At first I did not take it seriously. I had heard the news that a couple of amendments to the Crime and Policing bill were coming to the UK Parliament to in effect allow abortion on demand up to birth. And I assumed that this was the work of the radical extremists who think that any woman should be allowed to kill her own child up to birth. I assumed that such an extreme measure would be overwhelmingly rejected. But I was wrong - and then some.
This week MPs voted by 379 to 137 for an amendment tabled by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi which in effect permits abortion on demand up to full term i.e. up to the moment of and even during birth.
Although on paper abortion is still not legal, no one will be prosecuted for taking the life of their own baby – at any stage. In theory any medical professional who assists a woman in having such an abortion will be liable to prosecution – although it is almost impossible to imagine any situation in which criminal proceedings will be undertaken.
There were actually three amendments before parliament. One from Stella Creasey, another Labour MP, who wanted to abandon all abortion laws under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act and enshrine abortion as a human right. This was actually backed by 108 MPs but even the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) were opposed to it. So, it was withdrawn.
But note that this was because BPAS said this was not the best way to achieve “generational change”. In other words, let’s do this one salami slice at a time. It is inevitable that this too will come. And it won’t stop there. After all, using the same logic we could argue that killing an unwanted baby one day out of the womb is also healthcare and part of ‘reproductive health care’.
I fear there will soon come a day when MPs are tweeting about a new infanticide act (doubtless renamed something more palatable like ‘the infant care act’) with a blurb like: “No one should ever face prosecution for killing their one-week-old baby. This would be a vital step for women's rights and reproductive justice.”
A third amendment from the Conservative Shadow Health Minister, Dr Caroline Johnson, was trying to limit the harm of abortion through the pills by post service by reinstating the requirement that a pregnant woman have an in-person medical consultation before getting an abortion. This was rejected by 397 to 117.
Remember the days when we were told abortions needed to be legal in order to prevent backstreet abortions and to ensure the mother got proper medical care? That was apparently just an excuse, because now MPs think a woman should be able to have an abortion in her own home without any medical care or assessment.
Why has this happened? The big picture is that the UK is in sharp decline, and our politicians represent that decline. They lack any significant moral compass or intellectual capacity to seriously think through these things. Consider this – the biggest change in abortion law for 60 years and they took 46 minutes to ‘debate’ it. These are people with the attention span of a gnat. Governed entirely by soundbites, emotive stories and the morality of a bot, it is little wonder that they have convinced themselves that killing viable babies in the womb is all about ‘healthcare’ and ‘reproductive rights’. They are similar to the politicians who during the anti-slavery debate argued that slavery was about ‘economic rights’.
The stupidity is breathtaking. I saw the commentator Paul Mason tweet that this Bill would be a blow for misogynists, clearly oblivious to the fact that the Bill now allows sex-selective abortion. Is there anything more misogynistic than killing a baby girl just because she is a girl?
The dishonesty and lies are also astonishing. For example, Dr Sonia Adesara lied to Julia Hartley-Brewer on her show when she stated “we’re not changing what a woman is allowed to do” when that is precisely what the Bill is doing.
Others have suggested that this is not making abortion legal and therefore nothing has really changed. But they are sophists playing with words in order to justify taking lives. If breaking into my house is not illegal, then you will feel free to break into my house because you are not doing anything illegal when you do so.
Where does this shocking vote leave us? The culture of death in the UK is more deeply engrained than I thought. For people who claim to be humanists we seem to like killing humans a lot.
As regards the Church it should with one voice be standing up and declaring that we will not go down the route of Baal or Molech, sacrificing our children to the idols of the contemporary West. We must speak out with a prophetic voice against this evil and warn, with tears in our eyes, of the judgement to come. One day these MPs will stand before a greater court than the Supreme Court, and a higher judge than the electorate.
Meanwhile let us weep and mourn for today’s post-Christian, pagan Britain. A Britain where you can get sent to jail for a tweet but kill your own baby the day before she is born. A Britain where praying near an abortion centre is illegal but killing a baby up to birth is legal. A Britain where God is mocked, his word abused, and humans destroyed. I can think of no better reaction than that of the Psalmist in Psalm 119:136: “Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed."
