It’s time Ireland allowed women to be agents of their own lives

I was a 15-year-old Irish teenager when Article 40.3.3 was signed into the Constitution in 1983. Although I did not have a vote at the time, I was in favour of the 8th Amendment – right up to the moment when, four years later, I had a pregnancy scare and found myself searching through the back pages of Cosmopolitan, looking for the address of a clinic in Liverpool.

I was lucky – as it turned out, my scare was a false alarm. However, that moment brought home for me the sense of loneliness, fear and desperation that an unwanted pregnancy means for the girl or woman facing a difficult choice, in circumstances made even more difficult because the law of the land does not recognise them as agents in their own lives.

I will turn 50 this year, and as my childbearing years are coming to an end, I hope that today’s 15-year-olds will come of age in a more compassionate Ireland, where their healthcare needs and bodily autonomy are respected by the law, and we no longer rely on the UK for the safe, legal access to abortion that we have failed to provide for so long at home.

Edel Brosnan
London

I have little interest in either guns or video games, so I’m probably not the best person to defend the latest scapegoat of President Trump’s attempts to spare the NRA and its policies from association with the recent Florida school shooting.

But while the NRA might be pleased that President Trump is turning his ire towards violent video games as a possible cause of the killings, surely its oft-repeated mantra provides an immediate get-out for the games manufacturers. Video games don’t kill people; people kill people.

Michael O’Hare
Northwood

The nub of the issue is the failure of the party to be able to see the wood for the trees. Brexit is a symptom of a huge dissatisfaction with politics by a disappointed population who see wealth abusing power with a belief that self-interest determines the direction of travel.

Voters choose between the two other parties either through a sense of self-preservation or class anger. There is a need for a reform of our particular approach to capitalism, to release our real potential in an integrated world designed to harness our creativity for the benefit of all our citizens.

Halting Brexit is only one component that might make the Lib Dems an exciting, fire-in-the-belly aggressive alternative that voters might feel worthy of support.

John Shreeve
Address supplied

Your lead article on the plight of the Lib Dems is interesting.

There are several reasons why the Lib Dems continue to struggle, not least the coalition years when the Tories took all the credit for Lib Dem policies, eg raising the income tax threshold, while letting the Lib Dems take the blame for other issues, notably the unpopular hike in student fees.

However, it is their old enemy, the “first past the post” electoral system, which is the real cause of their lack of progress. As the Conservatives and Labour drift towards their more extreme wings, voters on the centre right or centre left drift with them in order to keep out the party they most despise.

Unfortunately, I can’t see a change in the electoral system any time soon, so no foreseeable uplift in fortunes for the Lib Dems, the Green Party or any other small party trying to make a breakthrough. The two main parties have too much to gain from maintaining the status quo.

Joe Hennessy
Address supplied

I am not surprised by the decline of shoppers at Waitrose. Our local Waitrose has gone from being a pleasant self-scanning shopping experience with that little extra class, to a bit of a drudge. Our local Sainsbury and M&S attached to fuel outlets offer better quality and choice.

Waitrose has tried to compete with the likes of Tesco and Morrison’s by lowering quality and availability. Waitrose’s only attraction to many seems to be the free coffee, with shoppers trying to drink the coffee as they push a trolley around the store.

Waitrose had a great self-scanning system: quick and easy to use. But this now requires a staff member to approve if are you 18+ for alcoholic drinks and painkillers, and to prove you have you the ticket to show you have paid the car park fee to receive the first hour’s refund.

All may be understandable, but frustratingly the assistants are based at the far side of the store from the self-checkout and do not come quickly.

Adair Taylor
Address supplied

Since last week’s heavy snow, my local “superstore” has had many large empty spaces on its shelves. The message appears to be that it will be sometime next week before things will be back to normal. However, the first sight that confronted me on entering yesterday was an enormous acreage of expensive floral displays and bouquets for Mothers’ Day.

I can only surmise that much logistical effort that could have gone into general restocking has instead been put into preserving the profit bonanza that this occasion normally provides.

Andrew Jackson
Cardiff