Madam, - Dr Anna Karin Kingston (October 25th) tells us that a society that permits abortion is humane. While it may or may not be so in many or all other respects, to say that it is humane with regard to abortion is to beg the question. For Dr Kingston to assert that a society which allows abortion is humane is, moreover, a moral judgment on her part - albeit an erroneous one.
It seems therefore that her commendation of a society that allows "open debate [about abortion] without moral judgments" expresses an implicit desire to silence those of us who refuse to ignore the reality that from the point of conception a human being develops in the womb of the mother and that, since it is a human being, it has an inviolable right to life like any other human being.
- Yours, etc,
Dr KEVIN E O'REILLY, Laverna Way, Castleknock, Dublin 15.
Madam, - It is very good news indeed to hear from Dr Anna Karin Kingston that Sweden is now a "humane society". Given that its eugenics programme of forced sterilisation operated as recently as 1976, one can be forgiven for any lingering doubts over Sweden's record in matters relating to human reproduction.
- Is mise,
NIALL DE BARRA, The Court, Kinsale, Co Cork.