I CANNOT be the only one to be appalled at the way the “Tory rape clause” has been turned into a meme and used to incite social media mobs and hound Ruth Davidson (“Rape clause ‘could have driven victim to kill herself’”, The Herald, April 26). The fact is that it was a compassionate move by Conservative policy-makers to give women with two children who had been coerced into bearing a third child the option of tax credits for that child which would otherwise not be available to them. SNP and Labour politicians know this and it is a sign of their desperation that they mislead voters in order to stoke anti-Conservative hysteria.

If the Scottish Parliament feels so strongly that this policy is shameful, why doesn't it do something about it? After all, it has the means to do so, and surely that is the point of having devolved powers?

Rape should not be used for virtue-signalling and political grandstanding. Grown-up government is about making uncomfortable, and imperfect, decisions.

Instead of this grotesque bluster, Nicola Sturgeon could have been making sure rape victims in Scotland were looked after at least as well as they are in the rest of the UK. Last month HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland identified "unacceptable" shortcomings in the way rape victims are routinely treated in Scotland. Once again the SNP turns out to be more interested in Tory-bashing on its endless quest for independence than in doing what it can for the welfare of Scottish citizens.

Linda Holt,

Dreel House, Pittenweem, Anstruther, Fife.

WHAT a gift the “rape clause” is proving to be to all those political parties in opposition to the Conservatives. This is a clause where, quite unbelievably, a humanitarian exemption offered to those, whose conception was as a result of coercive sex, is being quite shamefully exploited by all UK opposition parties in the most strident terms. Sarah Nelson (Letters, April 25) says that there is “no evidence” that prospective parents discuss the affordability of having children. Well, where is the evidence to the contrary? I know many people who curtailed the size of their family for purely financial reasons and only had as many children as they felt they could afford. However, the main argument being levelled at the Conservatives is not on the overall policy of limiting benefits to the first two children but on the “wholly outrageous” suggestion, according to Nicola Sturgeon, that a mother claiming such an exemption should be asked to submit to some unavoidable bureaucracy and fill in a form. I would argue that, while admitting it is distasteful, it is unfortunately necessary. What is the alternative? How else can it be managed?

Remember that this is not something the unfortunate victim would be confronted with in the immediate aftermath of the assault but more like one year later. I would suspect that many, if not most, rape victims would opt to terminate their pregnancy as soon as they became aware of it. Under such circumstances, those who chose not to abort but continue through to giving birth must be, by any measure, very strong principled women and unlikely to be unduly fazed at having to fill in a form.

Jim Meikle,

41 Lampson Road, Killearn.