by Richard Morrissey, Anglican Ink.
IN THE 1980s, as a pre-med student at Trinity College Dublin, I attended a lecture that I was reminded of this week. Ireland’s State Pathologist, Professor John Harbison, presented a video demonstrating how abortions are performed: limbs systematically dismembered, a human life methodically destroyed. A couple of students fainted at the horror. I remember thinking at the time how this is marketed as simple healthcare, like having your appendix removed. The brutal reality, concealed behind sanitised language and closed doors, underscores why Parliament’s vote this week is so unconscionable.
On Tuesday, MPs voted 379 to 137 to decriminalise abortion for women at any stage of pregnancy. On Friday, MPs voted 314 to 291 for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, to legalise assisted dying/suicide. In the span of one week, the Mother of Parliaments has chosen to normalise the act of ending life at both ends of the spectrum.
Yet we’ve heard nothing so far from the leaders of the Church of England – not a sermon, nor a statement, nor even a post on X – on the legalising of abortion to term and very little on the assisted dying Bill. In fact, the official Church of England ‘tweet of the day’ on Wednesday was merely a reminder that it is Refugee Week! The Church, once the moral conscience of the nation, seems to have gone missing when Britain needs it the most. Just two of the Church of England’s 108 bishops had made any comment (at the time of writing) about the abortion vote. The bishops of Oswestry and Fulham alone have released a statement via the new Anglican4Life Society, expressing ‘grave concern’ with this week’s abortion vote and lamenting that ‘respect for the God-given dignity of every human life is being eroded’.