Qualified Concerns

A judge's order for the termination of a pregnancy against the wishes of the mother and her family has prompted a moral intervention by that paragon among protectors of female rights, the Church of Rome. The pregnant woman has significant learning difficulties and mental health problems; her own mother, who had offered to care for the child, is apparently from Nigeria and "may return to her home country at some point;" which may or may not be a judicial hint that the lady might one day fall victim to the Home Office's zeal for pure British breeding. Meanwhile the Church, which once claimed to regard the will of God as supreme, has undergone a sudden conversion to the cause of human rights. While admitting that not all the facts are known, a bishop wagged his finger about the meaning of "best interests" when a parishioner lacks mental capacity and is subject to the decision of a secular court against the will of the Vatican. In the case of a woman forced to give birth against her will, given his concern for human rights over divine edicts no doubt the same bishop would have raised exactly the same worries. Oddly enough, the bishop also expressed concern about the rights of the uterine growth, which surely has little to fear since the sixteenth Daddy Goodspeak abolished Limbo with a wave of his hand a dozen years ago.