Sir, – I would be grateful if the Government could explain the legal basis of the payment to Amanda Mellet (News, December 3rd) for the anguish involved in travelling to the UK for an abortion on an unborn child with a serious medical condition.
As a parent of a child who died of a life-limiting condition, I have some experience of the anguish involved. The government and its agencies have never been particularly bothered about anguish caused by its failure to fulfil its statutory obligations, so I must ask the question: why is money that could be used to deal with statutory obligations being diverted to deal with a political issue?
My understanding is that the human rights in this country are on the basis of European law, enforced by the European Court of Human Rights, and that opinions of the UN Human Rights Committee have no legal standing and cannot require the government to do anything.
Given the previous close involvement of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Gadafy’s Libya, and China, the moral standing of the UN Human Rights Committee is also highly dubious.
How does a Government or Minister decide to spend money on something that is not legally required when it is already causing so much anguish by failing to spend money on its legal obligations?
– Yours, etc,
LIAM MULLIGAN
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Breda O'Brien (Opinion, December 3rd) argues badly that the compensation offered to Amanda Mellet is an example of the state "kowtowing to the badly-named UN Human Rights Committee".
In fact, Ireland is voluntarily a state party to the first optional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which enables individual complaints with regard to alleged violations of state parties to the protocol.
Things are not as simplistic as she reductively describes women who have pregnancies with fatal foetal abnormality exercising the decision to travel and terminate as simply lacking support. Domestic criminalisation and the related necessity to travel in this case meant Ms Mellet suffered discrimination, a violation of her right to privacy, and that she had been subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
If women had access to free, safe and legal abortion and the State increased support in terms of palliative care for those women who wish to continue pregnancy in such difficult circumstances, then women would be in a position to freely exercise their autonomy in reproductive health matters.
It is a pity that Ms O’Brien appears on the contrary to see continuing international human rights violations as part of a solution and not the actual problem. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN DINEEN
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.