The Editor, Sir:

I refer to the article in Friday's Gleaner on Page 2 titled 'I have done 1,000' and wish to make the following comments.

None of us is without fault, as clearly demonstrated by Jesus challenging who will throw the first stone with the woman caught in adultery. So I do not write as any puritan, but as a concerned Jamaican. How can one who has been highly respected as a 'leading gynaecologist' so publicly defy our justice system without any fear of retribution. I only hope that if our system is too weak to confront him that there will be others, even some of his friends that would say NO DAVID that is WRONG.

And now Dr Thwaites, while in your opinion the sucking out of 1,000 live babies from their mothers' wombs has had no traumatic visual effect, I assure you that there are some that have that a trauma hidden deep in their souls between them and God. Also, while your concern has been about expectant mothers being given the chance to live to their full potential, what about those 1,000 little lives losing their potential?

Thank goodness for the parents, and I can speak personally, to whom you callously suggested sucking out their little boys or girls, who did not succumb to your suggestions and whose children have now turned out to be great Jamaicans, contributing to their full potential and are now even fathers and mothers to their own children.

Your reference to God (which means 'Superior Being', superior to you and me) looking after his own business, I beg you to explain what is His business if it is not life?

Understandable

Now Church - If Dr Thwaites has admitted to 1,000 abortions and knowing his practice is among the middle-class group and taking the estimated statistics of 30,000 abortions a year, it is not far-fetched to assume that over a 10-year period, 10,000 influential leading women have had an abortion.

It is quite understandable for these women to be strong advocates for legalising this act. So we must realise the pressure the Government faces to change the law. But maybe more important is how do we communicate effectively to these women that changing the law will not erase the nagging remembrance of the act and that Jesus humbly offers a wonderful solution: UNDERSTANDING and FORGIVNESS.

The realisation of total forgiveness that I have experienced in Jesus for the raw life I lived and the change that that realisation has brought in my life (still not perfect in any way) assures me it does not matter how many abortions a woman has had, or how many abortions a doctor has performed; the REAL LAW MAKER, the one that sets the laws in our hearts has made a way for peace.

So I stand firmly as part of the Church: WE CANNOT LEGALISE ABORTION.

I am, etc.,

ROBERT LEVY

4 Lanark Drive

Kingston 8