for Arab or African Germans, Gypsies and Jews, along with those deemed eugenically unfit. The Nazis didn't give a fig for the rights of unborn humans; all they wanted was a racially pure engine for world domination.
Certainly, it would be inappropriate for supporters of Doctors For Choice to be called fascists. But mightn't a choice for non-existence out-Nietzsche Nietzsche as a will to power? - Yours, etc,
Dr BRENDAN PURCELL, School of Philosophy, UCD, Dublin 4.