Archbishop warns over abortions

Writing in the Observer, Dr Rowan Williams claimed that people are close to slipping to a new "default position" on the issue.

With the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act less than a week away, Dr Williams said: "Many supporters of the 1967 Act started from a strong sense of taking for granted the wrongness of ending an unborn life."

He continued: "What people might now call their 'default position' was still that abortion was a profoundly undesirable thing and that a universal presumption of care for the foetus from the moment of conception was the norm.

"There has been an obvious weakening of the feeling that abortion is a last resort in cases of extreme danger or distress. Nearly 200,000 abortions a year in England and Wales tell their own story. We are not now dealing with a relatively small number of extreme cases."

He said there is a "growing belief that abortion is essentially a matter of individual decision and not the kind of major moral choice".

Dr Williams questioned whether the idea of it being a moral choice is indeed still the case, especially given recent discussions on making it simpler for women to receive abortion-inducing drugs at home.

"The pregnant woman who smokes or drinks heavily is widely regarded as guilty of infringing the rights of her unborn child. Yet at the same time, with no apparent sense of incongruity, there is discussion of the possibility of the liberty of the pregnant woman herself to perform the actions that will terminate a pregnancy," he said.

He also suggested that the present 24-week limit for abortions should be reviewed, saying: "This issue needs attention if only because of the fact that the existing law assumes a rather less developed state of medical science than is now the case."

The Archbishop, spiritual leader to some 70 million Anglicans around the world, also noted the way the anti-abortion movement is becoming increasingly vocal, leading to a "real tension with this growing normalisation of abortion". He stated society needs to question how it can hold a "steady moral focus" amid such a polarised debate.