SIR,—One grows a little tired sometimes of the way in
which abortionists are prepared to drag in any morsel of information, however inaccurate, that they believe will support their brutal cause. see that the figure of 100,000 illegal abortions annually has been mentioned less often since it has been demonstrated that on any available evidence (and there is precious little of that) this figure is about ten times too high. Now we have Mr Mack telling us that Catholics do not baptise foetuses that are spontaneously aborted. What is his source of information? A few moments' research amongst Catholic books dealing with this topic would have shown him his error. I quote, for instance, from Keenan and Ryan in Marriage (p. 50): 'This rule fof baptism] applies to all products of conception, which should be conditionally bap- tised at least.' The conditional nature of the sacra- ment does not stem from any doubts about the status of the foetus, but from the probability that the aborted foetus will be dead by the time baptism be- comes possible. But why bring Catholics into it? The view that abortion is invariably 'murder and that its acceptance by our society is likely to have disastrous Conse- quences does not rest on revelation but on logical argument and observation--a fact that I would wel-
come the opportunity of defending in open debate. Unfortunately a defence of the traditional view is scarcely news and therefore merits little space nowa- days; which must be greatly to the relief of the Abor- tion Law Reform Association, who cannot all be quite as stupid as the standard of their arguments suggest.
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