THE EDITOR: May I add my congratulations to the high achievers in the recent Cambridge A Level Examin-ations and to the dedicated teachers at the mainly “prestige schools” which they attended. The students obviously come from supportive families and it would be interesting to have more on the primary education which they received — since nobody reaches the top of a ladder without having taken each careful step before. Teaching at the primary level requires innovation. It must encourage curiosity, questioning and problem solving to produce education of quality.

In my opinion a student entering Training College or going straight into the teaching service with a minimum of Grade 3 (as permitted by the Ministry of Education) is hardly going to be qualified for this. We should be giving these young children graduate teachers who have been exposed to the innovative techniques being developed in the School of Education at UWI. Could a system be introduced whereby students interested in becoming teachers be afforded full/part scholarships in return for guaranteeing a number of years in the education system? Of course on completion their salaries would have to be commensurate with their qualifications. Perhaps then teaching could once again be a profession to be proud of.

JOAN KENNY
Port-of-Spain

THE EDITOR: This letter is for the attention of TTUTA. Did I or did I not see on page 24 of yesterday’s Newsday’s Section A an advertisement which read: TTUTA wishes to advise members that it’s Port-of-Spain District Office….. Come on, TTUTA! What are you leaving for the uneducated masses to write? “It’s” = it is “its” is the Possessive Case. Who wrote that? Unpardonable! Do you know I am tired of pointing out such mistakes. Please let me hear from someone on the subject soon.

UNDINE GIUSEPPI
Port-of-Spain

THE EDITOR: While by no means has it been proved that the human body actually evolved from lower forms of life, there are undoubtedly parallels in its development to that of the bodies of lower mammalian species, especially in the manner of (internal) conception and gestation, birth and the further nurturing of the young.

It is unquestionable that the intimate internal attachment of the young to its mother via the umbilical cord and placenta is a vast advance over eggs that develop externally and independently. In the mammal, Nature has provided the perfect environment for the young: warmth, oxygen, nourishment, benefits of maternal hormones, protection from predators immunity from diseases through the good graces of the maternal immune system, etc. Meanwhile, strong maternal bonds are forged between young and mother, bonds that will prove essential for the future survival of the young. One might say that nowhere can Nature’s provision for the well-being of the young, and consequently the assured future of a species, be more exquisitely seen than in the development of the mammal within the womb of its mother, and in the natural care of the mother for her young after birth. This is obvious to any objective observer. But where human beings are concerned, there is another, and maybe even vastly more important, dimension — LOVE.

As our Catholic religion insists, God has made us in His image, even as He commanded us to increase and multiply. He has made us co-creators with Him, and, in His likeness, we are to exercise that prerogative in the context of Love. For this, God has endowed us with the beautiful and necessary gift of marital and parental love. But it does not require supernatural faith to know that this love comes naturally. Very strong, special bonds of love are forged between the mother and her baby, as soon she knows the baby to exist within her womb. And it is the violent rupture of this bond through induced abortion that leads so many mothers to traumatic depression, self hate, or even despair — conditions well known to the medical fraternity as “post-abortion syndrome.”

ASPIRE’s programme makes it necessary for it to deny the existence of this syndrome, and it makes a desperate, futile effort to do so, flying in the face of all the overwhelming evidence. Oh how hollow ASPIRE’s proclamation that it is motivated by concern for the health of the mother! Frustrating the designs of Nature, it would destroy the bond between mother and baby — no matter how legally they try to do it. It is of no consequent concern of the bay’s — it has been killed. But the mother…! As I said in my last letter, you cannot defy Nature and win. A baby in the womb is in the only place in the world where it can be, but the practice of abortion makes Nature’s intended haven for the baby hazardous to its life. ASPIRE seeks to frustrate the best intentions of Nature, then calls upon Nature to smile on its efforts! And, adding insult to injury, its advocates turn to us and ask us for our support! NO WAY!

FR GERARD E FARFAN
Port-of-Spain

THE EDITOR: This is an open letter to Minister Camille Robinson-Regis.

Mrs Minister, as a housewife who has not bought a chicken since the prices became not only prohibitive, but downright mercenary, I want to say this to you dear lady. Go for it ma’am, a number of us are with you one hundred percent. As a people, we don’t like to bother ourselves even with things very critical and dear to us. Hence the reason we even shy from writing letters to the papers to show approval and support for your intended actions, which we are so eager to see implemented.

Madame Minister, it is time something was done about these people and we hope you don’t wait any longer for we are indeed suffering. Due to the emptiness and the dishonesty of their promises, may we ask that you don’t make the new measures too temporary because, we are sure, when they get things their way, they will go back to their empty promises and we the housewives will go back to square one. We therefore pledge our support for your actions and urge you to implement them now. Enough is enough. And while you are at it, put something in place, for those of us who cannot afford to pay so much for plucking. I don’t mind buying a live chicken and plucking it myself without having to pay for plucking just to fill the pockets of these greedy people.

GWENDOLYNE CLIFTON and FRIENDS
Claxton Bay

THE EDITOR: To coin a phrase, I was rather intrigued to read Professor Kenny’s reply “What evolutionary climax?” to the Reverend Father Farfan’s “A Biologist looks at Abortion.”

I have great respect for the erudite Professor and because of this, I am surprised at how he has skirted the real and main issue in Farfan’s letter. His technique is to confound the reader by clouding the issue with irrelevant facts. This, of course, is a well honed practice of the abortionist group, “Aspire.” In his rush to prove that the Reverend is an ignoramus, the Professor makes his meal of a slip of the pen by his opponent. This allows him to totally ignore the main issue in Father Farfan’s letter, which argues that the practice of abortion is dangerous to the human race. He rambles along on the correct application of an obscure (to most people), Latin word for the correct classification of even more obscure, (to most people), flora, or is it fauna.

In a parallel manner, I could match his approach and ramble along, discussing his ignorance of the English language because he does not know that Homo sapiens, the subject of a sentence, takes a singular verb. He then drags religion into a secular discussion and in this context mentions the stoning to death of women. Another smoke screen. Personally, I think that one stone to an adult human’s head to kill the person would be no more painful than hanging. It would surely be less painful to the recipient than the tearing to pieces of a baby in his mother’s womb or crushing his skull with a pair of pliers. Come Professor, shine your light on us and let us have your views on the point you missed in Fr Farfan’s letter. By the way, the Muslims who stone women to death, abhor the practice of abortion.

MATTHEW
MARTINEZ
Port-of-Spain