Sir, I refer to Peter A. Grehan's letter (June 19th) where he agrees with Leslie Craven that another abortion referendum should be for women only. Why should women take on the responsibility of a decision of this kind when it has taken both a man and woman to reach a stage of pregnancy together? By passing the decision on to the woman, the man gets off scot free and later may have no sympathy for the woman if she makes a mistake.
I agree that it is the woman who has to carry the baby for nine months and that certainly takes its toll. I also accept that a lot of men may never know that a child has been conceived by them and this leaves the woman alone in her plight. However, abortion is an exploitation of women. It is an attractive "easy way out" where you are duped into believing that the foetus does not know, cannot feel and is removed painlessly. The emotional trauma that women experience afterwards is never discussed. The fact that we decide to terminate another person's life without their consent is "an old line".
In this age of equality, it is surprising to see that there are people such as Mr Grehan who would rather that women deal with family issues such as children, while men sit back behind their newspapers. I hope he is not suggesting that the traditional segregation of the male and female roles within the family was a better system after all.
We are worn out in this country with the discussion on abortion and it seems that we are just about to give in on it. There are some valid points for and against abortion but do not leave us women to make the decision for our country. We should all be in this together. Yours, etc..
Albert Place East,
Dublin 2.