Sir, – Susy Kenefick (October 11th) states that "as long as we have the Eighth Amendment, a foetus will have equal status under the Constitution to a female" and she describes this as an "utterly ridiculous legal anomaly".
In fact, a child has (quite properly) a different status to an adult – for example, he or she cannot vote – and a foetus may, of course, be male or female. A more accurate way of expressing the present constitutional position is that “an unborn human being has the same right to life as one who has been born, whether male or female, adult or child”.
In my view, this is neither anomalous nor ridiculous. It recognises the fact that, when it comes to the most basic right of all, we are all equal. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL D’ARCY,
Edgware,
Middlesex.
Sir, – Fr Eóin de Bháldraithe calls for legislation in Ireland along the lines of that in France whereby abortion would be illegal but that "exceptions" would allow it in "the distressing case of the deformed foetus" (Rite & Reason, October 11th). He says that this would "adequately protect the right to life of the unborn child and that of its mother".
Fr de Bháldraithe should examine how these so-called “exceptions” operate in practice in France. In 2013, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, there were 216,697 abortions performed in France, compared to 779,883 live births. In other words, approximately 22 per cent of all recorded pregnancies ended in abortion.
How can a system in which one in five unborn children is aborted be described as one which protects the right to life of the unborn? Similarly, can it seriously be suggested that one in five pregnancies was “deformed”, as he puts it, or was a threat to the health of a woman?
In fact, France is a good example of how once abortion is introduced on supposedly restricted basis, no amount of regulation or restriction can prevent abortions being granted on ever wider grounds within a short space of time.
As Fr de Bháldraithe points out, abortion is allowed up to 10 weeks of gestation in France, compared to 24 weeks in the UK. In addition, women must wait one week between requesting an abortion and the carrying out of the procedure. And yet in spite of these additional restrictions, the rate of abortion in France is actually higher than that in the UK (21 per cent). As in the UK, the so-called restrictions in France have become meaningless in practice and have led to effective abortion on demand.
As he also points out, the current French system was introduced there in 1975 and the number of abortions quadrupled in the space of a year from 33,454 in 1975 to 134,173 in 1976 and has grown steadily every year since.
In contrast Ireland’s rate of abortion stands at 5 per cent, a quarter of the rates in the UK, France and virtually all other countries in Europe. The difference is that our Constitution specifically guarantees the right to life of the unborn and its mother, and the international experience is that no amount of regulation can compensate for the abolition of such a guarantee. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.