LIFE: Torchlight Vigil and Prayer Service

St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Glasgow, 26^th October 2006

1. I want to commend and encourage you for your witness this evening to the sacredness and inviolability of unborn human life. We are convinced that human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. And from the first moment of existence, a human being must be recognised as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life (CCC 2270). So the right to life from conception to its natural end is the first and most fundamental human right, and is the condition for the exercise of all other human rights. For this reason, we really need to give a constant witness to our contemporaries that direct abortion is gravely contrary to the moral law (CCC 2271) and that procured abortion is morally illicit (cf. CSDC). 

2. Today our society is very sensitive to the issue of human rights. All civilised people would recognise the right to life as a fundamental human right. Unfortunately, this primary insight is now commonly interpreted in such a way as not to include unborn human life under the protection of this fundamental right. It is important therefore that our defence and promotion of human rights begins with the fundamental right to life, and keeps before our contemporaries the truth that the fundamental right to life must originate with conception. Unborn human life, the unborn baby in the womb at whatever stage of its development, is also the subject of the fundamental right to life. I know that many other Christian people, people of other faiths, as well as people of human sensitivity, agree with the teaching of the Catholic Church that abortion “is a horrendous crime and constitutes a particularly serious moral disorder; far from being a right, it is a sad phenomenon that contributes seriously to spreading a mentality against life, representing a dangerous threat to a just and democratic social coexistence” (cf. CSDC 233). I cannot emphasise enough that our yearning for justice, our promotion of human rights, must also be a defence of unborn human life and a campaign against abortion.

3. I commend and encourage you too for your dedication and perseverance because it now almost 40 years since abortion was legalised in this country. There is little political will among our national leaders to change the law on abortion. And as you well know, as soon as you begin to campaign for the pro-life issue, campaign in a civilised and democratic way (as thankfully we have no tradition in this country of violent campaigns against abortion) it seems as if all the fury of hell is unleashed, as the usual suspects pour out their scorn and vindictiveness and defiance. It is as if the powers of darkness know that in abortion they have established a bridgehead in the battle for the soul of mankind, and they are determined to disseminate the culture of death from that vantage point. So as well as dedication and perseverance, you need also need courage.   

4. But it is so important that we remain dedicated. It is so important that we do persevere. It is so important that we continue to be brave. It is commonly estimated that 7,000,000 unborn children have been done away with by abortion since legalisation in 1967. Figures reported by the BBC in May of this year show that 12,603 abortions were carried out in Scotland in 2005, 142 more than the previous year, and the highest yearly total since abortion was legalised in 1967. So the problem is getting worse, not better. Despite the millions of pounds spent on sex education programs, abortion is increasingly treated as just another form of contraception. It was this situation that prompted Cardinal O’Brien to seek a private meeting with the Prime Minister in June of this year to try to have the abortion law reviewed. Press reports afterwards said that the PM was “troubled” by the current legislation and would support a debate on the abortion law. However, the Department of Health issued a statement a few days later saying that the “Government has no plans to change the law on abortion.” It seems that every time there is a glimmer of hope that the situation can change, that hope is very swiftly snuffed out.

5. Yet our hope, our dedication, our perseverance is not without foundation. I will be bold and say that the intellectual argument is won in principle. There is no doubt of any kind that what is conceived in the womb is human life. For a few days there may be a doubt if it is one or two human lives. There may be issues about viability.  But we know without a shadow of doubt that what is conceived is always and only human life, and, if fed in the womb by natural means, will be born as a baby. A colleague of mine on the seminary staff was fond of saying that what is conceived is not potentially a human being, but a human being with potential. We need constantly to press home this point so that it will be seen and seen clearly that the abortion of the unborn child or its submission to other abortive techniques is the unlawful killing of a human being and is immoral. I think many people do know this. Doctors know it. Scientists know it. Obstetricians know it. Politicians know it. But it is an inconvenient truth, and they do not have the will to act upon it.

6. My dear brothers and sisters, in campaigning for life and against abortion, it is as if we have set our shoulders against an immovable wall. But the wall can tumble down when we least expect it, so we need to continue to trust in God, to pray, to campaign with energy and conviction, with grace and with love.