"Pro-life" v "pro-choice" -- or is there a middle way?
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On this week’s edition of BBC Radio’s Moral Maze, my colleagues and I discussed abortion.
The US Supreme Court recently overturned Roe v Wade, the ruling that established the right to abortion throughout America. The court’s decision has provoked marches on the White House to demand “a woman’s right to choose,’ while in the UK there have been both “pro-life” and “pro-choice” protests.
The number of abortions in England and Wales last year, more than 214,000, was the highest recorded since parliament passed the Abortion Act 1967 which allowed terminations up to the 24th week of pregnancy if signed off by two doctors. This also applied to Scotland but was only extended to Northern Ireland two years ago.
Some 85 per cent of people in Britain think women should have the right to abortion. But should rights also be afforded to the unborn, and if so, at what stage of pregnancy? Has anyone the moral right to dictate whether a woman can have an abortion? If a woman has the “right to choose”, does she also have to exercise responsibility towards her unborn child? Does the father have any rights in he matter? Is the language of rights even appropriate for this discussion?
My co-panellists were Matthew Taylor, Mona Siddiqui and Anne McElvoy. Our witnesses were Madeline Page, chief executive officer of the Alliance of Pro-Life Students; Ellie Lee, Professor of Family and Parenting Research at the University of Kent; Professor John Milbank, president of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham; and Kerry Abel, chair of Abortion Rights.
You can listen to the programme on the BBC website here.
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