Life After Death

1998 is the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Article Three states that, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". 1998 also marked the thirtieth anniversary of the implementation of the Brititsh Abortion Act. Over the intervening thirty years there have been five million legal abortions. In addition, up to 100,000 human embryos are destroyed or experimented upon annually, and moves are currently underway to legalise euthanasia. There are also attempts in Parliament to extend the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland (against the wishes of the politicians in the Province); attempts to remove even the minimal requirement for two doctors to sign the green forms authorising an abortion, and a proposal to further erode the conscience clause of the Abortion Act by creating a public register of dissenting medics - a blacklist intended to force yet more doctors and nurses to become collaborators and participants in abortion.

The purpose of this book is to reflect on these past thirty years and to challenge our contemporary culture of death. I am not anti-abortion: I am positively pro-life. I want to see a consistent pro-life politics and a consistent pro-life ethic. I am prowoman and pro-life. I do not come to this issue with a moral majority agenda but with a profound belief in the sanctity of human life. I am also convinced that the flaccid language of rights is worthless without a corresponding concern for responsiblities and obligations. All of these questions are explored in this book, but let me begin with another anniversary: the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel. The Holocaust and the death of six million Jews was the backdrop against which the new State was formed and the 1948 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights was drafted. It is instructive to consider again how pre-war Europe slid into eugenics and Aryanism - obsessions which first took mentally- and physically-handicapped people, gypsies, homosexuals, Jews and countless others to their deaths. Instructive to consider how few raised their voices.

Instructive to consider how Europe failed the Jews. In the book of Genesis the promise is given to Abraham and his people that: I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Jewish culture, community and family life, history and religion have enriched the world to a degree which is completely incommensurate with their numbers. The promise of Genesis that the world would be blessed by the descendants of Abraham is a promise which has been kept. These blessings have frequently been repaid in persecution and anti-semitism. The world hated the Jews because of that for which Judaism stands: the cry for freedom from Pharaoh's bondage, the sighing for justice by the waters of Babylon, the admonitions of the prophets, the belief in covenant and faithfuness and, above all, the endless and awesome desire to be right with God. The Hebrew Bible has at its centre a respect for the ideals of justice and the rule of law. This has been a part of the Jewish contribution to civilisation ever since. Few religions have afforded such prominence to respect for the law and its proper dispensation. The Ten Commandments, given by God Himself to the