Choice Ireland

I refer to Gerard Molloy's letter of 26 October. By describing abortion as what happens when a pregnancy "threatens to interfere with the woman's career or social life", Mr Molloy trivialises crisis pregnancy and the distress it can cause the women who experience it.

When a member of the "fair and gentler sex" as Mr Molloy describes women, decides to terminate a pregnancy it is far from a flippant decision.

To suggest otherwise grossly misunderstands the desperation of the 70,000 or so women the WHO estimate die each year undergoing often brutal illegal abortions.

The abortion debate is dragged further away from the women at the centre of it when he describes late-term terminations. Far from being an accurate description of the abortion procedure we read the emotive and sensationalist language commonly used by the anti-choice movement to drag our attention away from the reality of abortion.

There is no circumstance in which the procedure described would be carried out.

In the very rare cases where abortions are carried out beyond the limits of viability the women undergoing these procedures tend to be those in the most distressing of circumstances; women who have discovered that their foetus is experiencing a massive abnormality, women who have been blocked from having a termination earlier, women who are the victims of domestic violence or a serious assault.

It is time for us to leave behind emotive and inaccurate arguments and sensationalist language.

It is time for us to consider the woman at the centre of the debate and have compassion for her.

It is time for us to accept that women who make the decision to have an abortion should be trusted to make that decision.

It is time for us to ensure access to safe legal abortion so that women do not end up in the hands of a backstreet abortionist.

Only then, can we be considered truly pro woman.

Sinéad Ahern,
The Hermitage,
Dublin 14.