It's not over - the Abortion Debate

When I saw the pictures of my daughter in utero, I was amazed and stunned. She was so beautifully defined. At 12 weeks, her whole body was visible and human. She was a very small person - but clearly a person. At 20 weeks, she was bigger still, more developed and the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

On both occasions, I thought to myself with amazement, "Legally, we don't have to go through with this." We can say, "We can't cope" and that would be the end of it. Rosie Grace, our most precious daughter - and frankly one of the few things in life I'm genuinely proud of - would be gone. According to the letter of the law, we have no 'Abortion on demand', but effectively, in practice, we do.

So the vote in the House of Commons last night - that the Abortion limit was not reduced to 12, 16, 20 or 22 weeks - was immensely disappointing and distressing. Here are a few thoughts on it, in no particular order.

1. Ann Widdecombe is slightly mad, and often a figure of fun. But she is not a hypocrite and talks a lot of sense. She plainly stated the obvious: "... two children of exactly the same age and gestation - one is in a cot with all the resources of medical science being poured into saving it and the other is quite deliberately being taken from the womb and destroyed. That is moral anarchy. That is a totally unjustifiable state of affairs."

2. What this statement belies is the fact that secular humanism's qualifications for life are utterly confusing and self-contradictory. Previously, secular humanists functionally thought that we can abort a baby that we had no chance of saving medically. Therefore, our defining characteristic for what constituted life was not the inherent value of the child in any absolute sense, but our scientific ability to keep that child alive with a reasonable degree of success. But now we can abort children that we can save medically. Where next? Even by a secular humanist's standpoint, we now have legal infanticide.

3. 71 MPs were prepared to reduce the Abortion limit to 12 weeks. 190 were prepared to reduce it to 20 weeks. 20 weeks is not great reduction and will not save many, but it will save some. And it is an admission that current legislation is not acceptable. David Cameron voted for 20 weeks. Gordon Brown voted to keep the status quo.

4. Remember the past. A hundred years ago people in Britain didn't think like we do now. They would have been shocked and horrified by the current state of affairs.

5. Understand the present. We seem to have no control over things as they stand. Public opinion is broadly pro-abortion, despite the immense pain and damage is causes to would-be mothers, and the obvious destruction of human life which undoubtedly causes great pain to God, the author of life.

6. Reimagine the future. In a hundred years time, people will think something different to what they do now. By God's grace, we have some say in what they will think. We hope and pray that in a hundred years, Britons look back on the current state of affairs and be shocked and horrified. So remember God's faithful, brave servant Wilberforce, who could see a future without slavery.

7. We persevere. We plan. And above all we pray daily 'Your Kingdom Come'.