Into the Labour leadership race, with all its infighting over who is the most purely, progressively Left, is injected an unlikely controversy. Rebecca Long-Bailey, the Corbynite candidate and MP for Salford and Eccles, is, it turns out, a Catholic. Who knew? All of us, now, as it appears that she takes her faith seriously enough to dare to depart from the liberal consensus on abortion. Ms Long-Bailey does not agree with allowing abortion on the grounds of disability after the standard limit of 24 weeks, and says she believes disability and non-disability should be considered equal when it comes to the value of human life.
Long-Bailey has made clear that this is a personal view, that she regardless supports a woman’s right to choose, and points out that she voted in favour of extending abortion rights in Northern Ireland. In other words, she appears to believe – as a number of Christians do – that although she personally finds abortion morally repugnant and not something she would choose to undergo, she nevertheless does not believe that... DT.
