Dr. William Oddie
for Crisis Magazine
I begin with two questions. Here is a statement by a person whose name is familiar to Catholics as that of a dedicated pro-abortionist, Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advice Service: “Viewing these cases as potential criminal offences will do nothing for the health of women and their babies. There is a strong public interest in promoting the good health of pregnant women and babies, but, as longstanding government policy recognizes, this interest is best served by treating addiction and substance abuse in pregnancy as a public health, not criminal, issue.”
My questions are these: what cases is she talking about; and if she is so hot under the collar about them, why hasn’t there been any engagement in this matter, so far as I can see, by anyone putting the Catholic point of view? If Ann Furedi is against something, the general rule is that Catholics should be for it (a principle well borne out in this case). She is, it will be remembered, one of the best-known proponents of the view that “Abortion, for many, many women, is the solution to the crisis of an unwanted pregnancy. It needs to be made available to them as early as possible and as easily as possible”; she is also strongly in favor of the easy availability of the morning after pill, which she describes simply as “early abortion using medication.”
Dr. William Oddie is a leading English Catholic writer and broadcaster. He edited The Catholic Herald from 1998 to 2004 and is the author ofThe Roman Option and Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy.
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