Sir,– Although I believe it to be the right of every person to peacefully protest in this country, I feel the pro-life vigil that took place at the weekend was quite disturbing (Home News, January 21st).
Whose life exactly are these people trying to protect? Not the lives of women, that is for certain.
X case legislation deals solely with the need to save a woman’s life if her life is in danger due to pregnancy. How then is it pro-life to dispute such legislation? The people of this country have spoken twice, and the European Court of Human Rights has demanded we act on X, almost 21 years later. I don’t feel that this “vigil” is in the interests of Irish women.
As an Irishwoman, I need to know that I live in a country where my life is valued more than a cluster of developing cells. Pro-choice is pro-life. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – There is an urgent and immediate need for an inter-party alliance of pro-life TDs to defy and resist Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore’s attempt to railroad their pro-abortion legislation through Dáil Éireann. “There will be no free vote on this”, Mr Kenny has said. There should be a referendum – never mind a free vote – on on this crucial moral issue. Mr Kenny, displaying breath-taking arrogance, has crassly betrayed the Catholic and pro-life constituency who voted him and his party into office. He and Mr Gilmore must be stopped. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Harry McGee’s report on the meeting between the Catholic bishops and three senior Government Ministers (Home News, January 19th), in which the Bishop of Cork and Ross “asked whether there was any other situation where it was suggested that that the ending of the life of an innocent person was a solution to a problem”, to which the ministers gave a “non-committal response”.
May I respectfully draw his holiness’s attention to the Old Testament, which contains an abundance of such situations. Or the blessing by Fr George Zabelka of the crew of the Enola Gray in 1945, on their way to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing 100,000 innocent Japanese persons. Or the pope’s blessing of those responsible for killing 200,000 innocent persons in Jasenovac, Croatia.
Clearly, the present abortion “debate” has nothing to do with the sanctity of life. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – An Taoiseach is a decent man who wants to do his best. His best relating to the abortion issue might be to listen.
The Herod catcall is an Taoiseach’s red herring (Home News, January 21st). A real chief leads from the front and listens to what his people want. On the streets of Dublin this weekend 22,000 people told him what they want – and he should heed that message. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Can people from the anti-abortion law side please use the correct terminology? It is the right to be “born” not the right to “life” they are concerned with.
The right of a child to a life, at least one worth living, has long been disregarded by the church, the State and our people, as was clearly shown in the Roscommon case.
One has to ask, how many of the people who are out on the street today have shown such passion about Irish children after they are born? – Yours, etc,