The hard cases - where we stand

What do the pro abortion lobby and the pro life industry have in common? The answer - they both use hard cases as a justification for abortion.

This may sound strange but it is true.

Pro abortion activists push their agenda through discussing hard cases like rape. They use these difficult cases to push through more liberal laws.

On the other hand the pro life industry work hard to convince Christians that a little bit of abortion is necessary. Like the pro abortion lobby they use the hard cases to convince us that some compromise with evil is necessary.

Take, for example, the consultation carried out in 2019 by the Northern Ireland Office. Question 5b asked:

Do you agree that provision should be made for abortion without gestational time limit where termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant women or girl

Unsurprisingly pro abortion advocacy groups answered YES to this question. What is more surprising, however, is that two Christian organisations, a pro life organisation and a Church denomination also answered YES. All of these organisations effectively gave the Government permission to legislate for abortion up to birth on mental health ground. Unsurprisingly the government included this in their regulations.

The pro abortion lobby use the hard cases to push open the door to abortion liberalisation. The pro life industry use the hard cases to hold that door open for them.

Christians must be clear when it comes to discussing abortion. The following paragraphs shows our stance on the main hard cases highlighted by both the pro abortion and pro life lobbies to justify abortion. 

The Child Conceived In Rape

Abolitionism could be described as upholding justice for the fatherless. No one is more fatherless than the child conceived in rape. This is probably the most vulnerable group of human beings on the planet. A law which allows for abortion in this situation is a thoroughly iniquitous decree which makes the fatherless prey (See Isaiah 1:16-17; 10:1-2). The law must prohibit the execution of the child for the crime of his or her father.

Northern Ireland has a disgracefully low conviction rate for rape ofences. In November 2020 statistics published by the Public Prosecution Service showed that only 3% of all rape cases passed to them lead to a conviction.

Abortion protects rapists and allows them to continue offending. The role of the Government is to wield the sword of justice and to tutor society through the law. The criminal justice system must provide a strong deterrent to rape through stringent application of the law.

The Child With A Disability

Regarding physical or genetic abnormalities, the fact that a child might have a shorter or more difficult life does not justify the right to murder them. This exception for abortion is so facially evil, absurd, and heartless toward the preborn child as well as born people with disabilities that it's hard to believe anyone makes it.

Parents facing a difficult diagnosis must be supported through their pregnancy and their child should be treated equal to all others. Abortion is not the solution to the situation they face.

The Child Whose Mother Is In Danger

The Dublin Declaration is a document signed by over 1,000 medical professionals who state that abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of the mother. They say:

As experienced practitioners and researchers in obstetrics and gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion - the purposeful destruction of the unborn child - is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman.

There are instances where medical treatment is necessary to save the life of the mother. These treatments, such as chemotherapy, are fundamentally different to abortion, even if such treatments endanger the life of the unborn child.

Regarding situations where the life of the mother is in immediate jeopardy, there is no circumstance where the baby must be intentionally murdered. There are cases where the child must be delivered early, and in those cases, the child may have a lower probability of survival than a child born at full-term, but intentional murder must not be allowed as an option. Doctors must be healers, not killers.

An extreme case of this is an ectopic pregnancy where the embryo has embedded in the fallopian tube of the woman. While most of these cases result in miscarriage it is sometimes necessary to intervene in these instances by delivering the child at an extremely early stage of the pregnancy where survival is impossible. Treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion and it is wrong for the pro life industry to label it as such to the detriment of grieving mothers and fathers who have found themselves in this situation.