Abortion – the scourge of our time (Part 1)

While I was on holiday, the news broke that Radovan Karadzic, the Serbian leader allegedly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, had been arrested and sent to The Hague for trial before the War Crimes’ Tribunal. I was reminded of some of the other people who, during the second half the 20th century, were held responsible for mass murder – Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party leadership; the Cambodian leader Pol Phot; the Albanian, Slobodan Milosevic. Each of these, and others, was rightly condemned for their “crimes against humanity”.
However, one name that is not always added to such a group is that of David Steel – the mildly-spoken son of the manse and, for many years, the Member of Parliament for the Borders’ Westminster constituency. It was that same David Steel who introduced the 1976 Abortion Bill to the British Parliament – legislation that has resulted in the pre-natal murder of some 6.7 million infants, in Great Britain, in its first forty years. However, while the others were sentenced to death, or to life imprisonment without parole, David Steel was eventually awarded a British life-peerage and, in 2004, was created a Knight of the Order of the Thistle – the highest honour in Scotland!!
Imagine a woman coming into a doctor’s surgery. She is carrying a one-year-old child, and informs the doctor that she is pregnant again. She cannot face the prospect of having another child, and asks the doctor if he can “do something about it”. The doctor goes to a cupboard, lifts out an axe, grabs the one-year-old, and starts hacking it to pieces with the words “This one is easier to reach”!
It’s not going to happen, of course, but it raises the question – “When is it acceptable to take a life?” If it is unacceptable to do so at one year, what about at six months? If that is unacceptable, what about at six weeks? If that is still unacceptable, what about six hours, or six minutes, or six seconds?
Life, I would contend, begins at fertilisation. From the moment when the sperm penetrates the outer wall of the egg, and the first division of the cell takes place, there is growth – and growth is a certain sign of life – in this case, human life. It is universally accepted that the deliberate, premeditated, taking of a human life is murder. Abortion is the deliberate, premeditated taking of a human life – however early in its development it may be. Therefore, according to the rules of logic, abortion is murder!
[Part 2 follows below]