Read the letter in full

Join the debate about religion

Abortion robs everyone of their future, the heads of the Roman Catholic Church in England Wales and Scotland said today, but they acknowledged that it would never be abolished altogether from British law.

In an open letter, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor and his Scottish counterpart, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, plead for “a change in minds and hearts” in British attitudes towards termination of pregnancy.

The call marks the 40th anniversary this week of the Abortion Act, which made abortion in the UK legal up to 28 weeks.

The cardinals said that a change in attitudes towards support for young mothers, along with greater emphasis on sexual relations within marriage, could lead to a decrease in the number of abortions without any change to the existing law.

In the letter, they stated: “The 1967 Act was intended to solve the problem of illegal abortion, on the basis that it was a major cause of death in pregnant women. Yet our countries now perform nearly 200,000 abortions every year.

“Whatever our religious creed or political conviction, abortion on this scale can only be a source of distress and profound anguish for us all...Abortion robs everyone of their future. Individually and as a society we believe we have another choice: to give birth to life.”

The cardinals set out their plans for reducing the number of abortions carried out in the UK every year. “Whilst upholding the principle of the sacredness of human life, it is both licit and important for those in public life who oppose abortion on principle to work and vote for achievable incremental improvement to what is an unjust law.”

This approach could be interpreted as a row-back in the rhetoric adopted towards abortion previously by the Catholic Church in England, Wales and Scotland. This year Cardinal O'Brien likened the rate of termination in Scotland to “two Dunblane massacres every day” and called for a reversal in the law.

Speaking on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor acknowledged that the Catholic Church was “not able to abolish abortion from the statute book” and defended the more pragmatic tone towards dealing with abortion. “I think there is such a thing as a gradual change and there are many politicians and the people who they represent who would be happy for a gradual change in the law,” he said.

He added that he was sure the Vatican would accept the approach taken by the English and Scottish bishops to press for a steady decrease in the number of abortions, but acknowledged that to engender such a change may “take years”.

The letter is published on the same day as a opinion polls showed that the majority of people support a reform of the law requiring the permission of two doctors when a woman seeks an abortion. The poll, commissioned by the campaigning group Abortion Rights, indicated that 52 per cent of questioned people supported a change in the law to allow only one doctor or no doctor to give permission before a termination is carried out. The NOP telephone survey of 1,000 adults in England, Scotland and Wales also found that eight out of ten people supported the right of a woman to decide to have an abortion, with only 13 per cent saying that they thought women should not have this right.