Why pretend a baby has no humanity until it takes a first breath?

WITH the release of its new abortion guidelines, the World Health Organisation appears to have moved from issuing technical guidance to make abortions safe for women to campaigning for the most extreme of positions.

Radical demands such as calling for abortion on demand right up to birth and allowing sex-selective terminations are driven by hardened abortion campaigners and enjoy virtually no support from the general public – and women in particular.

A recent survey for the BBC by pollster Savanta ComRes showed only one per cent of British women supported introducing abortion right through to birth.

In fact, 70 per cent of UK women believe our current gestation time limit of 24 weeks is too late and should be reduced.

The most popular time limit among women is 12 weeks, which would bring us into line with the majority of EU countries. And nine in ten adults – 89 per cent of men and 91 per cent of women – think being able to abort because the foetus is the ‘wrong’ sex should be explicitly banned by law. Aside from where public opinion sits on this issue, as a mother who has recently been through pregnancy, I am shocked by the position the

World Health Organisation has taken. When I sat at my 12-week scan, I heard my son’s heartbeat and saw him for the first time.

His body was already fully formed, with all his organs, muscles, limbs and bones in place. He could open and close his hands, move his arms and legs.

Seeing the humanity of him there, even at that relatively early stage, it is beyond belief to me that the WHO is calling for abortion to be legal right through to birth.

Why has it taken such a hardline view which pretends a baby has no humanity until it breathes its first breath? A view that denies every single one of those not yet born any of the ‘human rights’ the WHO so loudly exalts?

If one looks at the list of ‘experts’ it chose to consult ahead of issuing its new guidelines, a clue emerges.

For the panel includes numerous individuals who work for major abortion providers or lobby groups, including two of the largest abortion providers in the world – MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International) and Planned Parenthood.

It appears to have been written, to all intents and purposes, by the abortion industry.

The WHO has allowed itself to be hijacked by these extremists. It should recall this document immediately.