Faith in Britain

birth. As babies have been born and lived from twenty-two weeks onwards this is infanticide. It is also discriminatory and based on the weeding-out theories of the eugenicists. It is all too consistent with the view of some of the libertarian New Right who see disabled people as a liability - early detection and destruction saves unnecessary expenditure.

Although Conservative Members like David Amess, Ken Hargreaves, Ann Winterton, Alistair Burt, Alan Amos, Elizabeth Peacock, the redoubtable Sir Bernard Braine and others already mentioned, spoke with passion and conviction against these proposals, the stark truth is that they are outnumbered by those on the other side of the argument.

The situation in the Labour Party is even worse. Speaking for the Opposition, Jo Richardson and Harriet Harman made it clear where the official Opposition stands and what they would do if a Labour government were returned to power. They moved amendments to extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland, to allow abortion on demand up until twelve weeks, and to introduce a public blacklist of any doctor or nurse who refuses to undertake abortions. Support for abortion is no longer a conscience question for individual members of the Party; it is official Party policy.

The Liberal Party had traditionally allowed abortion to be a matter of conscience, although the SDP took up a pro-abortion position. The new Liberal Democrats inherited some of this thinking and Paddy Ashdown's Policy Committee passed a motion committing the Party to abortion up until twenty-eight weeks and the extension of the act to Northern Ireland. After protests from Shirley Williams, Alan Beith, Sir Cyril Smith and others, David Steel suggested to the Liberal Democrats' 1989 Conference that the issue should remain a matter of personal conscience. No vote was taken and although Ashdown privately promised that the Policy Committee decision would be reversed, this had not happened at the time of writing. Along with Neil Kinnock, John Major and Mrs Thatcher, he voted for the Third Reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

The Green Party claims a concern for creation and rightly argues for a holistic approach. However, despite the opposition of Christian members such as Tim Cooper (twice co-chair of the Green Party Council) they have taken pro-abortion positions. Like some Liberal Democrats, the Greens have been greatly influenced

by New Age thinking and this pagan view of life emerges in their language and policy positions.

For Right, Left and Centre, this issue raises fundamental questions. It engages with the most highly charged dilemma of liberalism: human rights. But for whom? Is liberalism about human dignity or does it treat people as functional units, to be socially engineered, lacking any essential value?