Sir, - Carol Coulter has reported (May 5th) that Ms. Anne Marlborough, barrister and law lecturer at University of Limerick is in favour of abortion in Ireland and has called for the repeal of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, which protects the pre-born babies from those with vested interests in the very lucrative abortion industry. I am not for the moment suggesting that Ms. Marlborough is one of the latter. But she certainly is ill-informed and misguided in her assertion that abortion is a medical procedure that women need. Abortion is no service to women. It is a lousy medical option for them. It exploits them and the fathers of their children. (The truth that fathers are also hurt by abortion is not yet so widely known in Ireland).
Ms. Marlborough's arguments are fuzzy and irrational. She is critical of our "restrictive abortion laws" because, in her opinion, they discriminate in favour of men. Implicit in her argument is the uncommon nonsense that because men don't need abortion facilities, women should have them. The Constitutional right which would indicate this, she insists, is "the right to equality"! Some equality! Women, she demands, should no longer be protected from a "medical procedure" which has caused terrible anguish to thousands of mothers worldwide, who every day, even as I write, must endure the grief and trauma of Post-Abortion Women's Syndrome - the fastest growing disease in the developed world. And they should no longer be protected from this "medical procedure" on the grounds of equality! Pull the other one Ms. Marlborough.
I now challenge Ms. Marlborough to publicly debate the issue with me and those of my colleagues who are working with the living victims of Ms. Marlborough's "medical procedure" which she wants made available on demand. I do hope she will have the courage to accept my challenge. - Yours, etc. Nora Bennis, Leader, The National Party
Revington Park,
Limerick.