Sir, – What is so strange about the Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll (Front page, February 11th) is that the questions asked do not reflect the core medical truths revealed in the hearings before the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children.
Dr Rhona Mahony, in her submission said that where a mother’s life is in danger, we always act to save the life of the mother, and in those circumstances, we always do our best to save the life of the baby. If the baby dies unavoidably, that is not abortion! There is a difference. The Masters of the Dublin maternity hospitals (together with the representative of the smaller maternity units around the country) all agreed that this was in line with best practice and required by the Guidelines of the Medical Council. And yet the questions asked in the poll published today fail, yet again, to make the crucial distinction between, on the one hand, necessary medical intervention to save the life of the mother, and, on the other, directly attacking the life of the baby.
In relation to threatened suicide, Dr John Sheehan spoke for all three of our perinatal psychiatrists when he said that the notion of carrying out a termination in respect of a person who is suicidal is completely obsolete. In such cases the appropriate intervention is to admit such people into hospital . . . with the intention of supporting and helping them through the crisis they are in. It is not to make a decision that is permanent and irrevocable.
And Dr Fergusson, in his very comprehensive 2008 study, concludes that there is no evidence that abortion reduces mental health risks. However, there is some evidence that abortion may exacerbate pre-existing mental health problems.
It would therefore be unethical in the extreme for the Government to legislate on the basis of the X case decision. Why? Because it would be bad and even dangerous medical practice, because the judges in the X case assumed, wrongly, that abortion is a treatment for threatened suicide. All the evidence points to the fact that it is not.
We should be very grateful to the Health and Children Oireachtas Committee for revealing the realities behind the current debate on the protection of the lives of expectant women and their pre-born babies.
At the same time, one wonders what conclusions the Government’s Expert Group would have arrived at if they had had their deliberations after – rather than before -– the publication of the findings of the Health and Children Committee! – Yours, etc,