Dear Editor,

Ms Valerie Leung misses the point in her letter captioned "Unplanned babies need not be unwanted and unloved" [ please note: link provided by LOSP web site ] (l4.l.2002). I completely support her right of choice in having as many children as she pleases, whether planned or unplanned. I see that as both pro choice and pro life. I want her to have that right.

No public law should infringe on her private rights regarding her body. I would oppose any law that removed or compromised her right to sustain any pregnancy she had, intentional or accidental.

I believe every woman should have the same right Ms Leung exercises û to choose whether she wishes to continue or to terminate any pregnancy she has. And I see this as both pro life and pro choice. More, where a woman chooses to exercise the right to terminate her pregnancy, she ought to have access to safe, medical service. This should not be limited to one class for purely economic reasons.

One of the central and important phrases in Ms Leung's letter is I believe. She has her values and they inform the choices she makes freely. I respect her values and would fight against any law that coerced her to abandon them.

By the same token, I am opposed to her wish to impose her values on other women. In any society, but especially in a plural society, public law cannot be the creature of one set of values. We are all too aware of the horror of religious intolerance imposed on women in Afghanistan.

A second dangerous notion in Ms Leung's letter is her presumption of insight into the motives of others.

The true motive of the pro abortionist who gives these women such advice is not compassion for the mother, but rather an unwillingness to contend with the inconvenience and demands that the birth will require.

This imputation of motives puts Ms Leung is a remarkable position of omniscience. Some of us are uncertain of our own motives, but Ms Leung is certain of the motives of all persons who support a woman's right to have as many or as few children as she pleases.