Easier to discuss the London abortion than face the issues here

ONE figure is worth bearing in mind if we feel inclined to take the moral high ground in relation to British abortion law in the furore over the abortion of a twin. It is that for every 10 births in the Republic of Ireland, at least one pregnancy is terminated by abortion, according to official figures.

It is safe to assume that some of these Irish abortions take place for reasons which are not more noble than that of the mother in Britain who, apparently, had one twin aborted because she believes she could not afford to rear two.

This suggests that we should not rush to judgment over what happened in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London and that, in its essence, the event was similar to many other abortions that happen daily.

It also suggests that when we ask if such a thing could happen here the answer is that it does. The actual surgical procedures happen in British clinics but that hardly alters the moral nature of the issue.

The British Medical Association is being lambasted for asserting that there is no real difference between the present case and any other abortion.

Yet it is hard to disagree with the BMA when some of the distorting aspects of this case are put aside. One of these distorting aspects is, the upsetting prospect of a mother deciding that one of two foetuses will not be carried to full term for reasons which seem to many people to be just not good enough.

A second unusual aspect of the case is that news of this particular abortion was splashed all over the media. As the Conservative MP, Ann Winterton, put it "For a number of days now we have been regaled with statements from Prof Phillip Bennett, the doctor involved, who showed no apparent concern whatsoever regarding possible confidentiality.?

Surely, many of the abortions which take place daily would create a similar reaction if their details were to be publicised widely in advance? In reality, things are never as black and white as they appear in abortion debates. The mother may have felt a genuine sense of panic at coping with twins. Her doctor, Prof Bennett may have genuinely felt he was saving a life rather than taking a life in persuading her to abort one rather than both foetuses.

What the case has done, perhaps, is to point up an unpleasant and disturbing aspect of the abortion on demand system which Britain, in effect, has. Suddenly, we are brought face to face with something that happens in the real world, our world, and it frightens us.

This is not a topic we want to face up to. We have even failed to face up to the limited form of abortion legalised by the Supreme Court in the wake of the X case in 1992 and reaffirmed by the court last year.

The effect of these judgments is that where there is a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of the mother and that risk can only be avoided by the termination of the mother's pregnancy, then such termination is permissible and not unlawful.

This judgment must be legislated for by the Oireachtas or another referendum held. It is difficult to see any government rushing to put its head into either of those nooses.

Yet most people, it is fair to say, were relieved when the Supreme Court let us all off the hook in 1992 when it allowed the girl in the X case to travel for an abortion.

Are we, therefore, willing to allow abortion in her circumstances or would we prefer if it was all dealt with quietly, in England, without "many upset here?

Would we want such a woman to be able to have an abortion in this country even if she had never threatened suicide?

Would we put it into our law? Would we fund a unit in, say, Holles Street Hospital in Dublin in which such abortions could be carried out on the medical card?

How would we feel about the idea of aborting a foetus which would otherwise be born with profound handicaps? There are parents perhaps not many, nobody knows who have given their lives totally to a seriously handicapped child but who will say that, if they could go back, they would seriously consider abortion.

Should a rape victim be allowed an abortion, even if there was no threat to her health?

WE seem unable to discuss these minimalist approaches to abortion in our own country while living easily very easily with a situation in which abortion on demand is readily available to those who have the fare. And it is so much easier to discuss the mother and the twins and the selective abortion in London than to face these issues ourselves.

In the meantime, what have we "done to make adoption an easier alternative? The process of adoption, as we know, can bring years of pain to the birth mother though not in all cases and some pain to the adoptee searching for that mother though, again, not in all cases. Some adoptees and birth mothers find some adoption societies cold and unhelpful when they try to make contact.

Yet it has taken the recently revealed story of Irish babies sent to the United States for adoption to generate some (slow) official moves to look at ways in which adoption can be made more user friendly to all concerned.

Here, again, is an area to which we could well devote attention instead of pontificating about what happens in other countries.

But if we are concerning ourselves with what is happening in Britain, then it seems worth saying that what is happening there goes with abortion on demand. It is hard to see how one can be in favour of the British system and opposed to this abortion.

But one can be opposed to this abortion and still be in favour of abortion in some circumstances.