Abortion is 'the intentional destruction of a foetus or the inducing of a premature expulsion from the womb to cause its death'. This definition sounds rather barbaric and it leads us to ask who could support such an idea.

ethical training which enables them to make a better grounded decision than the pregnant woman. There will always be women that simply don’t want children and we should respect their views. There has never been a society known that has not had some kind of abortion no matter what the male secular and religious leaders have said. The argument about abortion is not whether it should exist. It is whether it should be legal, safe and dignified or illegal, unsafe and furtive. Ever child has the right to be wanted and loved and abortion helps to save thousands of unwanted children and saves society from many problems. It is more of a trauma for the mother giving the baby up for adoption than having an abortion as they have no time to become attached to the baby. There is also a very strong case against abortion. Modern science has proved that unborn child is a separate human being and not just a part of his or her mother’s body. By allowing abortion society is taking the easy way out and not giving life a chance, it should concentrate about improving life in society. Unfortunately for those in the pro-choice lobby the Christian viewpoint is very much against abortion with the church believing that life begins at conception. The Bible itself makes a number of contributions to the topic of abortion. In Psalm 139:13-16 it says: ‘you created every part of me; you put me together in my mother’s womb. /When my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother’s womb when I was growing there in secret, you knew I was there/The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book, before any of them ever began.’ This scripture emphasises the fact that to God all human beings are very important as it was he who allocated life to them. In Jeremiah 1: 4&5 it says ‘The Lord said to me, ‘I chose you before I gave you life, and before you were born I selected you to be a prophet to the nations’. This scripture shows how God finds every potential human as special. The Church as a whole makes it clear it is against abortion as traditional Christian teaching places the highest values on human life. The Church of England said in 1984 ‘the foetus is to be specially respected and protected’ but it said ‘the life of the foetus is not absolutely sacrosanct if it endangers the life of the mother’. The Church of Scotland described abortion as having ‘no moral justification’ but it said this was only in the ‘great majority of cases’. The Protestant churches tend to take a slightly more liberal view, with the Methodists taking perhaps the softest line, allowing abortion if there is a) a severe risk to the mother’s health, b) if the pregnancy was as a result of rape or c) if there is gross abnormality of the foetus.    The main church denominations take different views on the issue of abortion, with the Roman Catholic Church taking the view that abortion is wrong under any circumstances. It has been difficult to accept this teaching as in England and Scotland abortion is legal and relatively easy to have so people will openly accept the law as normal and reject Christian teaching. People also dislike the idea of God interfering with matters that we believe are intensively private. This is where the pro-choice lobby comes into its own by proclaiming that the body belongs to the woman not God and should be her decision whether or not to have an abortion.  I am asked as a Christian how I would respond when a friend of mine, who is unmarried, discovers that she is pregnant and what support and advice would I give her. In looking at a Christian viewpoint I would not reject her as she is in a potentially difficult situation. I would refer to the Bible, which offers quite conclusive evidence against abortion. This is definitely the case in Ecclesiastes 11:5 which states that ‘God made everything, and you can no more understand what he does than you understand how new life begins in the womb of a pregnant woman’. I would emphasise how she would be killing a potential human life for reasons of her own convenience. Also in later life I would assure her that she would be possibly guilt stricken knowing that she had had an abortion. In realising that abortion is a highly precarious option I would also point out that if the baby really did become too much there is a huge demand for young babies by couples that cannot have themselves. However this option could have produced problems with guilt over ‘letting go’ her child. I would urge her to have the baby emphasising that there is a lot of help available from various support groups and that she could rely on her friends also, although the baby will not be an easy prospect. As having a baby will be mentally and physically tiring she will always be safe in the knowledge that she carried out God’s will.