Sir, - It is typical of the Irish Family Planning Association to pretend there are "legal ambiguities" around the sale and promotion of the morning-after pill (The Irish Times, August 8th). This is not the case, as the Family Planning Act of 1979 already specifically prohibits the importation, sale, and distribution of abortifacient drugs.
Although the IFPA likes ambiguously to call these drugs "emergency contraception", the manufacturers of the morning-after pill explicitly admit in their literature that its action is to prevent implantation of the newly formed human embryo in the mother's womb.
This means that a new human life which began at fertilisation is lost. The morning-after pill is a method of early abortion. The Irish Medicines Board is to be congratulated for its vigilance in pointing out this fact.
Finally, in this whole debate there has been no mention of the fact that the human person, whose life has begun at fertilisation, is unique, irreplaceable, and of infinite sacred value. - Yours, etc.,
Patrick McCrystal, Director, Human Life International (Ireland), Belvedere Place, Dublin 1.