Seventy-nine percent of those who responded to CNN IBN’s Question of the Day poll (August 4, 2008) felt that Niketa and Haresh Mehta should be allowed to abort their unborn child on account of possible “congenital heart defects”.

Would they have held the same view, I wonder, if the word “murder” had been used instead of “abortion”? Supposing the debate had broken out after the child was born — would so many people still be in favour? Exactly how soon before a birth does a “medical termination” become “murder”? How soon after? And uptil what age would such respondents believe that a parent has the right to take a child’s life, on the grounds that the family’s quality-of-life would be compromised?

The months of gestation and birth are merely nodes in a person’s life, after all. It could be argued that the condition of bearing young is always weighted against the bearers. However much love and money parents pour into nurturing a child, no power on earth can guarantee that their investment will be a good one. There will always be a certain percentage of offspring who will cause intolerable heartache to their parents. Some children die early, others develop crippling physical disabilities and yet others acquire socially undesirable traits. At which point does a flaw become fatal enough to schedule a pre-emptive blood-letting? Just how congenital does a defect have to be before a couple reaches for the medically approved equivalent of a bent coat-hanger?