Amendments Aborted

At last night's prayer meeting, we gave thanks for the failure of Dame Diana Johnson’s amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which would have made abortion permissible for any reason right up until birth. Johnson formerly served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Gordon Brown’s failure to win the 2010 general election removed the dame from this government department. Having her in charge of the nation’s children was like putting Freddy Krueger in charge of an insomnia clinic.

Her colleague, Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing and Acton, was also seeking to amend the Police Bill, campaigning for criminalisation of those offering alternative support to women outside abortion clinics, with the prospect of two-year jail sentences. Using the heavy hand of the state to criminalise free expression is chilling indeed. Huq was a former lecturer in sociology and criminology; I wonder how much freedom to express opinion she tolerated in her lectures. 

We evangelicals often lament the godlessness of our land, and the low levels of morality which derive from it. Thankfully, there is enough common decency left to recognise the horrors which these two women sought to unleash. For now, Molech’s appetite for the unborn remains only partially slaked.

Image by Lawrence Crayton from Pixabay