by Charles Moore, Spectator’s Notes
Robert Bush, the funeral director from Hull, is being sentenced after pleading guilty to 67 criminal charges. One concerned a baby stillborn at 20 weeks. He told the mother he had cremated her son’s remains. In fact, he had kept them in a paper bag in his funeral parlour for nearly two years. His inaction and lies caused great anguish and public disgust. Let me add a wider context, which does nothing to diminish Bush’s evil, but may provoke thought.
Approximately 280,000 abortions are performed in Britain every year. Of these, about 2 per cent are of foetuses at or over 20 weeks (the normal legal limit being 23 weeks and six days). Thus more than 5,000 foetuses like the one Bush dishonoured are disposed of annually without ceremony, or formal means of mourning, let alone a criminal charge, and most people seem not to worry about it at all.