In 1977 Parliament passed the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion (CS&A) Act into law. This was done, they told us, to protect mothers and their babies, from the dangers of unsafe and unnecessary abortions.
In the years since that law was passed, we have learned so much more about the development and the humanity of the unborn child. We have also seen a push to ignore all that knowledge and treat the child as something not human and not deserving of their rights simply for being young and reliant upon their mother. Some even cry that the child is "just a bunch of cells" or "a lump of tissue". Well, technically, that is true, in the same way that every reader of the Chronicle is a "bunch of cells" or "a lump of tissue". Calling us such things shouldn't negate our human rights either.
Lizzie Marvelly (Whanganui Chronicle 48 Hours, July 27) told us that the CS&A Act is "narrow and restrictive", as if that is a bad thing when dealing with the deliberate taking of human life, but then tells us that the Act is being routinely flouted in practice. She said "most women seeking an abortion" must "lie to two unfamiliar doctors about the state of their mental health" to get their child killed.
This should be shocking. But for Ms Marvelly ending the life of the unborn child so totally reliant upon you is a "right", without regard to any rights of the child, and she clearly finds any effort to protect the human rights of this unborn person quite unacceptable. That is a view both extreme and frightening. Whose rights do we ignore next?
K A BENFELL
Gonville
Enlightened TV news
How enlightening it is to watch the hourly news on the Al Jazeera channel which, perhaps surprisingly and definitely justifiably, is free-to-air.