Paul Vincenti and others in the anti-abortion movement call themselves pro-life because it sounds better even though it is obviously not true. They constantly destroy life by eating, trampling, swatting, applying insecticides and taking antibiotics, just like the rest of us. When confronted with this fact they will clarify that they are pro human life, which may be true for some of them although many are not against the death penalty and most would be willing to kill to defend one cause or another. However, to turn ‘pro human life’ into ‘anti-abortion under any circumstances’, one has to make the incredible jump to believe that a fertilised egg or foetus, containing fewer cells and with the same DNA as an unsightly mole, is a complete human being with the same rights as the unquestionably complete human being in whose uterus it resides. And indeed, Mr Vincenti makes this completely unreasonable assumption when he says that abortion ends the life of a living human being. But reason does not enter into the realm of faith and dogma.

The anti-abortionists never talk about fertilised eggs or foetuses but always about unborn children. Whereas it makes some sense to talk about an unborn child in the very late stages of a pregnancy, it only confuses the issue if one, incorrectly, calls a foetus an unborn child in the early stages of a pregnancy. That is because the term unborn child creates the impression of a human being, which a fertilised egg or foetus clearly is not. In countries where abortion is legal, much thought has gone into the question of when a foetus has developed sufficient human characteristics to be entitled to some protection versus the rights of its mother. Mostly, this limit is drawn somewhere around 24 weeks of pregnancy because at that time the foetus has a chance to live outside the womb. Admittedly, this limit is, unavoidably, somewhat arbitrary but to talk about foetuses that are less than six months old as unborn children is dishonest.

The title of Mr Vincenti’s letter: “Abortion in ‘hard cases’”, implies that there is something like abortion in easy cases. I can hardly believe that a decision to have an abortion can be an easy one for anybody. It goes against our (maternal) instincts. Only women that are really desperate will come to such a decision. Denying such women the right to an abortion and forcing them to carry their pregnancy to term at considerable risk to their physical and mental health, or even their life, is indeed uncaring, hard-hearted and dogmatic. On top of that, it unavoidably results in the existence of ‘unwanted children’, whose plight was the object of an article in this newspaper a few months ago, and who generally impose a considerable burden on society.

I would urge the anti-abortionists to be less dogmatic and uncaring and more reasonable and charitable.

Simon Oosterman

SLIEMA