We had a good, if somewhat short, debate on abortion in the Commons last Tuesday, although as everyone knows by now, not one proposal for reducing the time-limit for abortion was successful.
As much in its Frankenstein-style proposals for fatherless children, animal-human hybrids and ‘saviour siblings’ as in its confirmation of a grim commitment to the status quo on abortion, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill is yet another affront by the Government to the Judaeo-Christian values of this nation.
It is also an affront to true human rights.
It may seem an obvious point, but if you’re killed before you’re born you are not really in a position to enjoy any rights at all.
Of course I did not expect to win the vote on my amendment to cut abortion to 12 weeks – the norm in two thirds of EU countries – but it was depressing to see the defeat last week even of a 22-week proposal.
Cornerstone colleague Nadine Dorries, who wanted 20 weeks, made a brave and moving speech describing her experience as a nurse of holding in her arms a little boy who had survived a botched abortion. This cut no ice on the Labour benches.
Never mind the fact that science has enabled us to see the child ‘walking in the womb’ at 12 weeks; never mind the obvious human shape of a foetus well before 20 weeks; never mind new evidence that the unborn child feels pain around that time, the slaughter of the innocent will continue at its current rate of nearly 600 a day.
I reflect on the irony that a Government which out of its concern for the alleged suffering of foxes permitted 700 hours of debate on that topic, allowed just three hours for MPs to talk about the fate of unborn children.
Below is a link to the Hansard of my and Nadine’s speeches.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080520/debtext/80520-0013.htm
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080520/debtext/80520-0019.htm
There are effective methods of post-coital contraception offered free on the NHS. These are effective and sensible solutions for early implementation in circumstances that include any realisation that conception is likely to have occurred in the absence of a commitment to pregnancy, the spontaneity of sexual intercourse with strangers in the absence of contraception or following the failure of a contraceptive method.
That leaves only a few morally and medically justifiable reasons for anyone to seek termination once a pregnancy is known and is progressing.
The majority of requests for termination I receive spanning 26 years of practice are due delayed reactions with either poor understanding of the biology of conception and life or a scant regard for the ethical and moral dimensions and values.
For the above reasons and a whole host of others, I would support a 12-week limit. I would, however, stress that any such legislation is matched by better moral instruction in schools and an ultimate change in societal values.