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In recent weeks, the world witnessed an unprecedented escalation in the war between Israel and Iran. A war that could assume the proportions of a global conflict, with a not remote probability that nuclear weapons would be employed. Against this terrible backdrop, the modern West is now helpless and incapable of reacting: instead of acknowledging its own errors, starting with the denial of those Christian roots that constituted the essence of its glorious past, it now seems to be in the grip of a mad rush toward moral suicide. Indeed, the British Parliament, after passing laws to impose penalties on those who interfere, even silently praying, with access to “abortion services,” has gone even further by passing an amendment to existing abortion legislation that “women should be excluded from the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929 in relation to their pregnancies, bringing England and Wales into line with Northern Ireland.” The amendment, tabled by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, passed with 379 votes in favor and 137 against.
The gravity of this step is enormous: any woman, even if she were to cause herself an abortion beyond the 24th week (the current limit imposed by the 1967 Abortion Act, which can be crossed only in special cases) could no longer be criminally prosecuted in any way for the act performed.
Members sponsoring this amendment cited as an emotional motivation the need to cope with the increase in the number of indictments in recent years: 104 cases in 2019 with an acceleration in the pandemic period for the remote prescription of abortion pills that can be taken at home within 10 weeks of the start of gestation. In particular, two emblematic cases were cited during the discussions to press for decriminalization: that of Carla Foster, who in 2020 was sentenced to more than 2 years in prison for performing an abortion at the 32nd week of pregnancy via abortion pills she obtained while claiming to be seven weeks pregnant, and that of Nicola Packer, who was acquitted of the charge of taking the abortion pill beyond the 10-week deadline after a trial that lasted nearly five years.
Antoniazzi called it “completely unacceptable” that Packer was “forced to endure the humiliation and turmoil of a trial.” If this reasoning were applied to all crimes it would be the end of criminal law and more generally of the established order. Any criminal could claim the right not to stand trial simply because it was “emotionally unbearable and humiliating for him.”
Thankfully, there was no shortage of misgivings: Shabana Mahmood, the Labor government's justice secretary, pointed out in a letter to constituents in her seat that “an extension of abortion up to the moment of delivery beyond the exceptions currently provided for would not only be unnecessary but also dangerous.” The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, on the other hand, warned that the amendment would lead to abortions “even moments before birth,” recalling what is happening in New Zealand and the Australian state of Victoria, where decriminalization is already well established, with an increase in abortions in the advanced stages of gestation.
On the other hand, a debate was held in the House of Commons on June 20, at the end of which a bill introduced by another Labour MP, Kim Leadbeater, called the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which aims to “enable terminally ill adults, subject to safeguards and protections, to apply for and receive assistance to end their own lives; and for related purposes,” was passed with 314 votes in favor and 291 against. Passing the third reading means that the bill will go through the House of Lords and then get Royal Assent from a king already nearing the end of his reign. Again, the bill has been publicly opposed by a good number of MPs from different parties who say that this dangerous change in English law would put vulnerable people at risk and end many lives through assisted suicide.
Two terrible attacks, then, on the beginning and end of innocent human life, marking a sad sign of death in a world torn apart by wars already sufficient in themselves to sow death and destruction. On the one hand, women are offered almost total power of life and death over their child, now close to birth, while schizophrenically continuing to consider infanticide a crime (Infanticide Act, 1938). On the other, it offers anyone a power of availability over his or her own life with the same nonchalance with which an insane parent would allow a child to play with a loaded gun and no safety.
