Joining the Catholics and evangelicals, that pathetic weather-vane windbag, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has now dithered his way into the debate. Wobbly Williams is hand-wringing over "too many" abortions and loss of "moral focus" and "weakening of the feeling that abortion is the last resort". His Observer article last Sunday calling for a review of the 24-week limit was an archetypal self-parody, wandering around the moral maze and getting lost. Too many! Either abortion is murder - which some think - or it isn't, which 83% think in a new NOP poll. So are a few murders OK with the archbishop, and if so, how many? His contribution was yet another intellectual contortion to mollify his church's woman-hating, gay-bashing, Daily Mail wing instead of standing up for whatever it is he thinks.
Which is, of course, nonsense. It is entirely possible to believe that something is not morally equivalent to murder and is still morally wrong. It is also possible to believe that something is morally licit but ought to be the option of last resort, hence the slogan "safe, legal and rare". So presumably either Williams thinks that abortion is morally wrong, but not equivalent to murder (which, incidentally, puts him in the same camp as Augustine and Aquinas) or something that in some circumstances is allowable but ought not to be common. Neither of which strike me as being dishonourable or obviously absurd positions.
What is it about abortion that brings this sort of thing out in people? I remember asking a friend of mine what he thought about the issue and he replied that he was against abortion but thought that pro-lifers were a bunch of loonies so he tried to stay off the issue. On some issues if one is unsure one can have a look at who lines up how and judge accordingly. On abortion you either have the screaming angry people who think you want to murder babies or the screaming angry people who think you hate women. As I find screaming angry people disconcerting I tend to flip-flop a lot. At the moment Planet Zinfandel favours a review of the time limits, an end to the two signature rule, better sex education and better access to contraception. This may change if I think of something else or I come across an argument I find convincing and where I feel that I'm not being hectored.
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