Murder most foul!

If my memory serves me well, the heading to this post is the title of an Agatha Christie Poirot novel.  Of course, I may be wrong.  Either way, it surely sums up the reaction of the vast majority of decent people to the murder of three-year-old Mikaeel Kular.  Of course, what makes the situation even worse is that it is his own mother who has now been charged with that murder.  She is, in British law, innocent until proven guilty, but many ask the question: "How could a mother murder her own child?"

Sadly, this is not a unique case.  There are many records of children having been murdered by their own mother.  Within their own homes, where they might expect to have been safe, they died.

There is, nevertheless, an element of hypocrisy in the furore that inevitably accompanies any such conviction.  This is because murder is committed on defenceless children every working day - and in the place in which they should be safest of all!  I refer to the approximately 600 abortions that take place on a daily basis in the UK alone.  The figure may not be quite accurate, as up-to-date statistics are not easy to obtain.  But in spite of the euphemism of "termination of a pregnancy" abortion of nothing more, or less, than the murder of a living human being - albeit at an early stage of its development - with, in all but a few rare cases, the co-operation of its mother.

If I had my way, every woman/girl who sought an abortion would be obliged to have a full pre-natal scan.  At four to five months - apparently the most common stage for an abortion - the rubbery cartilage that composed the foetus’ skeleton is turning into hard bone.  The baby is now large enough that when it kicks or moves around in the womb, the mother will most likely feel it. Blood vessels are becoming visible through the skin. Hair is starting to appear on the baby’s scalp, and eyebrows and eyelashes are present. Soft hair called lanugo covers the body and head of the foetus. This fuzz will disappear before birth.  Reflexes such as chewing, sucking, and swallowing are developing. The baby may begin his or her habit of sucking its thumb during this month. The foetus may be only about six inches long at the end of the fourth month of pregnancy; but there is no doubt that this is a small human being!

So, let us be angry when a mother murders her child.  But let us also be angry at the wholesale slaughter that goes on, day after day, week after week, for reasons that are, in over 90% of cases, nothing more than social inconvenience.

Our unborn children surely deserve no less!