THE FACTS ABOUT ABORTION
Lovewise
Web-based presentation resource
£10 (launch discount price £8)
lovewise.org.uk/the-facts-about-abortion.html
Lovewise have issued a revised web-based presentation that schools, church youth groups, or parents can use with their children to teach about abortion.
It’s a great presentation that is informative and user-friendly with very detailed notes on how to navigate it. Even a non-RS specialist could deliver the lesson. Group discussion and audience participation are encouraged throughout.
There are excellent current statistics and facts about abortion in England and Wales, which show that abortion has reached an alarming rate. One great quote to illustrate slide 21 is: ‘How tragic it is that one of the most common medical procedures carried out in the UK destroys rather than heals.’
The life of a disabled child is used well, proving that a child with a disability is also worthy of life. It is also good that the presentation chooses to tackle rape, with individual rape victims’ views on why they would not choose to have an abortion. Perhaps more could be made of these two tricky topics by adding images and statistics.
All the images used are sensitive and not overly graphic. The ultrasound clip is fantastic, showing the movements and features of an unborn child are developed early. The excellent explanation of the Greek word brephos, meaning baby, showing that it is used when referring to a child within the womb or without, is a strength. This would be relevant to an A-level lesson on abortion. An explanation of why the presentation uses ‘baby’ (rather than foetus) would add to this. There could be less information on the process of fertilisation and more on the developmental stages of the unborn, e.g. when the baby feels pain or when the heartbeat starts.
It is great to see a positive light shed on motherhood, and this could be reinforced by perhaps including the Christian view that children are a gift from God and human life is God-given.
It was an excellent decision to emphasise that marriage strengthens the family unit and therefore makes abortion less likely, with good evidence to back this up.
It would help if it was clear that this is the evangelical Christian view on abortion, because there are often denominational differences in Christian views on contemporary moral issues. As such, it would be preferable for a slide to state ‘Christians believe we are created in the image of God’ rather than ‘We are created in the image of God’.
The inclusion of more key terms such as ‘sanctity of life’, ‘viability’, ‘conception’ and a more accurate definition of murder would help. Innocent is defined within the definition of murder, which perhaps confuses the definition. Collating the reasons as to why people have abortions onto one slide would be useful.
One discussion point asks the compassionate yet honest reflective question: ‘However difficult personal circumstances may be, should they ever be used to justify the ending of an unborn child life?’
