Today's spat about the time limit for carrying out abortions really is a bit of the old, old nonsense revisited.
Years ago, when contraception was poorly understood and abortion was simply a) illegal and b) not medically sensible, women often went to someone in a backstreet who carried out a variety of dubious and dangerous procedures in order to get rid of the unwanted foetus. It was commonplace for women to spend much of the time between their late teens and early 40s in a state of pregnancy, many children being miscarried, others dying during childbirth or in infancy, and the mothers themselves often losing their own lives at a young age.
In today's Britain, contraception is not only freely available but is promoted to small children as the way not only to avoid pregnancy but also to prevent the passage of an assortment of nasty diseases. Abortion has been available virtually on demand for more than 40 years with the current time limit being set at 24 weeks, although a few babies have been known to survive from a still earlier stage of development.
Despite the free availabilty of contraception and the endless sex education lessons given to our children, vast numbers of women still manage to become pregnant every year and then demand an abortion to rid them of the nuisance. The state pays for a large number of these, usually claiming that the procedure is necessary for the health of the mother or because the foetus has some form of abnormality, although the truth is probably that many of these claims are are of debatable validity.
We now have 2 government ministers making comments to the efect that the time limit for abortion should be reduced, one saying to 12 weeks and the other to 20. Apparently, the Prime Minister is also in favour of a reduction, though only referring vaguely to a 'small reduction', whatever that might mean. Inevitably, various 'pro-abortion' groups have immediately complained that any new restrictions will impinge on womens' rights, though they never mention the rights of the unborn child.
To my mind abortion is always wrong unless there is one of three specific reasons for it; either the foetus has a severe abnormality, the mother's life is at risk or the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest. One of the reasons currently relied upon in many cases, that the mother's mental health may be harmed by allowing the pregnancy to continue, is a nonsense and should be discarded forthwith.
These views are not driven by any religious beliefs nor by any particular belief in the sanctity of life; they are a result of nothing more than the application of a bit of simple logic. Given the amount of resources committed to making contraceptives and sex education freely available to all, there is surely no reason why any woman should ever become pregnant when she doesn't want to, barring rape or incest. That the nation squanders untold millions of pounds on carrying out hundreds of thousands of abortions every year is a disgrace. Nationwide, around 50% of all abortions are carried out on women under the age of 25 and something like 25% of women under the age of 25 who have one abortion will have at least another one before that age, another shocking statistic; the vast majority of these abortions are carried out within the first 13 weeks of the pregnancy, suggesting that the principal reason for the termination has nothing to do with foetal abnormality or the mother's health, but is most likely to be a 'lifestyle choice'.
The comments of the various government figures are irrelevant to the real issue. Abortion should not be seen as a form of contraception; time limits should have little or nothing to do with it. Genuine medical issues or the circumstances of the conception should be all that matters.
No comments:
Post a Comment