Further to the abortion debate stirred up by the failed amendment of Nadine Dorries MP, I saw this letter in last week’s Sunday Telegraph:
In China, for every 120 boys, only 100 girls are born, with the result that by 2020 China will be missing 24 million girls. Could this be because, in China, one girl in six is killed by abortion before birth? Feminists should abandon their pro-choice demonstrations in London and, instead, demonstrate against abortion in China.
Whenever this argument is made, pro-choice feminists over here fall silent. I apologise to Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) for describing her in my last blog, slightly flippantly, as “ubiquitous” (even though she does seem to pop up everywhere with a read-made statement for the press when matters relating to abortion are raised), but when she wrote in the comment box, “Every woman should be able to make the decision she thinks is right”, she is not, as other posts have pointed out, giving that right to all those potential women and mothers aborted before birth.
It’s also worth highlighting the response of ‘Joe’ that followed Ann Furedi’s post: “[is BPAS] going to use their Government funding to provide the accommodation, material support and accompaniment that a woman might need [if she decides] to continue a pregnancy…?” If not, why not?
Mary Wakefield wrote a very sober article, “Let’s bring the abortion debate to life”, in The Spectator on 10 September, in which she stated that, as a convert she had “considered the Church” because of the cavalier attitude towards the unborn outside it. Today in this country it is more than merely cavalier; it is deeply hostile towards the unborn – almost as hostile, in fact, as China is towards baby girls.
Incidentally, I talked to someone after Mass this morning who knows Nadine Dorries. They told me they think Dorries is much more pro-life than she lets on and that she calls herself “pro-choice” more for prudential reasons than anything else: so that other members of Parliament won’t dismiss her as being in the fanatical, pro-life, Catholic camp and might therefore take her arguments seriously.
But you can’t sit on the fence, Nadine. As this recent Parliamentary debacle shows, you will end up being trusted by neither side. You can’t be pro-life and pro-choice. You have to choose.
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