Senior clerics speak out for Alton

By Coky Giedroyc
WITH just a week to go before David Alton's abortion amendment bill faces its second reading before the House of Commons, England and Wales' two most senior Catholic churchmen have addressed large public rallies in an attempt to strengthen support for the measure.
Cardinal Basil Hume, on the eve of his departure for a month long tour of Australia and America, told a packed Royal Albert Hall in London to "pray fervently" for the success of Mr Alton's measure. The vice-president of the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales, Archbishop Derek Worlock, was also speaking out, at a rally in Mr Alton's hometown of Liverpool, giving his full support to the measure which aims to limit abortions to 18 weeks into the pregnancy, and not 28 weeks as currently permitted by David Steel's 1967 Abortion Act.
"Life and love are God's most precious gifts. They should be welcomed with wonder and thanksgiving" were the opening words of an address by Cardinal Basil Hume to the gathering at the Albert Hall rally in support of David Alton's Abortion Amendment Bill, on January 9. Before leading prayers the Cardinal spoke of the present permissive social climate as debasing love by casual and promiscuous sex. He declared that acting to destroy another's life by abortion is an act to deny God, a judgement on another individual's right to life which is not ours to make.
"Our society is paying a hideous price in unhappiness, violence and abuse for abandoning absolute moral values and deep religious faith. We refuse to be part of that betrayal."
The Cardinal recognised Mr Alton's bill as a genuine, if limited attempt to save unborn human lives. He described it as "a bid to turn the tide of death" worthy of every support and fervent prayer.
In a double page advertisement in the Times on Wednesday, organised by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, a distinguished list of politicians, medics and celebrities urged public support for the Alton bill. Amongst Catholics to put their names to the advertisement, are Archbishop Keith O'Brien of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Bishop
maurice Taylor of Galloway, Bishop Alan Clarke of East Anglia and the Duke of Norfolk, Dana, Lord Chitnis, Malcolm Muggeridge and MPs David Amess, David Atkinson, Nicholas Bennett and Kenneth Hargreaves.
Archbishop Derek Worlock of Liverpool also demonstrated his support for Mr Alton's bill at a rally in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, the following day. In an address, the Archbishop argued that the right to life from the first moment of conception in the womb should not be considered as an exclusively Catholic standpoint. "There are many Christians and members of other faiths and of none who share this teaching about the sanctity of human life", he said.
Archbishop Worlock was anxious to tell the crowd in the historic "Phil" Hall that he was not giving "a lecture on biology or bio-ethics". Turning to those who "yet do not acknowledge that human life is present from the moment of conception", the archbishop acknowledged their "good faith", but asked them to reconsider.
He dismissed the proposals put forward by many MPs that Mr Alton's bill wouid command much greater Commons support if he set the time limit at 24 weeks. "If in general they accept it, I must ask them to look at photographs now available of a foetus at 18 weeks and tell me what difference in principle is there between such a human form and the child whose rights they acknowledge at 24 or 28 weeks. Can human rights really depend upon viability?"
In addition to the London and Liverpool rallies last weekend, a further meeting to bolster Mr Alton's measure will take place in Birmingham Town Hall on Monday. The Liberal MP promoting the bill will be there to speak, as will Archbishop Maurice Couve de Murville of Birmingham.