Whose Choice Anyway

Even the 'strongest' of men and women, caught in a desperate situation, will resort to prayer. It has always seemed absurd to limit prayer to emergencies only. Prayer is a way of getting close to God, of allowing Christ's Spirit into our lives, of abandoning self and plunging deeper into His service. It is also an essential way of handing over the burdens and cares that can so easily devour or embitter us.

Throughout the months that the Bill was being debated all over the country it would have been impossible for me to function properly without the outlet of prayer. There is a limit to the emotional battering which anyone can reasonably be expected to take. Some of the hatred and bitterness which manifested itself at virtually every meeting I addressed seeped quite deep inside. Combined with the endless picketing of my home and surgery; the daubing of my constituency office with obscenities; and the constant sniping by people whose motives were often suspect; all this can be very bruising. Prayer is the one way of getting rid of that hurt. Getting closer to Jesus in prayer means finding comfort from a friend. His willingness to listen, to help and to forgive and His own wisdom come from the ultimate act of hatred. We talk of man's inhumanity to man but man's inhumanity to God takes some thinking about.

Perhaps the most direct confrontation in the spiritual warfare took place at Norwich. I had been collected from the station by the chairman of the local LIFE group. They had organised a private interdenominational prayer vigil at a local school. The event was scheduled to last all night and involved Christians from many backgrounds. A Down's Syndrome girl was to be present with her mother and I had been asked to begin the evening with a short talk about the issues surrounding the Bill.

On arriving at the school there were the usual group of demonstrators hanging around the gates. They do quite a good line in personal abuse. Anyone attending a pro-life meeting can expect to have their parentage and a lot of other things questioned. After running this gauntlet, those attending usually feel quite shocked, sometimes upset. Some understandably turn around and go home. However, by and large, that sort of treatment puts fire in the belly. Getting into our Manchester meeting was an especially difficult experience - with 300 opponents even I pounding drums in a piece of noisy ritual. Supporters had to walk down a narrow corridor which the police cleared across the pavements. One of the 3,000 who crowded into the Manchester Free Trade Hall later wrote to me to tell me it was this venom and the insults which convinced her of the necessity to make pro-life work her first priority in the future. At another meeting, at Leicester, pro-life supporters voted to stay put even in the face of the threat of a bomb which opponents said that they had planted in the meeting. All part of the war of nerves.

At Norwich, however, the protesters were not content to remain at the gate. They broke their way into the school and refused to leave the room where the vigil was due to begin. The chairman, who is a planning inspector, has had to deal with some