Having recently celebrated the life and work of William Wilberforce, some religious leaders have called abortion-on-demand the 'new slavery'; the human rights issue that will define our generation's place in history.
It is forty years since abortion became legal in Britain.The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has warned that abortion is increasingly being seen as the easy option for women, perhaps just another form of contraception. In the process, he says, British people risk losing sight of the sanctity of life.
This last statement is supported by the fact that some notable supporters of a lower legal age limit for abortion are also vocal campaigners for voluntary euthanasia.
In 1967, when the act legalising abortion was passed, says Dr. Williams, 'what people might now call their "default position" was still that abortion was a profoundly undesirable thing and that a universal presumption of care for the foetus from the moment of conception was the norm.'
'There has been an obvious weakening of the feeling that abortion is a last resort in cases of extreme danger or distress. Nearly 200,000 abortions a year in England and Wales tell their own story. We are not now dealing with a relatively small number of extreme cases.'
Recently, several British newspapers carried stories of babies who were aborted for nothing more than having club feet or cleft lips or palates - minor disabilities which can be corrected with surgery after birth.
In an age where people love to jump on the high horse of this human rights issue or that, surely we should defend the rights of the most fragile among us, the truly voiceless in our midst.
We talk about human rights, but where is the right in this: we kill unborn babies while we fight to save forest trees?
Western societies are, for the most part, more violent than they were four decades ago. In the end, abortion as we now know it is about violence; it may be the ultimate form of bullying.
The pro-abortion-on-demand stance is an important one to several groups of people. First of all, to those women who might not want a baby or who feel emotionally or financially ill-equipped for motherhood.
I seriously doubt that any caring person would want to see a return to the days when single mothers were ostracised and condemned by society at large. People of faith will certainly agree, as it was Christ who taught us to love the marginalised and the hurting.
This love must be more than an intellectual assent to the idea of caring - it must involve practical assistance. But showing compassion does not mean staying silent when speaking up might save someone from wrongdoing and pain. There is such a thing as 'speaking the truth in love'.
The pro-abortion-on-demand position is also important to radical women's rights movements, who argue that abortion is purely an issue of women's rights.
As is often the case, liberal radicals are quick to demonize those who don't completely agree with their agenda, saying that those who would reappraise abortion-on-demand are 'anti-women'.
In actual fact, there is good evidence to show that being anti-abortion may in many cases be the more pro-woman stance.
Pro-abortionists like to talk about freedom of choice, but they rarely tell the truth about the after-affects of abortion: either the physical complications that can arise, or the mother's sense of emotional loss and grief which can take many years to come to terms with.
Thank God, the message of Christianity is that through Christ even that pain can be healed over time - though the memory doubtless remains, with support and love people can be given closure.
