Sir, – Having listened to, and read, the evidence given by obstetricians to the Oireachtas Health Committee, I write to support the call for the enactment of laws that reflect medical reality in the early 21st century .
I also write to appeal for accurate terminology. Induced abortion means the deliberate terminating of a pregnancy before fetal viability; 22 or 24 weeks depending on the jurisdiction. Interrupting a pregnancy following 22/24 weeks should be termed “delivering the fetus in the maternal and or fetal interest”. This is carried out, by induction of labour or Caesarian section, many times every day in maternity hospitals. In these circumstances the best possible care is given to both mother and baby. Very occasionally pregnancy has to be terminated in the maternal interest prior to fetal viability. In these circumstances, it is known that the fetus is too premature to survive, but if the pregnancy continues neither the fetus nor the mother will survive. It should not be considered as “directly or deliberately killing babies”. This is a real but rare situation; how rare is not agreed.
Thirty years ago, with the late Prof O’Driscoll, I published a paper “Therapeutic Abortion: The medical argument,” (Irish Medical Journal 1982 75, 8, 304-306). In this paper all the maternal deaths in the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin during the decade of the 1970s were examined and an opinion formed whether any of those deaths could have been prevented by induced (therapeutic) abortion. In Ireland in the 1970s contraception was essentially illegal and travel more difficult.
During the decade of the 1970s in the National Maternity Hospital there were 74,317 births at 28 or more weeks gestation (the then legal definition of viability).There were 21 maternal deaths; an uncorrected rate of 0.28 per 1,000. Detailed analysis of the records of the mothers who died was undertaken by a panel of experienced obstetricians with the assistance of two physicians. It was concluded that, perhaps, one of the deaths could have been prevented by induced abortion. All the other deaths could not have been anticipated, or prevented by induced abortion. The one mother in question had a heart condition, now almost unknown in the developed world.
She was considered, at the time, so unwell that interrupting her pregnancy might have precipitated her death. There was no case of suicide.
Thirty years on, mothers are healthier, medical practice has dramatically improved and obstetric practice bears little resemblance to what it was in the 1970s. While conceding that in the 21st century it is occasionally best practice, in the maternal interest, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability; this situation, assuming first class care, should be a rarity.
Arguments in favour of induced abortion will continue to be made in the tragic situations of incest, rape and fetal abnormalities. Arguments in favour of liberal social abortion will also continue to be made. They, however, should be made as such, and not on the spurious basis of preventing maternal death. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I have to agree completely with Dr Michael P Cunneen (January 16th).
I sincerely believe that our legislators should be allowed to follow their “private conscience” and vote freely in any up coming debate on abortion. However, why stop there? I think every woman should also be allowed to have a “free vote” and to follow her “private conscience” and decide if she wants to have an abortion. Perhaps this new concept could also be allowed for doctors who will follow their “private conscience” and perform said abortion, without the fear of prosecution. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – Dr David O’Brien (January 15th) challenges me to justify in the context of abortion my assertion that “people pursuing their own individual choices in matters of life and death can end up creating a disastrous situation for human society and the future of civilisation as a whole”.
He would point to “corruption, greed, religious ideology and intolerance, man-made climate change, and other environmental and ecological degradation exacerbated by massive overpopulation” as the real harbingers of disaster for human society. I don’t disagree with Dr O’Brien about the significance of these factors, but unlike him I would see these developments as springing from the same arrogant individual-centred attitude that would now also have us regard freely available abortion as a human right.
I believe the case against legalised abortion can be made on purely humanist grounds. Look at what has happened elsewhere and taking just one important aspect – the gender profile of abortions in large parts of the world. The increasing prevalence of sex-selective abortion, and the serious gender imbalances that this has already given rise to in certain countries, raises disturbing questions for human society. For parents and grandparents everywhere who recoil at the idea of any discrimination between girls and boys the widescale abortion of female foetuses has to evoke a spine-chilling revulsion.
While I’m not suggesting that Ireland would follow the same pattern, it would be arrogant of us to think that in the longer term we would be immune from trends elsewhere. – Is mise,
Sir, – As a father of eight children and as one who tries, (and more often than not fails),to live up to the ideals of Jesus Christ as taught by the Catholic Church, I was greatly saddened by Vincent Browne’s article on the “equal right to life of the unborn” (Opinion, January 16th).
Vincent Browne seems to have lost sight of the wonder of what it means to be human and his reductionist view places humanity at the level of machines.
He views pregnancy as being a parasite-host relationship and he says the absolutist position against abortion is born of a culture hostile to the equality of women. What is missing from this world view is the concept of love – sacrificial love whereby the wants and needs of another are put before our own wants and needs.
My wife is not my equal. Our children were all born by Caesarian section and in regard to the sacrifices made by my wife for and on behalf of our children, I am greatly her inferior.
She willingly risked her life so that our children could have life and as Jesus teaches us: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends”(John 15:13).
Lack of love is what ultimately leads to the position that one human being may be killed in order to “protect” the life on another. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Dr Michael P Cunneen (January 16th) quotes Thomas Moore (sic) as an advocate for the right of statesmen to be guided by their consciences (January 16th). This, of course, was the same Thomas More who had hounded and persecuted those whose consciences told them it was right that the Bible should be translated into English for the benefit of the common people. History shows that, despite More’s conscience, we have all subsequently benefited from having English and indeed Irish, translations of the Bible. “Conscience” is not, as some would have us believe, an etherial, independent gift which inevitably points us to the correct solution. In fact “informed” consciences have already brought about some of the major tragedies of the 21st century. – Yours, etc,