Pro LIfe Doctor Talks

This morning our local pro-life group were priviliged to have a talk by an eminent doctor. He was filling us in on the reasons for celebration and for concern following the weeks’ events in Westminster.

On the one hand, the government lost its nerve with regard to amending the Abortion Act, which saved us from an even more pr0-death set of policies (only one doctor required to certify the need for an abortion, abortion on unlicensed premises (ie every GPs clinic an abortion centre), nurses able to prescribe abortifacient drugs etc etc. This was probably due to the controversial nature of any changes, the Labour party’s current fragility and impending local and general elections, exacerbated by effective pro-life pressure.

On the other hand, with regard to embryonic research we now have in practice no real restrictions - as even the tentative one proposed lack substance as terms are undefined. So the creation of admixed (human animal hybrid) embryos is now legal. as is the creation of embryos as training tools for doctors wishing to learn IVF techniques and so on.

moreover simple concepts like parent have been so mixed up and complicated as to undermine any real meaning. Thus two lesbians may be the 'parents' of a child who may be genetically related to neither, and so on.

One of the key points was that this confusion is inherent in an approach that 'drives a coach and horses through the natural moral law.' So Aristotle, Plato and Hippocrates would all have been aghast at what we are doing: it does not take Christian revelation (or Moslem teaching) to enable any person of good will to see that we are embarking on foolish ways...