The Human Tissue and Embryos Bill is due to be introduced into Parliament in November. The Bill is a matter of serious concern for all who promote the sanctity of human life. It would provide greater scope for embryos to be produced for research, allow more embryos to be destroyed in the process of IVF, and legalise the creation of cybrids, hybrids and chimeras. The Bill will even allow sperm or eggs to be extracted from children or the unconscious in some circumstances without their consent.
The progress of the Bill will also provide an opportunity for amendments to be tabled to change the existing law on abortion. Although the current availability of abortion is very bad, changes could be made to the law which would make things much worse. The current overwhelming pro-abortion majority in Parliament means that amendments would be brought in to increase the overall availability of abortion.
SPUC has started a campaign focussing on this bill. They also have a very useful briefing paper (pdf - 238Kb). This gives a helpful summary of the what the Bill would introduce and why we should be concerned about it. The Briefing also gives straightforward and helpful answers some commonly asked questions about the possible reform of the law regarding abortion and explains why attempts to lower the “time limit” for abortion can backfire.
4 comments:
I also did a post on this, which can be accessed here along with a link which allows you to email your MP
I just went down to a local café where they have free papers and glanced at The Times, where I saw a letter by Prof. Colin Frampton arguing that the Church should change its stance on abortion because at one time it allowed it in the early days of pregnancy before the sex of the baby could be determined. Apparently, the Catholic Encyclopedia (if I remember correctly) of 1907 says so. Therefore, if the Church has changed on this before it can do so again (though I'd have thought the argument works the other way, towards strictness rather than leniency, given that we know more about the early stages of life). Came back very cross. Do you know anything about this?
Yes, this is a common misunderstanding used by pro-abortioninsts. Following Aristotle, many medieval writers, including St Thomas, considered that the fetus did not become animated by a human soul until some time after the pregnancy had begun. We need not look down on such thinkers - they did not have the benefit of our scientific knowledge of the growth of the embryo and indeed the differentiation of the single-celled embryo.
No writer ever considered it anything other than gravely sinful to kill a fetus that had a human soul. Our present knowledge of conception and the development of the embryo and fetus before birth can lead to no other conclusion than that personhood begins with conception and that therefore - on the same principles as those used by teh medievals - abortion is always wrong from the moment of conception.
Thank you.
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