Sir, – Emer O'Toole writes, "I understand that the foetus is insensate and insentient up until the third trimester of pregnancy. I see all that 'killing babbies' rhetoric for the nonsense that it is" ("Abortion on demand – an apocalyptic vision of Ireland 2021", January 11th).
Clearly, the ability to sense and feel pain is a threshold below which she denies the right to life. By corollary, I take it that she ascribes a right to life to unborn babies able to feel pain, from the third trimester. Therefore, according to Emer O’Toole, some unborn babies do have a right to life, but it depends on their ability to sense and feel pain, as determined by their period of gestation. It would seem that her issue is not with the right to life of unborn babies per se, but with the right to life of some unborn babies who cannot sense and feel pain. Some might even go so far as to describe her position regarding the unborn as “pro life”, albeit on a conditional basis. – Yours, etc,
ROB SADLIER,
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.