TO MAKE ABORTION an election issue is not only irresponsible, it is dangerous too. It takes us into the alien territory of single-issue politics, it gives extremists a legitimate voice, it exposes us all — candidates and voters alike — to the threats and moral blackmail which have infected political campaigning in America. I cannot think why Michael Howard allowed himself to be talked into making it a party issue. I am shocked that Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has gone along with him. I can only hope that Tony Blair will continue to set his face against following them down this treacherous path.

No one denies the passionate arguments to be made, on both sides, about the upper limit of 24 weeks on abortion decisions. Medical science has advanced so rapidly that tiny babies which would once have been considered incapable of surviving are now delivered, and can go on to develop into normal, healthy children. Through the miracles of 3D scan pictures, we can see, with a clarity that was denied us back in the distant days of the 1967 Abortion Bill, the way that a foetus of barely 20 weeks old has begun to acquire the characteristics of a human being. The nerve cells of the brain, which are the receptors of thought and consciousness, have begun to function; responses to outside stimulus can be detected. Who is to say that this is not, already, a conscious being?

All this, however, has to be weighed carefully against the pro-choice argument which is, at its simplest level, that the decision to terminate a pregnancy is best left to a woman and her family doctor, without the interference of government. The reasons for termination are so various and so personal, that legislation should intrude only as a last resort. That view has prevailed in Britain for the best part of 40 years, as has the conclusion of MPs and experts that changing the law should be undertaken only after considered discussion by a parliamentary committee, and then left as a matter for individual conscience. Traditionally, legislation is brought forward by a Private Member’s Bill rather than as a government measure, and MPs are allowed a free vote.

Mr Howard’s comment that he intends to press for a lowering of the abortion time limit from 24 to 20 weeks converts the personal to the overtly political. At any other time, this might have been seen simply as an expression of his own opinion. Right now, in the run-up to an election, it is petrol to the flame, fuelling the argument put by anti-abortion campaigners, and giving their more extreme supporters a legitimacy which will be relished — and used to the full. Mr Howard aired his view in the course of a general interview with Cosmopolitan magazine, and may not, therefore, have thought through the full consequences of what he said. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor had no such excuse. He committed himself and his Church to paper, issuing a letter which urged Catholics to question parliamentary candidates and scrutinise their attitudes on right-to-life issues. Lest we be in any doubt that this was a political issue, he added: “It is very important that this debate has been opened into the public arena, both in the lead-up to and after the election. Abortion, for Catholics, is a very key issue, we are totally opposed to it. The policy supported by Mr Howard is one that we would also commend, on the way to the full abandonment of abortion.”

This is not only pitching the Catholic Church into the fiery centre of British politics, it is sending an unmistakable signal to those for whom campaigning against abortion is a matter of life and death. Testing the credentials of those who stand for public office is what organisations such as Christian Voice and the UK Life League do as a matter of course, and they have already shown that they are capable of adapting American pressure tactics to British conditions. Christian Voice used blatant blackmail to persuade the charity Maggie’s Centres to refuse a contribution from the Jerry Springer musical, and gave out the private telephone numbers of BBC executives who transmitted it. It compares abortion to the Holocaust, and accuses those who practise it of being Nazis. It carries headlines like “You Slaughtered my Children” and “Britain in Sin”, and accuses Parliament of legislating against “every single one of the ten commandments”. This is remarkably similar to the language used by evangelical movements in America which campaign against abortion, homosexuality and blasphemy, take the Bible as literal truth and use mass picketing to intimidate opponents.

In Britain it was once possible to dismiss these groups as part of an irrelevant fringe. With the decline of mainstream religion, however, this country too is becoming fertile territory for the fundamentalists. They will seize on Mr Howard’s pronouncement, and use the backing of the Catholic Church to give extra weight to their own crude campaigning. One can only hope that Britain is too phlegmatic for the kind of tactics they favour. But Mr Howard and Cardinal Murphy-O’ Connor are doing their best to reverse the tradition.

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