From PHILIP L COOPER
I was pleased to see Gareth Williams’s trenchant criticism of the ‘pre-embryo’
theory (Letters, 20 January). I object, however, to the cartoon in the same
issue (Albert the Experimental Rat) unfairly depicting most pro-life activists
as supporters of capital punishment.
Undoubtedly there are a few like that, which is hardly surprising in
a country where the death penalty has widespread support in the general
population. But most of the pro-life leaders I have met are as strongly
opposed to capital punishment as any self-styled liberal.
Most European countries with capital punishment – including East Germany,
Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Soviet Union – also have permissive abortion
laws. By contrast, Ireland has neither capital punishment nor abortion;
and West Germany, which long ago abolished capital punishment, has constitutional
restrictions on abortion.
With a change of captions, Albert could have exposed the real inconsistency:
the inconsistency of opposing capital punishment for the guilty while defending
the killing of the innocent.
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Philip L. Cooper Torquay
