Unborn child needs its rights protected

Why are there so many people finding themselves pregnant when there are many forms of contraceptives available to males and females? On the one hand we go to great lengths to save the lives of premature babies while on the other we are considering disposing of them.
Catherine Fairtlough Vicarstown, Co Cork

Learning from the past
Justine McCarthy writes of past “horrors” (“Ireland has changed — but not for women”, Comment, last week) but those will pale to insignificance in comparison with the horrors that will unfold with the removal of the eighth amendment to our constitution.

What can be more cruel and merciless than the state-approved killing of the unborn by their own mothers?

My abortion rights “über alles” [above all else] will seep from the abortion facilities in our hospitals, to our health service generally, where employment in certain areas of medicine and nursing will become conditional on willingness to participate in abortions.

Future generations — those lucky enough to be born wanted and healthy — will look back in “horror” at the cruelty and savagery of this age just as McCarthy does now on the past 50 years.
Liam Coleman, Dundalk Rights or wrongs?
We have been hearing a lot about how politicians’ thinking on abortion has “evolved”, invariably in the direction of having fewer legal protections for unborn humans. Is it any wonder that talk of putting their rights into the sole hands of future Oireachtas members sounds like a threat to many of us, rather than any kind of reassurance?
Margaret Hogan Kilkenny City

Final journey
Simon Harris, the health minister, has told the Dail that the women who travel abroad for abortions are “our friends and neighbours, sisters, cousins, mothers, aunts, wives”.

We should also remember that those who travel with them on this journey are also our nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters or grandchildren, even though we will never get to meet them, nor will they ever get to meet their own mothers.
Edel McDonagh Killiney, Co Dublin

Power failure
If we repeal the eighth amendment, the equal protection in law of mother and baby is gone for ever. The power will then be given to the government of the day to make any changes it wishes.

Do we really trust our politicians with such an important issue? It creates a carte blanche to allow for the creation of any radical abortion law, without restriction.

It does not matter how this referendum is worded as, once that vital piece of our constitution is removed, there is no going back.
Claire Stack Lisgoold, Co Cork

Lynch queries still unanswered

Conor Brady rightly mentions there were no career consequences for some senior gardai involved in the Kerry babies case and wonders, did that send a wrong message to gardai in general (“Kerry babies case birthed a culture of corruption”, Comment, last week)? He also writes that judge Kevin Lynch, “whose report might charitably be characterised as porous”, was subsequently elevated to the Supreme Court.

Two things arise from this comment. First, there is no reflection that Lynch’s elevation might have sent a wrong message to the judiciary. Are they immune from the temptations that might lead humble gardai astray?

Second, Lynch was not elevated by some mysterious opaque process — such appointments were decided by identifiable senior politicians. John Bruton was taoiseach in 1996 when Lynch was elevated and Nora Owen was minister for justice. The next time they venture out to give us the benefit of their wisdom, they might be asked to explain why Lynch, then as now known mainly for the bizarre Kerry babies tribunal report, was proposed for elevation. Or are we to believe that accountability is a newfangled invention, unheard of in the dark primitive Ireland of 1996? Tim O’Halloran, Dublin 11 Stop history of corruption In 1948, George Orwell thought 1984 was far in the future. In 1984, however, we had the Kerry babies case. Can we now, in 2018, plead with the gardai not to embark on a “witch hunt” to visit the same trauma on the mother of Baby John?

Concrete proposals as to how Joanne Hayes can be adequately compensated would be timely. Maybe Oprah Winfrey, who has an eye for that sort of thing, might be persuaded to endow a Joanne Hayes Foundation?
Robin Harte Strawberry Beds, Dublin

UK universities, stay out of Burma

The BBC recently showed shocking images of a Rohingya refugee camp. In all the years Burma was treated as a pariah state, it did not inflict such mass brutality on its people. So why now?

After Burma created a pseudo-democracy, western governments clambered to recognise it. Companies rushed into the country, which is seen as ripe for exploitation. Each business that invested there reaffirmed the regime was legitimate. Continuing to work in Burma after the genocide shows that the world does not care.

We cannot force commercial organisations to stop investing in Burma, but our public bodies should not be doing so. Currently, at least five UK universities are profiting from teaching programmes in the country, despite the ethnic cleansing.

Having respected higher education institutions continue to operate there allows Burma’s government to conclude that the international community, if not condoning its behaviour, refuses to damn it.

Consider who, in one of the poorest nations in southeast Asia, can afford the fees these universities are charging — the sons and daughters of the “previous” regime, of course.
Iona MacDougall, Edinburgh

Israel in the firing line
I’ve witnessed some hilarious anti-Israel conspiracy theories in recent times, such as that 9/11 was carried out by Mossad. Bob Storey’s implication (“The heights of hypocrisy”, Letters, last week) that Israel is responsible for the current state of Syria comes dangerously close to inhabiting a similar milieu.

The main reason for Syria’s current disastrous state are the sectarian animosities spiked by the brutal Assad regime and its propping up by Russia. Israeli influence in the debacle has been peripheral. As for the condemnation of the occupation of the Golan, Storey would do well to consider that when it was in Syrian hands most of northern Israel was within artillery range. The Syrians regularly shelled Israeli civilian settlements causing multiple casualties. The main purpose of the occupation was to place these civilians out of range, and they have been remarkably successful in that regard.
Chris Lynch Castletroy, Limerick

Doze were the days
Further to Atticus’s story about the former British prime minister falling asleep during a meeting (“FitzGerald let Thatcher snatch her forty winks”, Comment, last week) I once asked taoiseach Albert Reynolds for a meeting in Dublin regarding funding. He agreed and managed to fit me in at 5pm. I started reading from my notes. When I looked up his head had dropped and his eyes were closed. The poor man had had a long day. His assistant took my notes and I departed for Clare.
Jim Connolly Rural Resettlement Ireland

Are you sitting uncomfortably?

You report that Irish Rail is to issue pregnant women with “Baby on Board” badges to encourage other commuters to offer mothers-to-be their seats on the train (“Baby badge plan aims to pin down seat hogs”, News, last week). Given the recent “evolution” of many of our elected representatives’ beliefs regarding the humanity of the unborn child, would it not be preferable for Irish Rail to repudiate the dark ages of holy, Catholic Ireland by demonstrating a similar evolution? I suggest that in order to respect a woman’s bodily autonomy “bundle of cells”, “fertilised egg”, “embryo”, or some other deliberately dehumanising language be used instead of “baby”, in order to conform to the present consensus.
Diarmuid Bolger Clonmel, Co Tipperary

On/off message
To avoid annoying the pro-abortion brigade, I suggest pregnant women commuters should be encourage to wear “Foetus on Board” badges.
Michael Gannon Coolock, Dublin 5

Points

Cahill shooting
Contrary to your assertion (“Senior IRA source gives detectives full story of prison officer Stack’s murder”, News, last week), Martin Cahill, the Dublin criminal known as the General, was shot in Ranelagh.
Enda Minogue, by email

Killers exempt?
The article prompts this question: if the gardai have established the identities of the murderers of prison officer Brian Stack, are they exempt from imprisonment, like many members of the IRA, because of the Good Friday agreement?
Tony Moriarty, Dublin 6W

Progress needed
As a founder member of the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN), I was disappointed to see a spokesman characterise as “progressive” managements who pay conference and accommodation fees for principals and deputy principals attending (“Primary schools pay for the pleasure principals”, Atticus, Comment, last week). They already pay principals’ annual membership of IPPN. Imagine the outcry if the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, which represents 30,000 members, were to demand parity with IPPN. It’s time for the network itself to be progressive.
Seán Ó Díomasaigh Dunsany, Co Meath

Questioning immigration
Your article regarding the crime surge in immigrant areas in Sweden (“Teens roam streets with rifles as crime swamps Sweden”, World News, last week) raised serious questions. What are the long-term effects of a liberal immigration policy? Why is it taboo to connect crime with immigrants? How can young immigrant men from a patriarchal culture integrate and learn to respect women’s freedom? Lastly, why has the Swedish establishment tried to hide the facts in order to project an image of a progressive country when it is on the verge of calling in its army to deal with the problems?
Dave Shaw, Terenure, Dublin

Clarkson offbeat
I feel sorry for Jeremy Clarkson’s lack of appreciation of classical music (“Four words that could have saved the Ukip leader’s marriage: I hate classical music”, Comment, last week). The world would be a dreary place without the great composers such as Sibelius, Beethoven, Shostakovich and Puccini, who has given more pleasure to more people than anyone with his great operas. Personally I would pull down the blinds and stuff my ears with cotton wool if Clarkson and his pals came roaring down my road in a fleet of Lamborghinis.
Tom Winters, Drogheda

View of the time
Ernest Crossen’s comment that 1m unionists were undemocratically allowed to partition Ireland shows a lack of understanding of the situation prevailing at the time (“Crowning it all”, Letters, last week). They had sacrificed, according to records, 32,186 of their number to the allied effort in the First World War. There was no way the British government was going to hand over 1m of its most “loyal” citizenry to a foreign state whose treachery at the height of the war was still fresh in the public mind.
Jason McBride Bangor, Co Down

Churchill’s bloomers
Despite the critical acclaim and Oscar nominations for the Winston Churchill biopic Darkest Hour, the suspension of disbelief was shattered for old-car buffs (“The Oscar goes to . . . anyone who can pass the purity test”, World News, last week). The opening scene included a postwar Bedford lorry; Churchill’s Wolseley 18/85 had a postwar registration; and, moreover, among the vehicles in Downing Street were a 1949-53 model Ford Anglia and a 1954 Riley RME.
Professor Emeritus A Peter Fawcett, Sheffield

Vegan dietary advice
It is necessary to point out that vitamin B12 is obtained in its natural form from meat and dairy products, among others, and to warn people of the serious consequences of becoming deficient in it. It is irresponsible of those who advocate veganism not to mention that it is vital to supplement such diets with foods enhanced with B12 (most breakfast cereals and soya milks, for example) or to take B12 tablets.
Chris Hardy, Folkestone

Animal cruelty
Michael Gove stated that EU single market rules make it impossible to ban foie gras, which is produced by force-feeding geese in confined spaces, causing great suffering (“Gove turns hose on water bosses’ use of tax havens”, News Online, January 14). It is a good reason for Brexit.
Elizabeth FitzGibbon Elgin, Moray

Birthdays

Alan Alda, actor, 82
Bobby Ball, comedian, 74
Roy Clarke, comedy writer (Last of the Summer Wine), 88
Peter McDonald, actor (I Went Down), 46
Claes Oldenburg, sculptor and pop artist, 89
Will Poulter, actor, 25
Nick Price, golfer, 61
Rakim, rapper, 50
Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of France, 63
Frank Skinner, comedian, 61
Robert Wyatt, singer, 73