The unborn question
Sir: The anti-abortionists seem to be having it all their way in The Spectator (And anoth- er thing, 17 August).
Readers of Scott's Heart of Midlothian will recall how in 18th-century Scotland a woman known to have given birth but unable to show the baby live was apt to be hanged for murder — so seriously was the baby's right to life taken then. This might be a moral clime favoured by Paul Johnson,
though it was one which also allowed slav- ery. On the other hand, it is probable that infanticide has been widely practised as a means of limiting family size, without incur- ring great moral censure, at least outside . the Christian orbit. Medical science has made abortion the easier alternative. Surely we should be thankful for that.
The abortion question is not an area where we can fruitfully look for divine guid- ance; we have to trust our common sense instead. The baby in the womb is biological- ly human, but not a human being, not therefore a person. Such crimes as slavery and the Nazi extermination camps were specifically crimes against persons, hence they have no bearing on the rights and wrongs of the unborn.
The nature of the life in a human foetus is animal not human, because it does not become a person until born. Killing it is a sad thing to do, but humans have the right to do it on the same grounds as they have to kill animals in accordance with their needs and convenience. If it were true that abortion involved murder it would be equally true that the ordinary process of menstruation involved accidental death, which is of course absurd.
Stephen Glover in the same issue (Media studies) asks, 'Can a leading abortionist ever have been so candid in public about his grisly trade?' I remember as a child being told by a respected elder, though not in this context, that if one were to overhear a group of surgeons discussing their work uninhibitedly one might think it the conver- sation of a gang of heartless sadists — whereas in fact it is only the shop-talk of caring, humane individuals.
Malcolm Vennll
17 Harnbrook Close, Wolverhampton,
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