I do hope you weren't thinking I was classing Ireland as a Third World country Jim. My experience is only in W Africa, and among the prisoners' womenfolk I came across while trying to help them.

You're quite right that 'it isn't as easy as that' to change deeply-held cultural and religious beliefs and traditions. But my husband tells me that among the younger folk in Abidjan (quite a large and more modern city than the primitive villages in the bush) many women are now on the Pill, and insist on condom use, because quite rightly they're terrified of getting HIV.

He also related to me this morning some horrendous tales of botched back street abortions, resulting in death. And the sad thing is young, teenage girls prostitute themselves to gain money to help their parents feed the endless throng of children in the household.

I have to say though that I do see McGrath's point about a foetus being a human life. I've been trying to imagine what I would have done if I had had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy in my youth. (I have never been pregnant so it's hard to imagine) I wonder if I could have aborted it. Actually, it would have been a dreadful dilemma...