In the end, I have to agree that life begins at conception. So yes, abortion is ending that life. But perhaps the fact of life isn’t what is important. It’s whether that life has grown enough to take on human characteristics, to start becoming a person.
In its early stages, the foetus clearly hasn’t, so I have no problems with early abortions. In fact, I think they should be given on demand, as they are in France, rather than the UK system which forces women to get two different doctors’ signatures in order to get an abortion.
But once an embryo has developed enough to feel pain, or begin a personality, then it has moved from cell life into the first stages of being a human. Then, for me, ending that life is wrong.
That’s why I couldn’t kill my Granny: although her life was ebbing, she was still there enough to ask me to kill her. I could recognise her. Killing a person, a recognisable human being, is murder. That’s why late abortion will always be tricky. Who are we to say whether the life inside is a person, or not?
The accompanying documentary is on More4 tonight.