Francis Gardom on Choose Life Week

‘I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before your life and death blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and cleaving to him…

Deuteronomy 30: 19-20

2008 marks the fortieth anniversary of the date when the Abortion Act of 1967, which legalized the killing of unborn children, first came into effect in Great Britain on the 27 April 1968. Since then, almost 7 million babies have been killed in this way. This exceeds many times over the total number of deaths sustained by the United Kingdom in the two World Wars.

Choose Life Week is intended to remind people of this. It will run from Sunday 20 to Saturday 26 April, and a number of London churches have agreed to participate in this by lighting a special candle and having available information which will enable those visiting them to understand what we shall be praying about. A list of these churches will be available from .

At Noon on Saturday, outside the west end of Westminster Abbey, special prayers will be offered for the victims of abortion at the Memorial to the Innocents.

By ‘victims’ we refer not only to those who have actually been killed – who include, of course, a large number of people who, had they been allowed to live, would have led lives of virtue and great benefit to the human race; ‘victims’ also aptly describes those mothers whose bodies have been damaged and their lives made a misery by undergoing, willingly or otherwise, what is undoubtedly one of the most traumatic experiences known to mankind.

Equally, we shall be remembering as victims those doctors, nurses and social workers whose consciences have been violated as they have found themselves being drawn unwillingly, or unwittingly, into co-operating with, or performing abortions.

An Act which was originally intended to be a humane gesture towards those undergoing potentially dangerous pregnancies has turned instead into a licence to destroy innocent human beings for the convenience of others. Those of us who fought against the very principles on which this Act was based, on the grounds that the taking of innocent human life

in this manner is not, and cannot be, the will of God, warned its proponents that the consequence of the Act would extend far beyond the intentions of its advocates: and time has proved this to be the case in reality.

Public opinion rightly condemns the suffering inflicted upon innocent people by warfare and exploitation. Whilst doing this it is easily forgotten that something very much akin to them has been going on in our midst for the past forty years.

As we predicted, this legislation has been followed up enthusiastically by those seeking to promote Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. Motivated, as some of them no doubt are, by their wish to lessen the toll of human suffering, those who promote such policies conveniently disregard the slippery-slope argument, on the specious grounds that, until their ideas have been tried in practice, there can be no certainty that they will have the consequences that its opponents predict.

Well, abortion has been given a fair trial over the past forty years – and its consequences are only too plain for everyone to see!

Please say a prayer during this week for its victims.