Sir, - It is reported that a committee from the Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has recommended that human embryos be frozen in Ireland and discarded after five years if not used for in-vitro fertilisation. In a country that is so supportive of humanitarian concerns abroad, would it not be grossly hypocritical if we were to accept the freezing of newly-conceived human embryos for society's convenience?
This development highlights government inaction vis-a-vis the protection of the unborn in the Irish Constitution. It is also a symptom of increasingly utilitarian attitudes towards human life - even in some medical circles - and further underlines the need to protect the life of the unborn from direct attack either by medical practitioners or by erroneous judicial re-interpretations of the Constitution. The only way this can be done is by inserting a new amendment into the Constitution which would explicitly outlaw induced abortion. Such an amendment would not prevent doctors from administering necessary medical treatment to a mother, even if such treatment were to result in the unintended death of the unborn child.
Perhaps it is time the Government started listening to the nation and woke up to the precariousness of the status of the unborn in the wake of the X case Supreme Court ruling. A substantial majority of the electorate wants an abortion referendum (65 per cent, excluding don't knows, according to the MRBI poll last April). There are no excuses left for inaction. - Yours, etc.,
David Thunder,
Mount Prospect Avenue, Dublin 3.