Sir, The leading articles in Tuesday’s Courier on the morning after pill were truthful enough to mention that this drug can stop an already fertilised egg from implanting in the mother’s womb.
It didn’t make clear enough, though, that this means that the morning after pill can and does work by causing an early abortion. So, the statistic that suggests that the numbers of abortions have dropped by 5% is inaccurate.
In fact, no-one would know how many abortions there are if these early ones were to be included in the statistics.
Most people will remember Germaine Greer as a militant pro-abortion activist. Yet even she writes of the morning after pill: “Whether you feel that the creation and wastage of so many embryos is an important issue or not, you must see that the cynical deception of millions of women by selling abortifacients as if they were contraceptives is incompatible with the respect due to women as human beings.”
One might also think about the respect due to the millions of human beings who are destroyed before they are born.
Clare McGraw. 12a Castle Terrace, Broughty Ferry.
City Hall’s case was the same
Sir, You report that, according to the chairman of the Perth Civic Trust, the removal of a 200-year-old tree from the grounds of Perth Academy would be “cultural vandalism”.
You also quote him asking: “Apart from St John’s Kirk, what else is left standing of the history of old Perth?”
He is absolutely right.
So why, in an identical situation less than two years ago, did the trust fail to pronounce an equally strong condemnation, simply replacing references to the tree by “the City Hall”?
Vivian Linacre. 21 Marshall Place, Perth.
Outraged by comments
Sir, With regard to the letter in Wednesday’s paper in which Mr Peter Burke of Carnoustie Development Group said that Arbroath High Street has “only a few, rather sad, shops”; I am chair of the Arbroath High Street Retailers Association and I am outraged that such comments could come from someone on a development group.
We as an association are working hard to bring more businesses and more shoppers to Arbroath, efforts which have been well documented in your paper and on TV.
Arbroath has a lot to offer and there are far more than just a few small sad shops. I would say to Mr Burke that he should perhaps come and have a real look at what’s on offer here instead of making spurious remarks.
He should apologise to the hard-working retailers of Arbroath for the offence he has caused.
C A Grant. Chair, ArbroathHigh Street RetailersAssociation, 281 High Street, Arbroath.
Taking eye off the ball?
Sir, How delighted I was to see The Courier report the latest poll on possible referendum voting intentions, the latest TNS BMRB showing the “yes” vote collapsing to 25%, even though the report was on page 14, as opposed to the front page headlines devoted to the SNP organised poll.
Without a shadow of doubt we will not be allowed to forget any of this over the next months, this SNP obsession which has been delivered upon us.
While all attention is focused on the referendum, the latest news that 30% of households in Glasgow are without a wage-earner, that 25% of our 16 – 24-year-olds are without employment, that Asda in Dundee and Forfar and Morrison’s in Kirkcaldy are overwhelmed with job applications (not surprising when 10,000 in Fife are out of work), these issues are relegated and forgotten.
The time and expense devoted to this referendum, is taking the Government’s eye off the ball.
Surely people’s livelihoods, their ambitions and well-being matter more, in the eyes of the SNP Government? Maybe not.
George Cormack. McLauchlan Rise, Aberdour.
Comfortably off down south
Sir, What a cheek, the Scottish Conservatives asking the unemployed of Glasgow to seek work in other parts of Scotland. They were the ones, along with their friends in the London Stock Market, who decimated the Glasgow shipyards and major steel industries, along with the coalfields in the eighties under Thatcher.
Nothing since then has been done by successive Westminster ruling parties to ensure the jobless were catered for in parts of Glasgow and other areas of deprivation in Scotland and also the North of England.
Noticeably, the main perpetrators of the unfortunate jobless figures in Scotland over years of London rule, sit comfortably with their profits they have made from Scots in the South and South East of the UK.
Is this not another reason for Scots to vote for an independent Government for Scotland?
Bob Harper. 63a Pittenweem Road, Anstruther.