Thanks to the invaluable Tim Worstall, I read in the Torygraph that 8 month foetuses are aborted in Spain and that British doctors arrange for pregnant women to pop over there for the procedure.
... She said that even she had been surprised at how late Ginemedex were prepared to carry out abortions: "We told them [the clinic] a lie that she was 29 weeks when she was 31-plus weeks."
Dr Adlakha also made it clear that she realised Ginemedex was performing illegal abortions, saying: "They write down, and they tell you [that they will do this], that she is 22 weeks pregnant and there is a physical abnormality."
It is possible that this is an isolated case but the article inidcates that it probably isn't. One would hope there would be outrage at the idea that doctors - who are usually supposed to preserve life - would condone this murder (a baby born at 8 months or so has a 99% chance of survival), but it seems more likely that the government, the medical profession and the grauniad reading parts of the population will do their best to ignore the whole thing. Although the Telegraph reports that the Health Minister has requested full details of this investigation, one gets the feeling that he will do nothing more than slap the wrist of the doctor concerned and tell her not to get caught again. And one suspects that the chattering classes would prefer it this way. Certainly a quick scan of the BBC's website shows no mention of this story, prefering instead to concentrate on a new law that has been passed. As noted allovertheplace, however, unlike an 8 month old foetus, a small orange animal is now being protected from being killed in an inefficient manner and anyone who attempts to kill one in this way will be prosecuted.
If you think this shows a certain confusion of priorities then you would probably be correct. Of course it is worse than this. Rural property crime levels are soaring in the UK and rural inhabitants are likely to find themselevs in jail if they try and protect themselves or their property from thieves. Even if it makes some sense in an urban setting to just call the police and expect them to show up before the intruder has had his way, it makes almost no sense to do the same thing in the countryside where a quick response is going to take half an hour and a more usual one would take two or three times that. This means that the burglar who decides to visit an isolated house in the countryside has almost no risk of being either stopped or caught later.
To New Labour foxes are more important that unborn babies or rural householders. Does that seem right to you?