May 21 2008
Ignorance or optimism?
No, not the old definition that a pessimist is an optimist in possession of the full facts, but a rather odd search term that seems to have landed two people on this blog today.
photos of mary the mother of jesus
May 21 2008
Desperately confused over the beginning of life
The complete confusion we have about the beginning of life in our society has been forcefully brought home to me today. Last night the UK Parliament voted to keep the legal limit for abortion at 24 weeks. This morning I buried with appropriate prayers the remains of a miscarried foetus which terminated spontaneously at 19 weeks. The family were distraught, not least because he looked so like a baby when he was stillborn (I hesitated at the pronouns in that sentence, having unthinkingly first written “it”.) Their grief this morning was that of parents who have lost a child, and that is how they thought of it. How long, however, can we, as a society, live with this kind of moral and emotional double-mindedness about where life begins?