Sir, – Breda O'Brien argues in her Saturday column that "abortion is not a human right. Countries may legalise it, but it is not a human right. It does not become one because a UN treaty monitoring committee attempts to impose it". ("Tragic that Amnesty now prioritises undermining the right to life", June 29th)
Is this not the same argument that many who were against marriage equality made – that marriage equality was not a human right?
The majority of the Irish people, however, decreed that it is.
Whatever about the UN having the power to say that something is a human right or not, a referendum certainly has such power.
If another referendum should vote in favour of allowing abortion in the case of a crisis pregnancy, rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality, then, just like marriage equality, this too would become a human right, whether Ms O’Brien likes it or not. – Yours, etc, DECLAN KELLY Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.