Date published: 2005/03/20
The BBC says:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has joined the debate on abortion by calling for an urgent review of the current law.
Rowan Williams said scientific progress and the "rising number" of abortions made a debate on the issue essential.
Last week, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, called for abortion to become an election issue.
Dr Williams, writing in the Sunday Times, said he hoped the questioning of candidates could prompt a wider debate.
Tory leader Michael Howard supports a reduction in the legal limit when abortions are allowed from 24 weeks to 20 and has said current rules are "tantamount to abortion on demand".
But Prime Minister Tony Blair has made it clear he has no plans to change the law.
He says abortion should not be an election issue, arguing it is a matter for individual conscience.
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said he had previously voted for a 22-week limit but medical advances mean "I don't know what I would do now".
Dr Williams said the large majority of Christians considered abortion "the deliberate termination of a human life".
The current law had created a "groundswell of distaste" in the country at large, he said.
Dr Williams said technological advances had provided a clearer picture of foetuses' consciousness and sensitivity to pain, and helped to keep prematurely-born babies alive.
That had prompted "a sharper recognition of the foetus as a natural candidate for 'rights' of some kind", he said.
Dr Williams said raising the issue with parliamentary candidates - though unlikely to lead to any electoral pledges - could help to open up a necessary public debate.
"It would be a real failure if agreeing that it was not an electoral issue provided an alibi for taking it seriously as a public issue," he wrote.
Dr Williams insisted that Christians must be allowed to take part in that debate.
He said the idea that it entailed capitulating to what he called "a Neanderthal Christian Right that was plotting a takeover" was alarmist nonsense.
Williams hates gays and hates abortion and is part of the Neanderthal Christian Right (a.k.a. fundamentalist Christian nutters, like the people who run America). Isn't it amusing that the religious fanatics start quoting science to try and justify their fundamentally anti-scientific position. It is just the usual disingenous commentary one comes to expect from such people. They are not interested in reducing the legal limit for abortions from 24 to 22 or 20 weeks, they are interested in abolishing abortions completely, and if they were honest about their intentions they might get a bit more respect.
On this issue Blair seems to be the only reasonable party leader, although he will swing in the wind if and when public opinion does change. Too bad he screwed up so badly in Iraq, he might have been remembered as a reasonable prime minister otherwise.
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