It is difficult to find words to describe the British parliament voting to legalise of a mother killing her unborn child, for any reason she wishes, at any time, up until the moment of birth (at which point it then becomes in law a heinous offence, leaving the perpetrator liable to the maximum penalty in British law of life imprisonment). This, as if there were something magical about passing down the birth canal which transforms the baby from having no rights whatsoever, fewer rights in law even than a pet hamster, into someone who suddenly has the full set of human rights.
This distinction (which end of the birth canal you are) is of course entirely arbitrary, and it remains to be seen what judges and parliamentarians will do with it in future. How long until it is argued that Mother Smith was just about to have the child hacked to death or have its skull pierced and brains vaccuumed out, as was her hard-won legal right, when unfortunately labour began, and child was unexpectedly delivered two weeks prematurely, depriving said Mother of her rights to bash its skull in instead of now having a legal duty to raise it responsibly and lovingly to adulthood? Why does a 40-week baby still in the womb have zero rights, whilst, if born 5 weeks early, those rights are received? It can't be because "in the womb the baby is dependent upon its mother", because in law, parents have non-negotiable responsibility to take care of their children until adulthood. Baby is dependent upon its mother after being born too. And so as I say, how long will this current, inconsistent settlement stand (for the previous inconsistent settlement could not)? And what is this horrific doctrine, that anyone who is dependent has no rights and can be killed, by any means whatsoever, without consequence? Who in the world is independent in any case? Do all those who voted for this reach their current stage in life having been abandoned at the moment of birth to their own glorious independence? Last time I checked, we had a government dominated by self-proclaimed socialists, at any rate.
The brute fact is that parliament has voted that the weak and vulnerable can legally be killed, should their lives be deemed to be undesirable by those who hold power over them. We delude ourselves, of course, if we pretend that this is a new thing. Thus has human government, human authority, ever operated, when it has been allowed to. Thus has the British government long operated, though for the 60 years until now in the case of human abortion under the pretence that it was still legally a crime and that there were proper "checks and balances" to prevent abuses, as if the ending of innocent life (rather than vigorous activity to defend it) were not in itself always an inherently heinous abuse. We pretend to be sophisticated, and we look down on the moral reprobates of previous centuries. The Romans, if they did not want a child, left it on a rubbish heap to die from exposure after its birth. We pretend that they are savages, but we are enlightened, because.... because what? Because we do our killing using pills, scalpels and vacuums instead of leaving it to the elements?
God, have mercy. This is us. This is who we are. This is what we want, and this is how we wish to live our lives. If anything should get in the way of self, then let its blood be poured out, has been our cry. Now we begin to throw off the pretence and to show who we are more openly. We hate God, and we love death. And God is allowing us to have what we wish for. God, save us from ourselves. May the death of your Son deliver us, and deliver the innocent who are assigned for slaughter.
