The decision to retain the current right to an abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy has been welcomed by millions of women across Scotland and the UK.
However, the fight is far from over. Forty years ago my parents campaigned for a woman's right to choose. The fact that I still have to take to the streets to protect that right is frightening.
The MPs who put forward amendments calling for a 20 o
r 22-week limit claim it is a compromise. It is not. Fewer than 2 per cent of abortions take place after 20 weeks, but those that do tend to involve the most vulnerable women and reducing the upper limit could have forced these women to have unwanted children, go through the emotional pain of adoption or seek dangerous "back street" abortions.
Pro-life campaigners use emotive talk of medical advances and botched abortions. They claim more and more babies are surviving premature births. Their arguments are at best disingenuous and at worst dangerously inaccurate. The medical profession overwhelmingly supports continuation of the 24-week limit. The EPIcure 2 survey demonstrates there has been no significant improvement in the survival rates of premature babies.
The pro-life lobby has vowed to continue its fight to curb women's rights. For now, women can be relieved that common sense has prevailed. But tomorrow, the campaign to make access to abortion fairer for women across the UK will continue.
KAINDE MANJI
National Union of Students Scotland Women's Officer
Forth Street, EdinburghRecent discussions about abortion have made much of the question of viability. It is seen as acceptable to abort a foetus that is not yet viable. However, the truth is that if the foetus were not viable there would be no point in aborting it: the whole purpose of abortion is to prevent a viable foetus being born as a child. It is the act of abortion alone which robs the foetus of viability.
(REV) GILBERT McADAM
Lumang Bayan Village
Antipolo, The PhilippinesI find it very strange that those against abortion cite the Bible (God's revealed truth?) to support their views.
By His own words, is He not a baby killer? He totally destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. He thus killed men, women and children as well as babies and women in various stages of pregnancy, and thus their yet unborn offspring.
Or were the deaths of non-adults to be treated as Divine collateral damage, and ergo of no theological or moral significance?
ROBERT M DUNN
Oxcars Court
EdinburghWith regard to saviour siblings, John Deighan, parliamentary officer for the Catholic Church in Scotland, asks: "What happens to the embryos unfortunate enough not to have the correct tissue match?" (your report, 21 May). As he is no doubt aware, they will not be implanted, like the majority of embryos created whenever any IVF is carried out. If his objection is to IVF in general, he should say so, rather than imply something different is happening here.
It is also a misrepresentation to say that creating saviour siblings "requires the exploitation of the vulnerable for the sake of the powerful". It actually involves the creation of a new person who would otherwise not exist, who then saves the life of another person. It's ironic that the Catholic Church regards itself as a pro-life organisation when it would prefer that the existing child die and the saviour sibling never be created.
(DR) DAVID SHAW
University of Glasgow
Sauchiehall Street, GlasgowThe full article contains 596 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
