PIP: I would like to take issue with Dr Colin Brewer's statements concerning intrauterine contraceptive devices and abortion (11 August, p 389). I agree that logically there is no distinction between IUCDs, and other abortifacients used early in pregnancy, and abortion methods used later in pregnancy. However, I disagree with his statement that to make illegal IUCDs and similar methods out of an "obsessive concern for microscopic forms of life" would be "absurd." Firstly, size has never been a criterion for the presence or absence of life, or of its importance. Surely Dr Brewer, MPs, and the public would be outraged by anything less than obsessively careful handling of, say, rabies or smallpox viruses in laboratories. Do not the products of conception, with the full potential of a human being unless actively interfered with by other men (neglecting normal fetal wastage), deserve any less concern? Secondly, mortality should not be determined by practicalities; rather morality should determine one's actions. The question of whether IUCDs and other such procedures should remain legal or be made illegal should not be determined by their efficacy, popularity, or economy. I agree fully with Dr Brewer--abortion is a moral issue and it is a pity that the BMF has not raised the moral issues at stake. Particularly so, as Lord Denning put it "...without morality there can be no law." I personally subscribe to the Hippocratic Oath.