Abortion debate coming to the forefront in Britain while an unborn child is saved in Brighton

The battles over the legality and morality concerning abortion rights are heating up on both sides of the Atlantic. While Texas has voted to restrict abortions rights to terms of 20 weeks and less, Ireland has liberalized its laws, allowing legal abortion for the first time in the country of 4 million that nevertheless provides constitutional equality for the unborn. Irish religious leaders are preparing a court challenge.

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Meanwhile in Brighton, a town on the south coast of England known for hosting conferences, a heartwarming story has emerged in a place sometimes regarded as a modern day Sodom & Gomorrah. According to Christian Concern, Abort67 volunteers Pauline Peachy and Kathryn Attwood were outside the Wistons abortion clinic in Brighton. According to Pauline:

“A taxi stopped and a young woman got out alone. I thought she might stop but she hurried past, not looking at me. However she came out less than half an hour later. She stopped and listened then. She hadn't taken the pill. She took some leaflets, but when I showed her the little feet pin she started to cry. We talked together for a while. We asked her what help she needed to keep the baby, said that whatever it was we could provide it (God has never let us down!). We decided to go to a cafe where we could talk. She was afraid; her husband was afraid… She was a Catholic who believed in God. She wanted to have an early abortion because she thought it wasn't really a baby yet.”

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Then Kathryn added:

"After our conversation with her she was adamant she would keep the baby no matter what anybody said .I think that baby was saved through a combination of factors. Firstly, the Holy Spirit softening her heart through prayer. Secondly, our obedience to God to stand outside the clinic and openly share with her the reality of abortion.”

For once in England it is abortion that is under attack. Professor Jack Scarisbrick, Chairman of the charity Life, attacked doctors who perform abortions under mental health grounds. The latest Department of Health statistics show that 97% of abortions are veiled under this guise and Scarisbrick suggested that many doctors are not acting in good faith – a legal requirement for the doctor - and that subsequently most abortions don’t meet the requirements of the law. Over 180,000 British pregnancies were terminated last year when abortion was judged to be better for the women’s mental health than having their baby. But according to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists guidelines say women with an unexpected pregnancy “are no more or less likely to suffer adverse psychological consequences if they have an abortion or continue with the pregnancy and have the baby”. A 2011 report by the Department of Health found that abortion and carrying on with an unwanted pregnancy both carried roughly an equal risk of causing mental health problems for the mother. Churches meanwhile have discovered that many women experience significant trauma following an abortion, with some turning to support groups and other help in order to address the guilt and pain that have followed. On the other side of the coin 50% of abortions are from women in an unmarried relationship and one third are women aborting for the second time (or more than 2nd). In response to these figures, also from the Department of Health, Lord Steel told the Daily Mail “It is odd that so many women present for repeat abortions, some more than twice, which does suggest they are treating abortion as contraception. This was never the purpose of the 1967 reform.” Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, shot back: “Women who experience more than one unwanted pregnancies often do so in very different circumstances – as a teenager, maybe again in their 20s when they can’t afford a child, or it can be an unexpected pregnancy in their 40s, when they thought their fertile days were over. All these figures really show is that women find abortion acceptable and available.” Furedi is right that too many women find it acceptable and that it is easily available. But her statements on multiple abortions are a poor excuse that onlt apply to a small minority of women. What is good is that the issue is once again coming to the table for debate. The increased campaigning against the procedure and even the parrying responses from proponents are causing people to examine their own hearts and evaluate where they stand and what they should do about it.

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