THE
P RTAL
December 2017
Page 7
In 50 Years 8,894,355
babies have been
killed in the womb
T he P ortal is grateful to Lord David Alton of Liverpool
for giving us permission to print these words of his
A t 11.04am
on Friday, October 27th, some of us gathered at Parliament to mark 50 years since
Royal Assent was given to the 1967 Abortion Act. A law which was intended to allow abortion in certain
circumstances became an elastic law, a law with catastrophic consequences. At the time, only a handful of
MPs recognised it as a dangerous and slippery slope.
Those 29 MPs who voted against its Second Reading
did so because they contested the repeated claims
that the law would be used only in extreme and tragic
circumstances. They were right. In the half century that
has elapsed since its passage, a staggering 8,894,355
unborn babies have lost their lives – one death every
three minutes - 20 lives ended every hour.
Conscience has been subverted, as evidenced by the
dismissal of two Catholic midwives in Scotland who
refused to become complicit in ending the lives of
unborn children.
Free speech has been subverted, with speakers like
Tim Stanley refused a platform at Oxford University
because of his pro-life views. Non-compliant
With routine and repea t abortions, what was once journalists, pharmacists, environmental scientists,
a crime has become a lucrative industry. The sums blue collar and social workers have been forced from
are staggering. Over the past decade, an eye-watering their jobs, while Jacob Rees-Mogg was recently told he
£757,832,800 of taxpayers’ money has been paid to should resign from Parliament for daring to defend the
the private sector abortionists. The Times reported right to life. Political parties have made it a question of
that the boss of Marie Stopes International (MSI) – to ideology. All of which smacks of a coercive liberalism
which we pay millions of pounds to carry out abortions worthy of a totalitarian state.
in Britain and overseas – received a phenomenal
Once the sanctity of human life has been thrown
£420,000 in one recent year alone (four times the Prime
Minister’s salary). Twenty-two of their employees were into open trash bins it leads to one enormity after
another: the creation and destruction of more than
paid more than £100,000.
three million human embryos, with only four per cent
As these operatives oversee the tragic, industrialised seeing the light of day; the grotesque manufacture
destruction of human life and fuel the conveyor belt of animal-human hybrid embryos; and attempts to
that abortion has become, what are the implications legalise euthanasia. The sloganeering culture of death
endlessly demands rights but ignores duties towards
for the unborn child, their mothers and society?
the weak and vulnerable. It elevates “choice” above all
Last year the Care Quality Commission criticised other considerations, debasing language and brooking
MSI after finding dead unborn babies in open bins. no opposition.
Think, too, of the 32-year-old Irish mother Aisha
This culture claims to be on the side of equality and
Chathira, who, in 2012, died in a taxi from a heart
attack caused by extensive internal blood loss after non-discrimination. Yet it takes no action when little
she had an abortion in an MSI facility in London. girls are aborted merely because of their gender or
But beyond the death toll, much else has flowed from when a disabled person can be aborted up to and even
this law. The medical profession has been subverted, during birth (as 90 per cent of all babies with Down’s
with the Hippocratic Oath quietly dropped from syndrome are).
medical courses because of its explicit condemnation
This culture builds on the eugenics promoted by
of abortion. Preferment in gynaecology and obstetrics
has become virtually impossible for those who refuse the campaigner Marie Stopes, who railed against the
“diseased and feeble minded” and “the very lowest
to comply.