Abortion Law

It is not correct to state, as your editorial does, that the Republic of Ireland amended its constitution in 1983 “to make abortion a crime except in some cases when pregnancy would endanger a woman’s life” (“When Abortion Is Illegal,” Feb. 19).

Abortion has been a felony in Ireland since the enactment (by a British government) of the Offenses Against the Person Act, 1861. The proposed amendment of 1983 sought to determine whether abortion should be made legal, not whether it should be made criminal. Why have a referendum to make criminal an act already declared by statute to be a crime?

Although the 1983 amendment was defeated, voting returns in urban areas showed substantial numbers in favor of the legalization of abortion. And since the constitution of Ireland provides a relatively simple procedure for its amendment, the controversy highlighted in your editorial will probably spark sufficient public interest to generate immediate action in the legislature.

Ireland today is an enlightened, vibrant democracy in which justice and charity inform all the institutions of national life--just as the framers of its constitution would have had it. Hence, an isolated incident of legal myopia should not be so manipulated as to distort our thought processes on an issue that is amenable to reason and to the will of the Irish people.

LEO P. NEALON

Huntington Beach