SIR – It’s no wonder Andrew Grant, president of the Worcester Conservatives, thinks that abortion is wrong if he thinks that you are either pro-life or pro-death (October 20). So much for moral nuance.

In case his bold statement seems plausible to others, perhaps we should try applying it to a relevantly similar moral question such as whether there can be a just war.

Now, some people are pacifists about all wars and similarly some people are firmly against all abortions. On the other hand, some people think that war is sometimes necessary, just as some people think that abortion is sometimes the least worst course of action.

My question is, when it comes to war, does it make any sense at all to speak in such blunt terms as a dichotomy with pro-life on one side and pro-death on the other? Would Mr Grant be prepared to describe the veterans of just wars as pro-death?

This will require no small leap of imagination but can you imagine for an instant that we would follow the word abortion with the word debate quite so often if males were the sex that got pregnant?

Mr Grant cannot sanction the removal of an unconscious, microscopic ball of fused cells even from the victim of a rape attack. Don’t get me wrong, abortion is a difficult moral issue but that is precisely why Mr Grant’s black-and-white dichotomy should be resisted.

I wonder if he could maintain it if it was men who were raped and potentially impregnated as often as women and if it was his own body that might be abused and his own liberty to decide what happened next which was up for debate by politicians.

BOB CHURCHILL, Worcester.