Sir, - Reading Kathryn Holmquist's frightening, depressing, but necessary piece on drug addicted pregnant women, I am driven to question the distinction which we were once told exists between man and the animals. The once prevailing teaching was that Man possessed the power of reason and was therefore on a level higher than the animal. The article provides proof, if it was needed, that this is no longer the case.
I listened to a recent radio programme, concerning the projected date for the end of the world, on which a respected physicist was asked how much longer we had to go. His reply was: "Don't worry about it, the human race will have made itself extinct long before the world ends".
At the time, that reply seemed smug and fanciful. Kathryn Holmquist's article demonstrated, to me, at any rate, that the process of our eventual self destruction is already well underway. - Yours etc.,
Tallaght,
Dublin 24.