important as a precedent in a matter which is of itself of great importance. But there seems a certain incongruity and disproportion in the attention we Catholics are giving to it when most of us go to a lot of trouble to justify the forcible taking of tens of thousands of human lives in the prosecu tion of a hypothetically just war. Might not some of the energy of our moral indignation be more fruitfully expended in attacking, in season and out of season, so barbarous and unevangelical a way of vindicating human rights and Christian values?
I believe the opinion is sometimes put forward that abortion following rape can be defended on the ground that the foetus is an " unjust aggressor," or part of the original unjust aggression, on the woman. The argument seems on the face of it farfetched—but net more far-fetched than the arguments adduced to justify the affliction of colossal physical and spiritual evils in warfare as waged today. How much more " guilty " is the average conscript soldier than that foetus?
DONALD ATTWATER.
lei number of other letters expressing the same argument have been received._ Enrroa..