All life is sacred – including babies

I FOUND Dani Garavelli’s ­article “The crying shame of a Catholic country” (Opinion, 25 November) quite appalling in its use of question-begging and emotional language such as “atrocity”. It was also quite wrong in some of its assertions. Ireland is an independent country – is it not allowed to make its own laws?

The life of a 17-week-old foetus was not deemed to be of greater value than that of a 31-year-old woman. For Catholics, all human life is scared. All lives are of equal value. Once one goes down the road of saying some lives are more important than others we are in dangerous territory. Where next? Euthanasia? The death of Savita Halappanavar was indeed tragic, but so is every abortion, of which there have been about 1.9 million in England and Wales and about 130,000 in Scotland since the Abortion Act of 1967.

There is a difference between directly acting to end a baby’s life, which would have been on the doctors’ consciences, and the double effect of Savita’s death. The difference is that the doctors did not intend her death. To imply that they had “apparent disregard for her welfare” is without foundation.

I am glad that “Ireland has steadfastly refused to bring ­itself into line with the rest of the world”.

Morality does not depend on public opinion.

Colin McAllister, St Andrews