Sir, – There is no basis in principle for suggesting that the President’s spouse cannot express an opinion. The only way in which such a principled position could stand, logically, would be if we were to return to an outmoded principle of unity whereby we assume that a wife’s utterances (and more) are effectively also those of her husband. While we might reasonably expect the family members of the head of state to exercise judiciousness and care in their behaviour and utterances, we cannot reasonably expect them to shed their opinions and their right to express them. The furore over Sabina Coyne Higgins’s comments is, at base, not borne out of objection that she said something but rather that she said what she did. It is the content, not the expression, of the opinion that, it seems to me, some object to (and others support). The reality is that these comments were carefully uttered in an appropriate setting, measured in tone, and limited to the particular circumstance of fatal foetal abnormalities and the (yes, outrageous) fact that Irish law forces women to carry a pregnancy to term or to pre-term foetal death in such circumstances. She was quite entitled to express the view she did, as she did, and when she did. – Yours, etc,
Prof FIONA de LONDRAS,
University of Birmingham.