Day 35 condemned and reprieved

 I feel I cant let the moment pass without acknowledging what has happened in the past few weeks .  Firstly we had the assisted dying bill being rejected by The Lords - and great was the rejoicing.  I dont know about you but I breathed a sigh of relief and thought that finally common sense has been brought to bear and our society really is basically decent.   And then this week the very same politicians who said that we shouldn't be able to end life on a whim, voted for the decriminalisation of abortion up to birth.   And the truly shocking thing was that apparently there were hardly any bishops present at the vote.   Along with 99% of the country I was appalled.  How on earth could this have happened?  Its beyond belief.  

Of course it is easy to get carried away with the emotions of all this and forget that hopefully only a tiny tiny number of women will choose to kill their full term babies.  Hopefully it will be none.  Ever.  I had a look at the figures for late term abortions in the past couple of years and here is what I found

United Kingdom (England and Wales)

• Prosecutions/Investigations: In early 2024, reports indicated that at least six women had appeared in court or faced investigations over the previous two years for suspected illegal abortions (terminations outside the 24-week legal limit).
• Specific Cases: While one woman, Carla Foster, was jailed in 2023 (later reduced on appeal), other cases in 2024 resulted in charges being dropped or discontinued, and some cases are awaiting trial.
Its important to get some context isnt it? Only six women over a two year period were investigated for late term abortions. Even if there were more women having late abortions who were not detected, its still a very small number. Obviously those six babies deserved the right to a life and I am in no way advocating for abortion under any circumstances. But neither do I believe that putting women in jail is really an answer to the problem. However hard I try to imagine it, I just cannot conceive of the level of distress and disaster that has to have overtaken someone to compel them to kill their almost full term baby. Im imagining that the six babies killed between 2022 and 2024 in England and Wales were only just over the 24 week limit. They cant have been 39 weeks can they?? Can they? Maybe they can but...... ugggghhhh. Its so awful.

It is worth noting that as far as I can ascertain it is still against the law to supply someone with drugs at any point after 10 weeks gestation.  Although of course people can lie - as happened in the Carla Foster case. 

There has been a loud public outcry at the decision - which is good. And perhaps it is possible that it might be reversed. But what really needs to happen now is that we - all of us - need to get behind every and any organisation that supports pregnancy. We need to speak up on behalf of women who are victims of domestic violence and trafficking. And we need to pray that this change in the law does not lead to a change in behaviour. The WHO estimate 73 million babies are aborted every year worldwide. Thats more people than the population of the UK being killed every year. Almost half of the abortions conducted are medically unsafe. I wonder how much of the mess the world is in at the moment is because God has turned His face away from us as we wantonly destroy the lives He continues to lovingly knit together in wombs worldwide.   

Whilst we can rejoice, for now, in the fact that the UK is not going to give people the chance to kill themselves at the end of life ( and do lets also keep supporting hospices and palliative care with everything we've got) we can only grieve for the unborn who currently remain more vulnerable than ever.  May God raise up a generation of Wilberforces and Barnardos and Mother Theresas who challenge the status quo and become the catalysts for new and radical solutions.