Courtney McGrailDear Editor, I am utterly appalled at Sabina Higgins’ public comments that lack of access to abortion in Ireland in situations where the unborn child has a life limiting condition is an outrage against women, the world and nature. Mrs Higgins’ intervention is completely inappropriate and an abuse of the fact that the public elected her husband as our president. Her husband’s non-political office does not give her the right to make political statements on contentious issues.
I also thought the way she expressed her views was very insensitive to parents and families who are dealing with such a tragic diagnosis, not to mention the dignity and humanity of children who are born with these disabling conditions. All children are entitled to the right to life under law.
Mrs Higgins is quoted as saying: “There has to be the choice that you know that… what do you call it… that foetal abnormality that the person or persons should be made carry you know and sit in you know… these are really outrages against women and outrages against the world and nature.” This does not seem like a deeply thought-out argument but a knee-jerk reaction.
I am also fed up of hearing public figures repeating the mantra of repealing the Eighth Amendment as if this is a simple black and white issue. How do they propose changing the Constitution? Do they want abortion on demand or is it just children who have a disability or who are conceived as a result of terrible circumstances that do not have a right to life?
Group think on this issue has taken hold of the media and politicians are blindly following its lead, but I suspect there is nowhere near the same support for abortion among the general population.
Yours etc.,
Josephine O’Brien,
Limerick city.