The Editor, Sir:

The noted English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge opined, "In our strange world, it is the impotent who are prone to instruct us in the excellencies of potency, the dyspeptic who proclaim a dietary way to health and happiness, the opponents of capital punishment and killing seals who insist on the killing of unborn babies, and the much-married who turn to marriage counselling."

George Will averred that there is nothing so vulgar left in our experience for which we cannot transport some professor from somewhere to justify it.

Is abortion a moral issue or a rights issue? Your editorial states that the coalition of Christian groups is armed with an assumed moral authority of God. But, is this assumed moral position a true and relevant position? Morality cannot be left to the whim and fancy of men. If we do this then might is right, and anything goes.

We are always concerned about the evil present in the world, but what about the greater evil that's present in our hearts. If there were never an absolute morality from a moral lawgiver, then I daresay our world would be in a greater mess than it is in today.

According to you, "the legislators are to do what is decent and sensible to adjust the moral laws in line with modern criteria and the realities which exist in Jamaica".

Chronological snobbery

You did not delineate these modern criteria nor did you state whose realities. Are these realities what we see with the eyes or what we see through the eyes? You see, we come to our positions based upon a worldview that may be wrong morally, but is politically correct for the day. Political correctness is oftentimes in complete contradistinction to truth and present realities. When you speak of modern, I smell a little chronological snobbery, which says if it is new, it is better.

Again you state "abortions are forced underground because doctors and patients fear criminal prosecution". The question that arises from this assertion is, what has caused the drug trade, homosexuality, pornography, prostitution and now the 'new investment schemes' to go underground. Is it the Christian coalition groups, the legislators or the subtle presence of a moral law? Let us debate the issue in a holistic way.

I am, etc.,

ROBERT STEWART

revbov_pgt@yahoo.com