Private lives?
Sir: It was at a public meeting in Edinburgh last year that I was made aware of the horror and the extent of what has resulted from the 1967 abortion act. The main speaker at that meeting was Dr D. M. Jenkins, who is vehemently criticized by Helen Locke in her letter in The Spectator (April 6).
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quent and Welsh; and I hope that Helen Locke will try to make allowances for the fact that he remains all three in print. (Perhaps she will also take it from me that he has a great sense of humour). Secondly, Helen Locke leaves the reader in no doubt that she believes that an abortion is not a matter for public moral concern: to her it is a private matter. But is it true that unborn lives are private lives? My begetting a child, and my partner's conceiving one, constitute an entirely private act; but the child, once conceived. is as properly the object of social concern as are (for example) the children whom Helen Locke would have Dr Jenkins spend more time protecting from death on the roads. It is for this reason that battered babies are a proper object of care from persons other than the parents.
Thirdly, if Dr Jenkins, as an obstetrician and gynaecologist (or indeed just as an ordinary citizen) has chosen to enter the field of abortion controversy, that is his affair. Strength to his arm.
Michael Richards 11 Orchard Crescent, Edinburgh.
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