REFERENCE the letter from Tony Mclellen(SA, November 20) “Unborn deserve protection too”. After reading this letter I was left a little irritated by Mr McLellen using the horrific baby P case to publicly vent his own opinion regarding the very emotive and highly debated issue of legal abortions.

Firstly, I would like to point out that there is a whole world of difference between ending a pregnancy before the foetus is capable of independent life, and brutally and horrifically torturing and murdering an innocent child!

Secondly, I would like to bring to Mr McLellen's attention the fact that most legal terminations are performed within the first 12 weeks, when the miscarriage rate is approx 15 per cent anyway, so there is no guarantee that the terminated pregnancy would result in a child. Also as a result of most terminations happening so early, the methods used are far from those causing the torture and maiming as quoted by Mr McLellen. In fact many are performed by mimicking a natural miscarriage.

Obviously Mr McLellen, while having the privilege of voicing his own ideologies, has never considered that removing 'mother's privilege' could result in more cases like baby P occurring or more single mothers and children living on the breadline and being deprived of opportunities, or even the return of back street abortions. I am quite sure that all the women who have painfully struggled to make the decision to end a pregnancy, would be most upset at being compared to the murderers of baby P by an obviously inconsiderate and ignorant man.

R THOMAS Queens Drive Old Walcot Swindon