Frameworks of Freedom

Thank goodness it looks as though the present media brouhaha concerning the review of the UK abortion laws (specifically, the possible reduction of the cut-off date from 24 to 20 weeks) is going to come to nothing. It has been utterly dismaying to witness a gathering storm of public righteous indignance being ruthlessly aggravated by a manipulative media, more intent on stirring up easy emotions than portraying a fair-sided debate. Thus a public opinion poll, cited (and possibly conducted) by GMTV's 'This Morning' this morning, put those in favour of a bringing forward of the cut-off date at an immense 95% - which would be a conclusive outcome for any issue for which public opinion had any real consequence. This figure is the inevitable result of the absolute irresponsibility with which the recent lifelike 3-D scans of foetuses (not "babies" - as the developer of this technology frequently said - the lax use of misleading language equally as irresponsible) in the womb have been cynically (mis-)used to incite natural human emotions and then harness them for the support of essentially unrelated politically dogmatic points of view (none moreso than in the deplorably unbalanced and cynically timed 'Dispatches' documentary last week, which also showed footage of abortions and aborted foetuses). As has been pointed out by many within the debate, the pictures add nothing to what we knew before. They are unscientific, unpolitical, inconclusive, and irrelevant to and obstructive of meaningful, measured debate. A picture speaks a thousand words. A moving 3-D picture of a baby conquers the possibility of discussion - of unprejudiced reasoned thought - in advance. Thankfully, despite all the shock-publicity, this is, and never should be, a matter for the general public to decide. It concerns only an extremely small number of extremely vulnerable women - whom the law must support and protect. The task of the legal system, as a system, is to accommodate, not to exclude and inhibit. Such devastating choices must be made within its bounds, not precluded by it.