Letter from Ms J M Carter

I am appalled that Tony McLellan should attempt to hijack the outrage surround the death of Baby P to promote his personal views on abortion.

This tasteless and wholly inappropriate propaganda was ill-timed and adds nothing to the abortion debate; Mr McLellan is of course entitled to his opinion but to attempt to link the mindset of those responsible for the torture and death of Baby P to a pro-abortion stance is abhorrent.

I also note Mr McLellan’s comment “mother’s privilege has taken precedence over baby’s protection”; clearly, it has not occurred to Mr McLellan that those children born to mothers who don’t want them but feel pressurized by guilt or lack of support to continue with their pregnancy, are more likely to experience the vile abuse visited on Baby P.

I also note with irony the lead report in Thursday’s Adver - that of a clampdown on kerb crawlers and, hopefully, prostitution as a result. No doubt Mr McLellan has overlooked the inevitable unwanted pregnancies that can result from sex work (especially that controlled by pimps and traffickers where protection-free sex commands a higher price but greater risk to the women involved), and would condemn the subsequent life of the baby born in such a situation to be raised by a mother probably addicted to drugs (judging by the report) and in a catch-22 situation as regards prostitution. How is that protecting the child?

I would also be interested to learn Mr McLellan’s views on pregnancies that result from rape and the assumed “privilege” afforded to mothers in that situation; is he suggesting that those women have no human rights and that they should have no protection from the potential trauma of a pregnancy, childbirth and 16 years of responsibility for caring for a child they never planned? And what of those raped women who do keep their babies but find them to be a constant reminder of the circumstances of their conception and end up abusing them physically, mentally or sexually, as is sometimes the case. Where is the protection for those children?

I agree, protection for children SHOULD start in the womb, but that protection should extend to terminating the foetus within the legal time limit should the mother be fully aware that she does not want and/or cannot care for the child she carries. Pregnancy and termination of pregnancy are unhappy, emotional and sometimes tragic events for many women and no woman entertains the thought of termination lightly. I agree, on-demand abortion as an alternative to contraception is not acceptable but very few women would choose that option; it is only those that make the sensationalist headlines we hear about and indeed get wheeled out as justification for the criminalisation of abortion when the holes in the anti-abortionists’ arguments begin to show.

Finally, I would add that I am sick of hearing men assume they can know what it is like for a woman to be pregnant and am entirely out of patience with those men who feel they can speak from experience with regard to abortion. Offer your opinions by all means but please stop appropriating what is essentially a womens’ issue for your own moral, ethical or political arguments. Yes, fathers-to-be have a right to their opinion, their feelings and their say as regards the future of their unborn child but it is only a woman who can bear the child and usually the woman who is left to bring up a child alone, should the father decide they wish to leave a relationship. A father simply does not have the emotional and physical bond that a mother and child have and can turn their back on their babies much more easily than a woman; a man cannot give birth, cannot breast feed a baby and cannot know what it is like to carry a growing person in their body for nine months and will never experience all the hormonal and emotional changes that result and form the mother and child bond. As it happens, I have never experienced that either, through choice, but know and have read about many of women who have described their experience. I do not presume to speak for those women, but as a woman I know that until men can experience all the joys and traumas of bearing children, they have no right to dictate to women on the subject of abortion.

(Ms) J M CARTER

Swindon