Dear Sir,
I am writing in response to Bob and Sylvia Allaway’s letter (en Feb 2017). While I agree that Mr Morrison might be rather optimistic in his campaign to get the 1967 Abortion Act repealed, his commitment is to be commended.
Hard cases make bad laws and the Abortion Act is no exception. The vast majority of abortions are performed under the ‘social clause’, risk of injury to physical or mental health of the woman. Not death but just a ‘risk’ of some kind of mental or physical problem.
The case of an ectopic pregnancy (where the child is not growing in uterus but in the fallopian tube) is different because the result of a developed pregnancy would take both the mother and child’s life. It is simply good medical practice to save the life which can be saved rather than lose both. We do not need our current Abortion Act to be able to deal with this. In the case of rape, two wrongs don’t make a right. Does a child conceived by rape have less of a right to life?
There are many women who have abortions not because it is their first choice but because they feel it is their only choice. Reasons such as ‘My boyfriend will leave me’, ‘I will lose my job’, ‘I am too young/too old, ‘My health is not good’, ‘I couldn’t cope with a child with special needs’ or ‘We just can’t afford another child’. These are not reasons for abortion, but for a caring society to get alongside and lend a hand.
If Bob and Sylvia (or anyone else) would like to know more, I suggest they read Responding to a culture of death by John R Ling (DayOne) and the booklet Mr Morrison has sent to MPs Open your mouth for the dumb by Peter Barnes (Banner of Truth).
Yours sincerely,
