Yesterday the latest abortion statistics for the UK were published, and they make appalling reading. The total number of abortions has increased to 209,519. That is the equivalent of the population of Bolton, Aberdeen or Bournemouth. The true statistic is almost certainly much higher, since it does not include abortions resulting from use of the ‘morning after’ pill, nor from contraceptives that are essentially abortifacients.

The last few weeks have seen huge protests and demonstrations in support of the Black Lives Matter movement against racism, in response to the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. At the same time, we continue to endure lockdown as we seek to defeat COVID-19. Both of these efforts represent a natural human desire to protect life.

Yesterday the latest abortion statistics for the UK were published, and they make appalling reading. The total number of abortions has increased to 209,519. That is the equivalent of the population of Bolton, Aberdeen or Bournemouth. The true statistic is almost certainly much higher, since it does not include abortions resulting from use of the ‘morning after’ pill, nor from contraceptives that are essentially abortifacients.

To put this into some kind of comparative context, since the first death from Coronavirus reported in the UK on 5th March there have been 41,279 deaths, meaning that on average 421 people have died each day from COVID-19. If the abortion figures for last year are repeated in 2020, then on every day since 5th March 574 abortions will have been carried out. While we have rightly saluted the NHS for the courage and sacrifice that has been shown to contain the virus, 26% of these abortions will have been carried out in NHS hospitals, but 99% of the total will have been funded by the NHS.

Given that almost 14% of the UK population are non-white, it is inevitable that a considerable number of these abortions were of children with BAME parents, whether one parent or both. Yet there has been no comparable protest that these black lives matter, nor that all the other lives matter. Many abortions will have been carried out because of the fact that a child was disabled in some way, or there was a small risk that the child might be disabled, albeit that in many cases this would have been a very minor disability. This amounts to nothing less than a scandalous discrimination against the disabled and a programme of undercover eugenics.

In all probability the vast majority of these abortions were strictly speaking illegal,  because they fall out of the scope of the careful terms of the 1967 Abortion Act. The statistics indicate a significant increase in the number of older women having abortions, and 55% of women having abortions already had children. It seems that abortion is being used as a way of limiting family size and a de facto (or perhaps ex post facto!) form of contraceptive. The concept of ‘risk to the mothers health’ has been so extended as to be rendered meaningless, so that abortion is effectively available on demand.

At this time we are rightly reflecting on the evils of past generations, especially as regards the wickedness of colonial exploitation and slavery, and I hope and expect that future generation will come to see abortion as just such an evil, perpetrated against the weakest members of society. It needs to be remembered that in past generations the culture was blind to both the evil of slavery and racism because it was seen as normal, and also because it was too costly to give up the economic benefits and surrender a privileged lifestyle that true justice would require.

As Christians we need to lament and grieve this wicked evil, and it ought to make us righteously angry, in the same way that other injustices make us angry and determined to work for change. We too easily fall into silence and acceptance because the cause seems lost already. We rightly renounce violence, and condemn those who have bombed abortion clinics or murdered abortionists,  and sense that our secular society does not share our convictions or concerns. We have little realistic chance of changing the law in the short term.

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