A sad day for Britain, today marks the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act. There have been pro-life events around the country and the occasion has been an opportunity for some quite absurd propaganda from the pro-abortion lobby. One of the most crass is the leader in today's Guardian 40 Years On. They really don't like us at the Grauniad:The tactics of this anti-abortion lobby - the cavalier distortion of research and the inflammatory use of neonatal images - obscure important truths and pervert the course of debate from more thoughtful channels.Showing pictures of babies certainly does obscure the "truth" of their non-personhood. Actually it is generally pictures of babies in the womb that are used "neonatal" is a rather revealing slip of the keyboard, I think.
The article completely ignores the question of the personhood or rights of the unborn child in stating blandly:
No society that respects equality and individual autonomy could force a woman to maintain an unwanted pregnancy.And in a summary of current secular orthodoxy it can make a risible statement such as:
We know why many women conceive accidentally: inadequate sex education and substandard contraceptive services.One has to wonder what contraceptive services would meet the author's "standard": perhaps the school nurses need to make sure that children actually have a condom in their schoolbag to take home. That'll stop all those regrettable accidents!
In the meantime, David Steel, says that the debate has not changed over 40 years. It is true that the question of the rights of the unborn child is still ignored in most pro-abortion rhetoric. One thing that has changed, however, is the quality of the pictures of babies in the womb, especially the "walking in the womb" scans which presumably "obscure important truths" even more in the eyes of the Guardian's leader writer.
Sadly, the routine ultrasound pictures that mothers-to-be now carry around ensure that many people now know full well that abortion is the killing of a human baby but have to convince themselves that it is justified. This smooths the path for a more general acceptance of the logically impeccable corollary of abortion rights in the mind of Singer and others; namely infanticide. (Cf. Peter Singer, Taking Life: Humans)
How long before politicians are telling us that of course they are against infanticide, nobody wants it to happen, it is the fault of substandard abortion services, but regrettable though it may be, it is wrong to condemn a woman to a lifetime of caring for an unwanted baby that she only gave birth to by accident.
David Steel also threw in a random insult against Catholics which even the Guardian interviewer referred to as a "sideswipe". He alleged that Catholic opposition to contraception "is actually contributing to abortion." That's right. In a country that is swamped by contraception-promoting sexual health services and explicit sex-education, the 200,000 abortions per year are the fault of a Church that promotes chastity. (Incidentally, there is an excellent article by Diogenes which addresses the closely related allegation that Catholic teaching spreads AIDS. Cf. Catholic World News: ransomed)
12 comments:
The claim that "Catholic opposition to contraception "is actually contributing to abortion." ticks me off so much!
It speaks of such complete and total ignorance!
Here's my answer to that, a blog post I've put up, taken down, and for now, remains up:
http://adorotedevote.blogspot.com/2007/03/did-i-kill-my-little-girl.html
So to the claim that contraception is the answer I say this; are you willing to take responsiblity for the children I might have flushed down the toilet? Are you able to absolve me of the sins I might or might not have committed because I used chemicals to "prevent" that which was already begotten? Are you willing to accept responsibility for the lives that should have existed but didn't because of your false ideology?
Your ideology can't save you and it can't save me and it can't save the children unkowningly murdered by thousandes of women every single day just so a man's desires can be fulfilled.
Modern-day slavery can be attributed to the great "liberation" of the invention of contraception. No thanks. If the same results had been bequeathed to and upon men, it never would have happened.
And I'm not sorry if I come across as angry. As I see it, all women have a right to be angry about this, and men, if you're not angry, you have something wrong with you.
I was astounded to hear one doctor on Radio 4 yesterday claiming that there were not enough abortions!
I don't know if you have read Quentin de la Bedoyere's article in this week's Catholic Herald on the period leading up to the passing of the Abortion Act. It is a sad testimony to the ineptitude, lethargy and lack of preparation of the Bishops of England and Wales to confronting the intrinsic evil of this Act. If there had been stronger and better organized Catholic opposition in the first place it is possible that, despite powerful lobbying for the Bill, it might not have got through. Opposition to the Bill from the Church was, he maintains, largely lay lead and in this case I can believe it. The fully justified anti-abortion campaign by the pro-life lobby is now reduced to little more than theatre in the face of a complacent status quo that sees no reason to change. With predictions of an increased birthrate in Britain the Government will have no desire to modify existing legislation. But the majority of those whose families are likely to grow are Moslem. They are as vehemently against abortion as Catholics should be, but in countless cases are not. Hope lies with the Poles, if they stay in this country. A priest told me some time ago that, after receiving an irate letter from a Catholic doctor who favoured abortion, he was advised not to preach against it because it might upset members of his congregation who had had one. Tragically the Church's teaching on abortion has been reduced in this country, and Europe at large, to a Canute-like exercise.
Fr. Tim,
I wonder how the abortion statistics break down in an average Western country into those performed on (a) women who really would break down if they had the child (the 1967 reasoning), (b) teenage girls who have got into trouble, (c) mature women (who had a fling, think two’s enough, don’t want to interrupt a career or are in a shaky marriage etc.), (d) rape victims, (e) women whose scans identify possible foetal abnormality – where not part of (a) above, and (f) the very important hidden category – women who want the baby but the father doesn’t.
It’s funny how abstinence-based birth control methods are ridiculed and denounced as “unreliable” in relation to artificial contraceptives until it comes to abortion – when suddenly the Stopesian brigade start to imply that the pill may not be 100% reliable, and a further line of defence is required.
Mass abortion will last as long as our sexually promiscuous society does. If society encourages a sexual free-for-all, the promiscuous will want to be protected from the natural consequences of their actions. Contraceptives aren’t 100% reliable, or (equally relevant) are not part of the “spontaneous development” of many an amorous encounter. So abortion will continue to be seen a necessary safety net.
There are some encouraging signs, such as the growing number of younger medics who are refusing to be involved with abortion, and the recent acknowledgement that the debate needs to be more honest and address the long-term psychological consequences of abortion on women. But I doubt there will be a reversion to the pre-1967 situation unless there is a fundamental shift in attitudes towards extra-marital sex. Someone I know said words to the effect that abortion has saved society from millions of illigitimate children. My response was that if the pre-60s attitudes had remained in place, most of these pregnancies wouldn’t have happened, so it’s a false argument.
I am optimistic however that the restoration of the pre-promiscuity era attitudes is possible in the long run – when I started working 20 years ago, half my colleagues were puffing away on a cigarette all day long and there were ashtrays on every desk. This would be unthinkable today.
At least the bishops are beginning to speak up now. Unfortunately, I think they are saying the wrong thing. The front page of the Catholic Herald this week quotes Cardinal Murphy O'Connor saying he supports a 'pragamatic approach' and that politicians are urged to vote for an 'achievable, incremental improvement' to the abortion law.
'To improve' something, means to make it better. The abortion law cannot be made better because it is rotten to the core so long as it allows the deliberate killing of even one unborn child. There is nothing that is good in the abortion law for it to be improved, and what we need is an uncompromising attempt to repeal it.
And before anyone says I am just being unrealistic, let's be realistic: the past 40 years of pro-life campaiging have brought about no 'improvements' (terrible term) in the abortion law. In fact the opposite is the case.
Just as apartheid and communism fell apart all in one swoop (and peacefully) maybe the same thing will happen with abortion laws. If we work hard and trust in God, then hearts and minds can change. Being 'pragmatic' suggests we lack confidence in both the truth of our cause and in God's ability to intervene.
I can't see how a picture of a child in the womb can possibly obscure the fact that it is a
picture of a child in the womb.
I suppose if you want to obscure and distort the truth, you can call it a "neonatal image".
It's still a picture of a child in the womb.
Anonymous said at 10:15am
"With predictions of an increased birthrate in Britain the Government will have no desire to modify existing legislation. But the majority of those whose families are likely to grow are Moslem."
I heard a Muslim "jurist" this morning on Radio 4's "Sunday" saying that as muslims do not believe that the foetus is "en-souled" until 40 days after conception contraception, embryonic research and abortion were allowed, after 40 days they were prohibited. Try the "listen again" option on the BBC website to hear this.
Catholics are on their own!
A (reported) closing comment at the Marie Stopes International "Global Safe Abortion" conference in London this week (read: biggest abortion fest this planet has ever see) was: "Let's make abortion sexy"! Dr Mohsina Bilgrami, Program Director, Marie Stopes International.
God help us.
This is truly a Horrible practicem Six Million carried out to date....Britain's Indigenous population has a declining Birthrate, Awash with Mass Immigration enticed by welfare we are to become minoritoies in our own country within 70yrs if things continue like this.
If this country needs More People
Why could that same welfare not have been given to help mothers support those 6 Million children.
Is this deliberate Social engineering by dark Globalist forces.
And Archbishop Smith was hardly forceful, allowing the canard about Thomas Aquinas approving early abortion to go virtually unchallenged.
you'd better read this :
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/holysmoke/october2007/abortionwar.htm#comments
it's not good !
Yes, saw that late night. Hope to find time later today to post on the question of practical politics and abortion.
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