Letters should include a genuine postal or email address, phone number and the style or title of the writer. Email: letters@catholicherald.co.uk Due to space constraints, please keep correspondence below 250 words, longer letters may be published online
The end game of the abortion lobby
SIR – Ed Condon (Cover story, January 21) rightly notes that “the real reason for the sudden crackdown on vocal opposition to abortion”, exemplified by the “buffer zone” campaign, is that “it is changing minds”; thanks to pro-life vigils the numbers of abortions are declining. This is bad news for abortion providers, beset by scandals involving bad practice, and it also underlies the campaign to remove all legal protections surrounding abortion, for if it is legal in all circumstances, why scrutinise abortion providers so closely? The “pro-choice” movement would deprive women of choice – of information regarding foetal development, what abortion actually entails, its negative outcomes, and the right to receive practical help and moral support to continue their pregnancies. “Pro-choice” means no choice, because if women were really allowed to choose they might choose life, undermining the claim that women need abortion. A government consultation about buffer zones is now under way, but refers throughout to “protests”, “protesters” and “harassment” outside the clinics, suggesting that despite a lack of evidence of harassment, this “consultation” is merely a preliminary to imposing the buffer zones. The “right to abortion” did indeed originate in eugenics population control. Western nations could hardly introduce this “boon” to poor countries unless it was first imposed on their own populations; but it has always been aimed at the poor and minorities. Deregulating abortion would also, in a campaign based on equality, avoid the awkward problem of sex-selective abortions and abortion up to birth for disability, because all abortions would be legal up to birth. Moreover, premature babies are surviving at earlier and earlier stages, highlighting the humanity of the unborn. Campaigners hope that “abortion for all” will be so difficult to roll back that death will become a way of life; but first they must silence all opposition. We must not let that happen. Ann Farmer Woodford Green, Essex
