Letter: The birth of misery

Sir: I applaud your strong editorial lead earlier this week condemning the unacceptable violence of the anti-abortion group Rescue America and its adherents. (Last Saturday's Independent reported the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child as declining to condemn their terrorist tactics.)

The anti-abortion lobby is characterised by its adamantine refusal to alleviate the anguish and misery that unwanted pregnancies cause women worldwide. It is ambivalent towards violence against women: the Pope recently wrote to the Archbishop of Sarajevo to veto abortions for women gang-raped in Bosnia, saying their offspring had been 'given' new life. By whom?

Though many find it hard to stomach, abortion provides, in a very real sense, a liberation for many thousands of women each year. In France, abortionists are called 'angel-makers'.

We must not allow our abortion clinics to be demonised by a violent and misogynist minority.

Yours faithfully,

BARBARA HEWSON

Barrister

Gray's Inn

London, WC1

31 March