Sir, - Instead of mulling over percentages for or against a referendum on abortion, might not correspondents such as David Carroll (June 28th) find it useful to consider some other figures? For example, there was the estimate in the 1999 Green Paper that, although women cannot obtain terminations in Ireland, one Irish pregnancy in 10 ends in abortion. Alternatively, there was the 1998 figure which suggested that, of more than 9,500 women who travelled to Britain for abortions in that year, fewer than 25 per cent did not come from Ireland. Such information has been in the public domain for so long that I am amazed at his failure to understand its implications.
A shift in focus to social reality, as opposed to mathematical hypothesis, might help Mr Carroll to grasp why Ivana Bacik referred to a referendum as "futile". Even if the anti-choice movement threw vast reserves of energy into a campaign to further amend the constitution, even if they achieved the unthinkable - rolling back the X case judgement so that the next child dragged before the courts in similar circumstances to the X and C cases would be refused permission to end her pregnancy - it would make not one whit of difference to the numbers travelling abroad for terminations.
If they are in the least concerned to reduce the Irish abortion rate perhaps such correspondents should consider approaching the issue from a different perspective. A starting point might be to ask: why do so many Irish women, who do not want to be pregnant, become pregnant? Why, when we know the consequences, are we still failing to teach young people and adults about their sexuality? What problems are there about access to contraception and education on the use of contraception?
There are other questions. Are Irish women using non-directive counselling services, or do they bypass counselling providers and go directly to abortion clinics abroad? If so, is this because much of the crisis pregnancy counselling available is provided by agencies which have anti-abortion philosophies? If the State is genuinely concerned to present all the choices to women in crisis pregnancies, isn't there an onus on the health boards to provide genuinely non-directive counselling?
Then there are the questions all of us need to ask. Why has the Government been pushing this issue from committee to committee so that not even the most basic points such as a pregnant woman's right to life and the termination of pregnancy in cases where a foetus is non-viable have been legislated for - never mind issues surrounding rape? Is it because the anti-choice movement has used the threat of a referendum to keep our eyes off the real issues - and perhaps to blind its own adherents to them?
Shouldn't we be grateful to Women on Waves for putting women, rather than polls, centre stage? - Yours, etc.,
Sandra McAvoy, Ballincurrig Park, Douglas Road, Cork.