The slippery slope of the Abortion Act

Dalrymple took to the pages of the Telegraph yesterday to address the moral issues arising from the recent finding that several doctors in England have been providing abortions to women on the basis of the sex of the child:

In fact, the whole sorry story illustrates the mess we get into when two notions become culturally prominent: on the one hand of rights and on the other of consumer choice.

Whatever the law says, most people now think that abortion is a right under all circumstances and not something that is permissible if certain conditions are met, as the framers of the law surely intended. That particular slippery slope has long been slid down. And the same people now conceive of life as an existential supermarket in which they are consumers, choosing the way they live much as they choose cranberry juice or the flavour of crisps that they want. And the customer in the existential supermarket, as in Tesco, is always right.

Into this poisonous mixture we must add the notion that any form of distress, or even the slightest frustration arising no matter how self-indulgently, constitutes an impairment of mental health: for the mentally healthy person is always happy and never experiences any difficulties in life. In short, inconvenience is the greatest of all threats to our well-being, and must at all times be avoided. It is our right to avoid it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.