Whether we are pro-abortion or against it, now is a good time to look again at the values we hold most dear and the experience we have had since the Abortion Act was brought into law. The time has come for us to be honest about its consequences — personal, social and spiritual. I hope, too, we can begin a new discussion which gets beyond the slogans, in which somehow valuing and protecting human life is pitted against the claims of individual freedom. I want to ask if we cannot find another way of proceeding that enriches the common good – the good of us all.

I come to the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act with a deep sense of anguish, but also with hope. My anguish is over the almost 200,000 abortions now annually performed in our country and for the women who felt they had no other realistic choice. Nor should we forget the need for men to accept their responsibilities for the unborn child. We allow abortion up to 24 weeks and sometimes later. We use medical and scientific language to shield us from the violence of the act and the distressful aftermath for all concerned.

Abortions are sometimes performed for relatively minor disabilities, many of which can be corrected after birth – or even before. I think this has implications for the way we view disability. I wonder if we are seduced into a search for a mythical perfection which makes victims of us all? Such developments seem to me to run counter to our deepest moral sense of what is good and just. Surely, the Act never intended this situation?

My hope does not lie in my religious faith alone but my faith in the deep sense of the value of life and our desire to protect and nurture its gift which I believe the majority of people in our country share. Emerging in the debates sparked by this anniversary is a palpable soul-searching among those with very different opinions on the morality of abortion who yet share both a profound unease with where we have come to, and an evident desire for change.

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