Ireland votes to legalise abortion – a desperately sad day

On Friday 25 May 2018 Irish voters backed the legalisation of abortion by a majority of two to one in a national referendum.

The vote repeals the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution — a 1983 measure that conferred equal rights on the baby and the mother, making abortion legal only to save the life of the mother.

The national vote was 66.4% to 33.6% with only one of 40 constituencies, Donegal, voting against it and support was highest amongst urban women under 25, 90% of whom backed it.

Before the referendum, the government had pledged to pass legislation by the end of the year to allow unrestricted terminations up to 12 weeks (see picture), and between 12 and 24 weeks to protect the mother’s health, if the amendment was set aside.

The Eighth Amendment to Ireland’s constitution, or Article 40.3.3, ‘acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right’.

In other words, it treats the life of the mother and baby as equal. From now on that will no longer be so and babies up until 12 weeks will be able to be 'terminated' with impunity.

Ireland’s abortion law will thereby become more liberal that than in Britain which allows abortion only on medical grounds specified under the Abortion Act 1967, even though this law is largely flouted. 

Currently in Britain 98% of abortions are carried out on mental health grounds, when there is in fact no evidence to suggest that continuing a pregnancy poses any greater risk to a mother’s mental health than abortion.

Abortion is not healthcare - it treats no illness and offers no healthcare benefit and remains against the Hippocratic Oath. It is, at the end of the day, just killing.

What can we expect now in Ireland?

In 2016 3,265 Irish women travelled to England and Wales to have abortions. But once it is legal in Ireland the number of abortions in that country is expected to rise to 13,000 per year given abortion rates in Britain.

In 2016 in England and Wales, there were 696,271 live births and 185,596 abortions. That means over 1 in 5 pregnancies ends in abortion.

There have been over 9 million abortions in England and Wales since 1967 – an astonishing number equivalent to one and a half times the number of Jews who died in the Nazi holocaust. In fact, there are 43 million abortions every year around the world - almost one in two human deaths involving a doctor or other healthcare worker ending the life of an unborn baby.

Also 92% of all abortions in England and Wales are carried out under 13 weeks, so it is likely that a similar percentage will qualify in Ireland.

Today’s vote will leave Northern Ireland as the only place in the British Isles where abortion remains largely illegal.

Last year it was confirmed that there are 100,000 people alive in NI today because of the current law.

The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights and all other rights depend on it. Every individual human life begins at fertilisation and every abortion stops a beating heart.

But the Irish vote has confirmed that two thirds of voters there do not consider that life before birth has equal value to life after birth.

In other words, they believe that it is legitimate to treat babies before birth differently to those after birth – on the basis of their age, size, dependency and mental capacity.

This is profoundly discriminatory but is being advanced ironically on grounds of equality, diversity and tolerance.

That it has been welcomed by most Irish is a stunning judgement on just how far the country has slid in the last 40 years.

But the roots go back to the sexual revolution and the widespread acceptance of sex outside marriage - it is also stark witness to the ineffectiveness of free contraception in preventing conception and the legacy of believing that people who are not willing or ready to be parents should be having sex.

Ireland, having held out for some decades against the rest of the so-called developed world, has now joined the pack with a vengeance. A society will always be judged on how it treats its weakest members. Women are not the victims here.

It is a desperately sad day for Ireland. The fight for the unborn will go on, but it has just been made a whole lot harder.  

Bill to ensure conscience rights for medical practitioners to receive Committee Stage tomorrow

The Free Conscience Campaign has just put out the following press release.

Baroness O’Loan’s Conscientious Objection (Medical Activites) Bill will go to a Committee Stage in the House of Lords tomorrow (Friday 23 March).

The Bill will clarify the law to ensure conscience protections are in place for medical practitioners to protect them from discrimination, enabling them to fully participate in their chosen professions and care for patients to the best of their ability. The Bill will give the right to withdraw from end of life treatment, activities under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act and abortion.

Under the existing law, some medical professionals are not protected from unjust discrimination. GPs, as well as many nurses, midwives, pharmacists, and other medical professionals have limited statutory conscience protection. As a result, some areas of the healthcare profession are becoming increasingly difficult places to work for those with certain deeply-held moral, philosophical or religious views. Not only is this discriminatory, it could also mean healthcare professions will become increasingly less diverse, inclusive, and representative of the views of the general population.

An Inquiry in 2016 found that some doctors and nurses face discrimination in the workplace due to their conscientious objection to practices that they believe end a human life.

The conscience rights of midwives were also undermined by a 2014 Supreme Court judgment, which held that the conscience provision in the Abortion Act 1967 did not allow them to refuse to engage in aspects of abortion such as telling someone else that have to carry out an abortion.

A recent ComRes poll found that a majority of the public oppose forcing doctors to participate in abortion procedures against their will if they want to remain in their profession.

The Free Conscience campaign, which has been launched to support the Bill, is calling on the public to visit their website (www.freeconscience.org.uk) where they can write to their MP, asking them to support the Bill.

Baroness O’Loan said:

“No one should be coerced by the risk to their careers into violating their conscience, and it is plainly inconsistent with the principles of equality legislation to exclude whole sections of society from areas of medical employment simply because of their moral beliefs. Reasonable accommodation of conscientious objection is a matter both of liberty and equality: of individual freedom and social inclusion. It is promising to see support from across the country for the Bill”.

Mary Doogan, one of the two midwives in the Greater Glasgow Health Board v Doogan & Anor case, and spokesperson for the www.freeconscience.org.uk campaign said:

“It’s reassuring to see this Bill is gaining momentum and continues to progress through Parliament. This Bill will restore the conscience rights of those who work tirelessly day in and day out to serve and care for others. As medical professionals, we owe patients not only our efforts but also our best moral judgement, and this Bill would allow us once again to practise with the greatest integrity. I fully support this important legislation and commend it to Parliament and the wider public”.

Dr. Mary Neal, leading conscience expert, senior lecturer at Strathclyde University and spokesperson for the www.freeconscience.org.uk campaign said:

“I am heartened to see that this Bill is progressing through Parliament, as it is necessary and much needed. There is a pressing need for statutory conscience rights which actually protect those who need protection. The current law fails to do this, so this Bill is a necessary and timely step.”

Baroness O’Loan’s Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill deserves our full support

As Christians, we are called to respect the governing authorities as they are instituted by God himself (Romans 13:1,2). But are there limits? What should we do if they try to force us to do something we believe is wrong?

The ‘Free Conscience’ campaign, launched this week with the backing of many Christian groups, supports Baroness O’Loan’s Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill which passed its second reading (debate stage) in the House of Lords on Friday 26 January. It is now set for a Committee of the Whole House where amendments can be submitted and debated. If it then passes a third reading it will pass to the House of Commons.

The bill aims to strengthen the conscience rights of healthcare professionals who believe it would be wrong to be involved in three specific activities – abortion, activities under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (like embryo research or egg donation) and withdrawal of life-preserving treatment.

Currently, the law offers general conscience protection. The Equality Act 2010 includes religion and belief as two of nine ‘protected characteristics’ and the Human Rights Act 1998, which brought the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) into UK law, states that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ (article 9). But these rights are limited.

When it comes to specific protections the situation is much less clear and statute law currently only applies to abortion and activities under HFE Act. For abortion its scope is very limited.

In 2014 the Supreme Court ruled that two Glasgow midwives, who were working as labour ward coordinators, could not opt out of supervising abortions. It said that the conscience clause in the Abortion Act 1967 only applied to those who were directly involved in abortion and not to those involved in delegation, planning, supervision and support. This left many health professionals vulnerable to coercion.

Overall 25 peers spoke in the debate – 13 for and 11 against with the government responding. Labour health spokesperson Baroness Thornton made it clear that the Labour party would oppose the bill and Liberal Democrat Baroness Barker said that most of her party colleagues shared her strong opposition also. The government itself will allow a conscience vote.

The major arguments against the bill were that it expanded the scope of the conscience clause to cover health professionals only indirectly involved in the activity concerned and expanded the number of activities protected. This, they claimed, would hinder access to patient care. Several peers also suggested that there should be a duty for professionals claiming conscience protection to refer the patient to someone who would comply.

Supporters of the bill will need to address these specific concerns convincingly at committee stage if the bill is to proceed.

As Christian citizens we must respect those who rule over us but the Bible is equally clear that if discriminatory laws are passed, and obeying such laws involves disobeying God, then our higher duty is to obey God. If you love me you will obey me, says Jesus (John 14:15).

When the King of Egypt ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill all male Hebrew children they refused to do so and God commended and rewarded them (Exodus 1:15-22).

A fiery furnace did not stop Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refusing to bow down to the image of the king and a lions’ den did not deter Daniel from persisting with public prayer (Daniel 3:16-18, 6:1-10).

When Peter and John were commanded by the Jewish authorities not to preach the Gospel they replied, 'We must obey God rather than men' and continued to do it (Acts 5:29).

Of course, we should also do our best to oppose the passing of laws which seek to criminalise normal Christian behaviour which is what Baroness O’Loan’s bill is all about. We can thank God that in Britain we still have the democratic right to participate in shaping public policy.

Freedom of conscience is not a minor or peripheral issue and it is not only Christians who are affected. It goes to the heart of healthcare practice as a moral activity. Current UK law and professional guidelines respect the right of doctors to refuse to engage in certain procedures to which they have a conscientious objection.

The right of conscience helps to preserve the moral integrity of the individual clinician, preserves the distinctive characteristics and reputation of medicine as a profession, acts as a safeguard against coercive state power, and provides protection from discrimination for those with minority ethical beliefs.

It is worth fighting for. Christians can get involved through the Free Conscience website which will tell you how to contact your MP and encourage them to support the bill. But it will first need to clear the House of Lords.

Some Big Public Policy Challenges in Bioethics we can expect in 2018

As we look forward to the challenges that 2018 will bring I am struggling to think of a time when we have faced more major public policy challenges in bioethics in so many areas all at once. 

This is perhaps inevitable given the march of secular humanism through parliament, the courts and institutions.

Here is some background on the five major threats currently looming.

1.       Assisted Suicide

Given that 11 attempts in British Parliaments to change the law to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia have failed since 2003 our opponents, not surprisingly, have shifted their attention to the courts in an attempt to change the law through the back door.

Conway, who has motor neurone disease and is seeking assisted suicide, lost his case in which CNK Alliance intervened in the Divisional Court in October, and his appeal to the High Court was denied. He now plans to appeal directly to the Court of Appeal. See my previous comments on the case here.

Omid, who has multiple system atrophy and is also seeking assisted suicide, had a preliminary hearing on 21 November and has appealed to the judges to allow a full enquiry in which all witnesses can be cross-examined along the lines of the Carter case in Canada. We await their decision.

There have been three worrying judgements by the Court of Protection in the last few months (see here and here). Formerly all patients with Permanent Vegetative State (PVS) and Minimally Conscious State (MCS) had to go to court for appeals about the removal of artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH), but now there are moves to withdraw ANH from these and less severely brain-damaged patients who are not imminently dying without going to court provided that both doctors and relatives agree that it is in the patient’s ‘best interests’. The Official Solicitor will appeal these judgements in the Supreme Court on 29 January. My fuller review is here.

A recent case involving a pharmacist (Desai) who helped his father end his life with a morphine and insulin overdose resulted only in a nine-month suspended sentence. The general trend is toward fewer prosecutions and convictions for assisted suicide and the DPP’s prosecution criteria on assisted suicide are being interpreted very liberally.

2.       Abortion

The ‘We Trust Women’ campaign (masterminded by Ann Furedi of BPAS) is gaining momentum and now has the support of the RCOG, BMA and RCM. Whilst there is no bill currently before Parliament (and none likely to appear before 2019) proabortion activists may seek to amend a government health bill to achieve their aim of completely decriminalising abortion (see my previous posts here, here, here and here).

This will most likely involve repealing Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (OAPA) which make procuring an abortion for oneself or others a crime punishable by life imprisonment. The effect would be to make abortion legal for any reason up to 28 weeks and, if the Infant Life (Preservation Act) 1929 is repealed too, up to birth.

Were this to succeed the Abortion Act 1967 with all its provisions (two doctors, licensed premises, reporting, conscience clause etc) would fall as it is contingent upon the OAPA.

There are also calls to relax the abortion laws in Northern Ireland, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

3.       Organ transplantation

Geoffrey Robinson MP wants to bring in an opt-out system for organ donation in England. His Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill is due its second reading (debate stage) on 23 February 2018.

In 'deemed' (presumed) consent, a person, unless he or she specifically 'opts out', is assumed to have given consent to the harvest of their organs after death, even if their wishes are not known. Although relatives may be consulted (a so called 'soft' opt out), to ascertain any wishes of the deceased expressed before death, their views can still be overruled by the state should they decide against transplantation. Wales already operates an opt-out system for organ donation and it is likely that Scotland will follow.

Robinson's private member's bill may be overtaken by a new government bill seeking to achieve the same thing. The government has just launched a consultation, closing on 6 March 2018, which proposes 'changing the current law on organ donation consent whilst also allowing people to opt out if they want to'. Both Theresa May, the prime minister and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition have signalled support and a Daily Mirror Campaign has built support.

However, evidence for the claim that an opt-out system will increase transplants is still lacking. In Wales, where an opt-out system was introduced in December 2015, there has been a small dip in the number of deceased donors. The Nuffield Council advised in October that robust evidence is needed before any change to the law is considered. But it is also unethical.

Donation must be without coercion and the final decision must lie with the family based on what the person would have wanted, if this is known. Organs are not the property of the state and must not be 'taken' without permission, however needy any prospective recipient may be (see previous CMF articles and blog posts here, here and here)

4.       Transgender

Under the Gender Recognition Act 2014, to change gender legally, one must have lived in one’s chosen gender for two years, be 18 or over, have a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and appear before a gender recognition panel.

Justine Greening, the Secretary of State for Education, Women and Equalities, wants to allow people to change their gender purely based on self-declaration without having to see a doctor nor appear before a gender recognition panel.

A consultation toward this end has been announced and is to be launched shortly. A Scottish consultation is already underway and closes on 1 March.

She has the support of both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn although there is now some resistance growing and recent reports suggest that Greening may be having second thoughts (see further comment here and here).

5.       Freedom of Conscience in healthcare

Currently there is statutory conscience protection for health professionals only for involvement in abortion and activities authorised under the Human fertilisation and Embryology Act. The scope of the former is restricted because of a Supreme Court judgement on the case of two Glasgow midwives.

Freedom of conscience for other activities (eg. Hormones for transgender, abortifacient contraceptives, PrEP, withdrawal of ANH etc) is covered only partially by equality legislation.

There were two significant victories on freedom of conscience last year. The General Pharmaceutical Council, which regulates Pharmacists and Pharmacies, modified new guidance which would have replaced a ‘right to refer’ with a ‘duty to dispense’, in response to protests from interest groups (see my previous comment here).

The Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health (FSRH), part of the RCOG, reversed regulations which denied those with conscience objections to some contraceptives, from obtaining its diplomas. This appeared to be in response to criticism by CMF.

These two wins underline the fact that conscience freedom depends on constant vigilance.

Baroness O’Loan’s Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill is to have its second reading in the House of Lords on 26 January 2018. Although this bill is much narrower in scope than we would have preferred (covering only abortion, IVF and related technologies and withdrawal of treatment) it has our support.

So, a busy year awaits. Watch this space for further developments. 

What does God think? Reflections on the 50th anniversary of the Abortion Act

50 years; 8.8 million abortions; 550 every day; 3,800 every week; 16,000 each month; 200,000 every year.

That’s one Airbus 380 or 32 Dunblanes every day. The entire population of Wales and Scotland over all; 15% of Britain’s population (watch this!)

Or to put it another way, there are 100,000 people alive in Northern Ireland today precisely because they don’t have a law like ours: sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts, grandparents even. Teachers, nurses, pilots, lawyers, drivers, bakers, artists, musicians.

One in five pregnancies ends in abortion. One in three women has cooperated in the death of her son or daughter. One in three men has fathered, and abandoned, an aborted baby.

Every abortion has been carried out by a doctor trained in the art of healing despite abortion being against the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva and the historic stance of the British Medical Association.

98% of abortions have been authorised on grounds that the continuance of the pregnancy constitutes a greater danger to the mental health of the mother than having her baby aborted.

But there is no medical evidence that this is ever the case making 98% of abortions technically illegal.

When a doctor makes a false statement on a statutory document that is perjury. But the police don’t investigate. The CPS doesn’t prosecute.  Judges give perverse judgements and parliament turns a blind eye. And the churches remain largely silent.

67 doctors, known to the GMC, who illegally pre-signed forms authorising abortions for women they had never met and who in many cases were not yet pregnant remain uninvestigated.

Two doctors who illegally authorised sex-selection abortions walked free whilst Aisling Hubert, the person who brought the allegations against them (because the CPS wouldn’t), is landed with a £47,000 legal bill.

Meanwhile the bodies of aborted babies are incinerated amongst with recycled waste to heat our hospitals.

And yet it is seemingly not enough.

The We Trust Women campaign wants to decriminalise abortion completely. Driven by abortion ‘provider’ BPAS, the Royal College of Midwives, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have given their support.

There are calls to relax the law in Northern Ireland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. The pressure is relentless.

Those who express a contrary opinion are pilloried on the media and driven from the public square.

And yet at the same time there is increasing disquiet about late abortions.

High resolution ultrasound videos; media stories of babies born alive following 'botched' procedures; doctors being forced against their conscience to refer women; reports of late abortions flouting the existing law; testimonies from women damaged or coerced into having abortions; the growing evidence in the medical literature of the links between abortion and mental illness, prematurity and (possibly) breast cancer; the sheer volume of spilt blood. At least with late abortions some people are beginning to wake up to reality.

But this simply brings into stark relief the fundamental conviction which enables this situation to go on.

Virtually no one would contemplate dismembering a newborn baby and throwing the bleeding body parts into a bucket – simply because the baby was unwanted, or even because it was the product of rape. It would be unthinkable. And yet the younger the baby in the womb, the more people regard abortion as acceptable.

In 2008 an attempt by MPs to cut the upper limit for abortion to 12 weeks (the European average) was opposed by 393 votes to 71. At 16 weeks it was 387 to 84 and at 20 weeks 332 to 190. The closest vote, on a 22-week limit, was defeated by 304 to 233.

And yet the European record for survival outside the womb is 21 weeks and five days and in the best neonatal units babies have good survival rates at 23 and 24 weeks (picture above).

Why should a preborn baby be accorded less value at 16 weeks or 12 weeks or eight weeks. They all have developed organ systems and beating hearts. And an individual human life begins at conception.

This is simply discrimination on the basis of age, or size, or neurological capacity – an arbitrary judgement akin to racism or sexism – it is just the biological parameter that is different.

So why do we tolerate it and rationalise it?

I suspect it is that we are all involved.

Abortion is an inevitable consequence of the lifestyle choices we have collectively made – a natural consequence of sexual immorality, the breakdown of the family, and the desire for a life unencumbered by dependents. We have parented aborted children ourselves or do not want to upset those who have.

What does God think?

The Bible links sexual immorality and the killing of children to idolatry (Psalm 106:37-39; Jeremiah 19:3,4); these sins are symptomatic of a nation which has turned its back on God, of an end stage culture. By contrast God calls his people to ‘rescue those being led away to death’ (Proverbs 24:11) and to ‘speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves’ (Proverbs 31:8).

‘You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb…when I was made in the secret place…your eyes saw my unformed body’, writes the Psalmist (Psalm 139:13-16)

God hates ‘hands that shed innocent blood’ warns the writer of Proverbs (Proverbs 6:16,17).

God ‘hides his eyes’ from those whose ‘hands are full of blood’ (Isaiah 1:15). He will demand ‘an accounting’ (Genesis 9:5; Jeremiah 19:3,4).

God was ‘not willing to forgive’ Manasseh who ‘shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end’ (2 Kings 21:16, 24:3,4).

How then does God view Christian doctors; keeping silent; playing it safe; embarrassed by those who dare to speak out; rationalising their involvement in the ‘difficult cases’; perhaps even oiling the abortion machinery and participating in the killing?

We can be certain that God will bring justice. Judgment will come. Innocent blood will be paid for. And yet God, the supreme judge, is also the God of mercy and grace who withholds judgment to give people a chance to repent, who grants us forgiveness that we do not deserve, who sends his own son to have his innocent blood shed by evil men in order to pay the price for our sin. Judgment falls on Christ the innocent rather than upon us the guilty (Isaiah 53:5,6).

And in response to this mercy and grace he calls us to follow him by carrying his cross and embracing lives of love and obedience: risking the contempt of the politically correct by being advocates for the unborn child; bearing the cost of providing compassionate alternatives to abortion for those who will accept them; being part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

8.8 million abortions. But it is not too late to change things; to reflect, repent and reorder our priorities; to speak out; to be advocates for the voiceless; to offer women in crisis something other than a curette; to tell the truth about the consequences of abortion for children, women and society.

God's word reminds us that righteousness exalts a nation (Proverbs 14:34) and warnings of judgment always come with promises of restoration and hope – provided we respond to God's call. The choice is ours.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

RCOG President backs total decriminalisation of abortion – no surprises there then

A leading doctor has this weekend called for abortions to be decriminalised and made much more freely available.

Professor Lesley Regan (pictured), president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), has said abortions should be treated no differently from other ‘medical procedures’ – including something as simple as removing a bunion.

Next Friday the RCOG General Council will hold a ballot to decide whether the College should formally back total decriminalisation, which would put further pressure on the Government to overhaul the law.

The doctors’ union (the BMA), the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and the ‘We Trust Women’ campaign by abortion industry leaders have already signalled their support for such a move.

Professor Regan said there had been a ‘societal shift’, particularly among medical professionals.

Of this there is no doubt.

The Hippocratic Oath, which graduating doctors used to take, says, ‘I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest such counsel, nor in like manner will I give a woman a pessary to produce abortion.’ So most doctors today, by their complicity in abortion, are in direct breach of it, which is ironically the main reason the oath has fallen out of use.

The Declaration of Geneva (1948), adopted by the World Medical Association after World War 2, originally read, ‘I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception, even against threat I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity’.

Perhaps most striking of all, the BMA affirmed in 1947 that ‘although there have been many changes in medicine, the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath cannot change’ and added that ‘co-operation in the destruction of life by murder, suicide and abortion’ was ‘the greatest crime’.

How times have changed.

From being the greatest protectors of innocent human life just 70 years ago it now seems that doctors have now become abortion's greatest proponents and facilitators.

Last year there were over 200,000 abortions carried out in Great Britain; one in every five pregnancies ended in abortion. Each one was authorised by two doctors and carried out by another – the former were largely members of the BMA and the latter either qualified or trainee members of the RCOG.

In total, doctors in this country have intentionally ended the lives of over 8.5 million unborn children since the Abortion Act was passed in 1967, 50 years ago this year. That is a huge number – five times the combined populations of Glasgow or Birmingham.

Furthermore, no less than 98% of these abortions were carried out on mental health grounds, although there is no evidence that the continuance of a pregnancy poses any greater risk to the mental health of a mother than an abortion.

In other words, as I have argued before on this blog, and on national media, 98% of abortions in Britain are technically illegal. And the doctors who authorise them are knowingly making false statements on statutory documents and thereby perjuring themselves.

Abortion is still illegal in Britain under the Offences against the Person Act. What the Abortion Act did was to make it admissible only when a limited number of criteria applied.

But the law in Britain is largely flouted by doctors - with loose interpretations, unsigned forms, sex-selection abortions and bullying of conscientious objectors - and one of the main private abortion providers, Marie Stopes International (MSI), has been under investigation by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for substandard practice.

This situation exists because, although the abortion law is still restricted on paper, in practice when its boundaries are crossed, doctors close ranks, the police do not investigate, the CPS does not prosecute, the courts do not convict and parliamentarians turn a blind eye.

Prof Regan thinks that abortion should be treated like the removal of tonsils or a bunion, requiring informed consent only.

At the moment she says ‘it’s the only medical procedure which requires two doctors’ signatures’.

But abortion is part of the criminal law precisely because the baby in the womb is a human being who, along with its mother, deserves legal protection.

In other words the law upholds the key principle that ‘both lives matter’.

It is because every abortion takes a human life that abortion has been treated as legally different from any other procedure carried out by doctors.

Regan, and others like her, do not attribute any status to human life before birth. This is why it is not surprising that she holds the views she does – because, in spite of the fact that her medical knowledge should lead her in the opposite direction, she sees the unborn baby as just ‘tissue’ and not as an individual human life.

Accordingly, it is not at all surprising that she wants abortion ‘decriminalised’.

Regan is president of the RCOG, whose members, like those of the BMA and RCM, are knee deep in abortion. We don’t know how many abortions Regan has personally performed in 30 years as a practising gynaecologist but it would be very interesting to know.

But even if she has not been personally involved it is not surprising that she would seek even less regulation and oversight for her colleagues than at present by pushing for abortion to be removed from the criminal law.

But how is this different from bankers asking for fraud to be decriminalised, taxi drivers seeking an end to speed limits, or tenants aiming to abolish rental contracts? Surely it is those who most stand to gain by a change in the law who should have least say over how it is framed.

The law is there to protect vulnerable people from exploitation and abuse. In the case of the abortion law it aims to protect both women and their unborn children.

It is parliament’s decision whether or not it should be changed – and they should be very wary of the vested ideological and other vested interests of professional groups (which are behaving like campaign groups) like the BMA, RCOG and RCM.

It is still possible that the RCOG General Council will not follow Regan’s lead and vote instead to retain the status quo next week.

But I am not holding my breath. I think they are already too deeply wedded to it.  

Troubled times - Is God giving Britain over?

The rollercoaster journey of the last twelve months has left many UK citizens feeling dislocated and anxious about the future of our country.

Political events – Brexit, Trump, a snap general election, a hung parliament, confidence and supply arrangements and the Queen’s speech – have laid bare deep divisions between old and young, right and left, urban and rural. These tensions have been exacerbated by four terrorist incidents in London and Manchester, plus the Grenfell Tower fire, in turn politicised and rechanneled into blame and recrimination.

There is no clear consensus emerging about how to resolve debates about ‘austerity’, security, cuts in public services, the burgeoning national and personal debt and the mode of our exit from the European Union. Our political leaders also seem to lack the confidence and skills necessary to show us the way forward. Furthermore, this cultural and political deadlock has divided friends and families and toxified social media. Britain is imploding.   

Alongside all this is a rising hostility to Christian faith and values. The British General Election may have turned the world of Westminster upside down, but in its aftermath evangelicalism has emerged as a key theme: the resignation of Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron over his views on homosexuality and the extraordinary level of public criticism of the Democratic Unionists (DUP) for their Christian beliefs and opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. With this resentment toward the DUP and its partnership with the Tory government has come a political resolve to extend the Abortion Act and same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland.

This intensifying backlash against conservative moral values on life and sexuality betrays a conviction amongst many mainstream politicians that Bible-believing Christians ought not to hold public office.

With social policy following such a liberalised trajectory in the media and corridors of power, one wonders if there would any longer be a place for evangelical luminaries like William Wilberforce or the Earl of Shaftesbury in contemporary British politics.  

It is not all one way – the recent decision of the General Pharmaceutical Council to allow scope for freedom of conscience in its latest guidelines was a welcome surprise as was the Belfast Court of Appeal decision to declare Northern Ireland’s restrictive abortion law compatible with the Human Rights Act. But the recent decision of the British Medical Association to back the complete decriminalisation of abortion and the government’s reflex decision to fund abortions for Northern Irish women traveling elsewhere in the UK were truly astonishing.

There are serious challenges ahead. The Queen’s Speech foreshadowed plans to combat ‘non-violent extremism’ and establish a Commission for Countering Extremism, which will ‘support the government in stamping out extremist ideology in all its forms’ (see here and here). Already voices such as the Evangelical Alliance have pointed out that ‘extremism’ is a slippery concept and there is no consensus about what it means. Might Christians holding biblical views on life issues and sexuality lie in its cross hairs? ‘Hate speech’ accusations and reports of ‘thought-policing’ in the public service do not bode well. The government already ‘has tried and failed in recent years to define extremism in a way that tackles terrorism and its causes without restricting freedom of ideas’.

The metropolitan liberal elite seem less tolerant of opposing views and more likely to believe that those with alternative convictions must be either evil or unenlightened or both. Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has remarked, ‘We are bringing up a generation to believe there is only one acceptable view on every issue… Schools are terrified of saying or teaching anything that might be considered inflammatory. Kids think people don’t have the right to opposing opinions. It’s Orwellian!’

We are living in a post-Christian society where an atheistic mind-set and the ethics of secular humanism have growing influence. The myth of secular neutrality holds that this is some kind of neutral default position, unlike the ‘faiths’ of Christianity and Islam. And yet secular humanists have their own strong philosophical and ethical convictions which are based as much on ideology as evidence, and which exponents are forcing on others using political and legal mechanisms. ‘Tolerance’ once meant ‘respectful disagreement’. Now it seems to mean ‘affirm my beliefs and celebrate my behaviour or else’.

The apostle Paul, speaking of a society that had similarly turned its back on God highlighted the link between unbelief and moral decay in talking of men who ‘suppress the truth by their wickedness’, neither glorifying God nor thanking him and futile and foolish in their thinking. That generation was guilty of three ungodly ‘exchanges’. They exchanged ‘the glory of the immortal God for images’, ‘the truth of God for a lie’ and ‘natural relations for unnatural ones’. Homosexual acts – along with greed, depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, slander, arrogance and hatred of God – were a key marker of such cultural decline (Romans 1:18-32).

As a result, God ‘gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done’. Is God similarly giving Britain over? If so, we can expect these challenges to increase in coming years – and as Christian doctors the need to preach Christ and walk in his footsteps will be as great as ever.

‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear…’ (Psalm 46:1,2)

Editorial from the Summer 2017 edition of Triple Helix, the magazine of Christian Medical Fellowship 

Doctors debate the complete decriminalisation of abortion at BMA ARM

Doctors could back the complete decriminalisation of abortion in Britain next week.

On Tuesday 27 June the British Medical Association annual representative meeting in Bournemouth will vote on a motion seeking to end all legal restrictions on abortion.

Currently, abortion remains illegal in Britain under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Under this law both mothers attempting to abort on their own, or any other person (including doctors) seeking to help them, are potentially liable to life imprisonment.

But under the Abortion Act 1967 doctors can authorise abortion on several grounds relating to the health of mother or baby. Although the Abortion Act was intended to be restrictive, allowing abortion only in strictly limited circumstances, its provisions are very liberally interpreted leading to the situation where one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion. 

There have been over eight million abortions in Britain since the abortion act came into being 50 years ago this year.  Department of Health figures for England and Wales released earlier this month show that there were 190,406 abortions in 2016 and that 98% of these were carried out on mental health grounds.

So in practice, although abortion is still technically illegal, the law is widely flouted and we have a situation tantamount to abortion on demand.

Now some doctors are seeking to decriminalise abortion completely.

The six part motion (motion 50), from the BMA agenda committee, is to be proposed by the BMA’s City and Hackney Division. It reads as follows:

That this meeting:

i) supports the principles set out in part three of the February 2017 BMA discussion paper on decriminalisation of abortion;

ii) believes that abortion should be decriminalised in respect of health professionals administering abortions within the context of their clinical practice;

iii) believes that abortion should be decriminalised in respect of women procuring and administering the means of their own abortion;

iv) believes that decriminalisation should apply only up to viability in respect of health professionals;

v) believes that decriminalisation should apply only up to viability in respect of women procuring and administering the means of their own abortion;

vi) believes that abortion should be regulated in the same way as other medical treatments.

It is likely that each part will be considered separately by the 500 BMA delegates with each section receiving a majority vote becoming official BMA policy.

The votes will follow an hour long presentation of a 52-page discussion paper on abortion decriminalisation which the BMA claims is ‘neutral’.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the country’s leading abortion provider, and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) have campaigned heavily for a change in the law in recent months.

This culminated earlier this year in parliament voting by 172 votes 142 to support Diana Johnson’s radical Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill, which seeks to remove all legal restrictions on abortion (more here).

As this was a Ten Minute Rule Bill it will not become law but it is most likely that a very similar bill will be reintroduced following the Queen’s Speech later this month, either in the House of Lords or House of Commons.

In theory, Johnson’s bill would have made the 1967 Abortion Act defunct by scrapping section 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act, which make carrying out abortions, or supplying drugs or equipment for that purpose, illegal.

Johnson implied that the 1929 Infant Life (Preservation) Act, which makes it illegal to destroy a child ‘capable of being born alive’ (the act defines this as 28 weeks although many babies born as early as 23-24 weeks now survive), may also be scrapped under her plans. If so this would make abortion legal for any and every reason right up to term.

The BMA motion has been deliberately crafted to match the terms of Johnson’s bill as part of a wider campaign to change the law.

Johnson’s Bill is primarily backed by private abortion provider BPAS. The decriminalisation campaign specifically acknowledges that they are campaigning for a situation that would remove all gestational time limits for abortion. This position was affirmed by BPAS CEO, Ann Furedi, who said at the London launch of the campaign, ‘I want to be very, very clear and blunt... there should be no legal upper limit.’

If such a bill were to become law, and this would be far more likely with BMA backing, abortions could be carried out legally in any location, for any reason, potentially at any stage during pregnancy.

Without legislation on abortion, practices such as sex-selective abortions, mail-order abortions and school nurses handing out abortions pills on school premises would all be perfectly legal. The conscience clause would also fall, meaning that health professionals might be forced to carry out abortions or lose their licenses to practise.

Last year the Royal College of Midwives support for the BPAS’ abortion up-to-birth campaign caused widespread condemnation from midwives, the media and the general public against this extreme proposal. Over 1,000 midwives have now signed the open letter asking for RCM position to be revoked.

If the BMA were to pass motion 50 it would be signalling that abortion should be treated in the same way as surgical procedures like having one’s appendix or tonsils taken out – requiring consent only.

It would also put the doctors’ trade union at odds with its historical ethical code and with public opinion in Britain.

The Hippocratic Oath forbids abortion in all circumstances and the Declaration of Geneva requires that doctors show the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception.

But this new motion, if passed, would entrench doctors’ position as abortion’s greatest facilitators.

In the last few years, polls have consistently shown that a larger proportion of women want more, not fewer restrictions on abortion. A ComRes poll in May 2017 found that only 1% of women wanted to see the time limit for abortion extended above 24 weeks and only 1% of women wanted to see the time limit for abortion extended through to birth.

The same poll found that 70% of women wanted to see the abortion time limit reduced to 20 weeks or below and that 91% of women favour a total and explicit ban on sex-selective abortion. Clearly, women want the law to be stricter on the legality and regulation of abortion, not laxer.

The BMA must not bow to the will of this small and extreme pressure group. Motion 50 needs to be voted down. 

If you are a doctor or medical student, you can sign an open letter to the Chair of the ARM calling for the rejection of Motion 50. If not, you can still sign the Citizen Go petition.

Diana Johnson’s radical abortion bill narrowly passes first hurdle but is unlikely to become law

You can listen to my Premier Radio interview on this bill here.

Today, Monday 13 March 2017, Diana Johnson’s radical Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill, which seeks to remove all legal restrictions on abortion, passed narrowly by 172 votes 142.

As this was a Ten Minute Rule Bill it is very unlikely that it will be given further time by the Government to be debated in Parliament. It is even less likely that it will become law.

In theory, Johnson’s bill would make the 1967 Abortion Act defunct by scrapping section 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act, which make carrying out abortions, or supplying drugs or equipment for that purpose, illegal.

Johnson implied that the 1929 Infant Life (Preservation) Act, which makes it illegal to destroy a child capable of being born alive, may also be scrapped under her plans. If so this would make abortion legal for any and every reason right up to term.

Johnson’s Bill is primarily backed by private abortion provider BPAS. The decriminalisation campaign specifically acknowledges that they are campaigning for a situation that would remove all gestational time limits for abortion. This position was affirmed by BPAS CEO, Ann Furedi, who said at the London launch of the campaign, ‘I want to be very, very clear and blunt... there should be no legal upper limit.’

If the motion were to become law, abortions could be carried out legally in any location, for any reason, potentially at any stage during pregnancy. Without legislation on abortion, practices such as sex-selective abortions, mail-order abortions and school nurses handing out abortions pills on school premises would all be perfectly legal. The conscience clause would also fall, meaning that health professionals might be forced to carry out abortions or lose their licenses to practise.

Last year the Royal College of Midwives support for the BPAS’ abortion up-to-birth campaign caused widespread condemnation from midwives, the media and the general public against this extreme proposal. Over 1,000 midwives have now signed the open letter asking for RCM position to be revoked.

The bill comes at a time where the private abortion industry is knee-deep in scandal and revelations of unethical, unsafe and unprofessional practices.

Last year, the Care Quality Commission had to step in to protect women from potential harm at Marie Stopes abortion clinics. Their subsequent report showed that women were left at risk of infection, doctors were going home with women under sedation, fetal tissue from a succession of terminations left in open waste bins, staff were not trained in how to respond to help deteriorating patients, 2,600 serious incidents were reported at the clinics and post-surgery safety checks were completed before the surgery had even started.

MP Maria Caulfield, who spoke in opposition to the bill, pointed out that its extreme position is in direct conflict with what the majority of British women want with regard to the UK abortion law.

One 2011 YouGov poll showed that 88% of women in the UK either want to keep the current law and time limit as it is, or restrict it further. This contrasts with the 2% of women who wanted to see an increase in the abortion time limit beyond 24 weeks.

Conservative MP for Lewes, Maria Caulfield, speaking in the debate said:

‘This Bill would not protect women. Instead it would embolden those men who pressurise women into abortions they do not wish to have; whether it is a controlling relationship, or the wider communal discrimination and pressure that tells a woman she must abort her child because it is a girl, or because it has Down’s Syndrome or disabilities. This Bill would make those women more vulnerable...

Indeed, by undermining all the safeguards and regulations around abortion... the Bill becomes a charter for extreme abortion practices, such as sex-selective abortion...

This Bill is a response to a non-existent threat; it would exacerbate the dangers posed by any increase in the availability of abortion pills; and it would remove some of the few protections and regulations in abortion law – fuelling unethical and unsafe practices in many UK abortion clinics, and leaving women less safe and less informed.’

Most people aren’t aware that abortion is still illegal in Britain. But what the 1967 Abortion Act did was to provide legal protection to doctors carrying it out only in certain limited circumstances.

However, the current law has been widely flouted and has resulted in 200,000 abortions per year in Britain and over 8 million since the act was passed.

Currently one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion and abortion is legal right up to birth for disabled babies.

Were Johnson’s bill, or another similar one, eventually to pass this already bad situation would worsen even further.

It is chilling that so many MPs supported a bill that removes all legal protection from these most vulnerable of all human beings. 

But this is Britain in the 21^st century and we need to wake up to reality.

Today’s events have shown that the price of freedom and protection for unborn children in this country is eternal vigilance. 

Increasing survival of extremely premature babies again raises questions about upper abortion limits

The increasing survival of extremely premature babies is again raising serious questions about the 24 week upper limit for social abortion.

Tonight, 6 March, Inside Out on BBC One in the East Midlands related how new treatments - including some trialled in Nottingham and Leicester - are helping to limit disabilities and boost life expectancy in premature babies weighing as little as one pound (450g).

Last week, under the headline “extremely premature baby saved by groundbreaking NHS surgical team”, the Guardian reported on the astounding case of Abiageal Peters who last year became the youngest baby ever to survive major abdominal surgery.

Abiageal was born three months premature in October 2016 at St Peter’s hospital, Chertsey after a gestation of only 23 weeks.

Her parents were warned at her birth that she had very little chance of surviving a severe gut condition known as perforated necrotising enterocolitis.

But thanks to the surgical team led by consultant Zahid Mukhta, Abiageal made an extraordinary recovery. ‘Any patient that comes into our system gets the best we can do for them’, Mukhta said.

Yesterday, the Sunday Times (£) reported that survival rates for babies born at 23 weeks’ gestation are now so high that up to 70% are being saved at some hospitals:

At University College London Hospitals, one of Britain’s leading trusts, the figures show that in the past five years, 22 out of 30 babies born after 23 weeks in the womb survived, according to new figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws.

At Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, 16 out of 25 babies born at 23 weeks between 2011 and 2016 survived, and at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, 9 of the 18 babies born at 23 weeks between 2012 and 2016 survived.

These figures are strongly at odds with those from the last national study, Epicure 2, which looked at babies born in 2006, and found survival of babies at 23 weeks of just 19%.

The best survival rates, not surprisingly, come from centres with expert levels of neonatal intensive care, but lower survivals elsewhere are nonetheless something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Although there has been no comparable national study since Epicure 2 to assess how survival rates are improving, many units are still being guided in their treatment decisions by these antiquated figures.

Lower survival of premature babies in some parts of the country is not surprising when, backed by the RCOG and BMA,  neonatal units apply blanket rulings on resuscitation based on a simplistic assessment of gestational age – which is often inaccurate – and fail to treat each baby as an individual in her or his own right.

This means effectively that that some babies that could be saved are dying from neglect.

There is an excellent article on this in the CMF journal Triple Helix by Professor John Wyatt which makes these points in greater detail.

These latest figures from centres of excellence demonstrate dramatically what can be achieved with a proactive approach and skilled staff and they highlight an unacceptable postcode lottery of care.

Every extremely pre-term baby deserves the chance to be considered for treatment and, even if curative treatment is not possible, to be given the best possible palliative care.

If there is a realistic chance that a particular baby can survive without overwhelming and catastrophic injury, then surely as a wealthy country we owe it to each child to give them a chance of life.

In this situation it is best to start ‘provisional intensive care’, giving the baby the initial benefit of the doubt, and taking each day as it comes.

But these latest figures will also fuel calls for the Abortion Act upper limit for able-bodied babies of 24 weeks to be revised (abortion is of course currently legal up until full term (40 weeks) for disabled babies, a situation which Lord Shinkwin is currently attempting to change with his abortion (disability equality) bill).

It is utterly incongruous that on the one hand we are aborting babies at a gestation when others are surviving with good neonatal care. Abortion at this gestation is tantamount to infanticide.

When this issue was last debated in Parliament, in 2008, MPs voted by a narrow margin not to lower the upper limit from 24 weeks to either 20 or 22 weeks. I argued back then (and again here) that it was time for change. 

But since this time survival rates have improved yet further and the composition of Parliament has also changed. At the last vote Labour government MPs were informally whipped to vote against any lowering of limits.

Were the issue to be revisited now there’s a good chance of a very different result.

A lowering of the upper abortion limit to 20 weeks would save more than 3,000 babies a year.

That may be a small start when we consider that there are around 200,000 abortions a year in Britain. However, for those 3,000 it would represent every difference in the world.

Ultimately each society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members. Neonatal centres of excellence in Britain are already demonstrating how worthwhile it is to make sacrifices for these most vulnerable of human beings.

Nearly two thirds of the public and more than three-quarters of women support a reduction in the 24-week upper age limit. 

76% of the public think that aborting a baby at six months is cruel. Furthermore, a 2007 poll by Marie Stopes International found that two thirds of GPs wanted a reduction from 24 weeks (more similar figures here). 

It’s time now for Parliament again to ask serious questions about late abortion.