There is something peculiar about the current proceedings of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which is taking evidence on whether there is a need for a change in the abortion law. Not only has the committee decided to disregard moral and ethical arguments and concentrate only on the "scientific evidence", but a sustained attempt has been made to discredit those expert witnesses who happen to hold views against abortion or who belong to pro-life organisations.

The issue is shortly to come before Parliament in the form of amendments to the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill. MPs - like the public in general - fall roughly into three categories: those for whom the foetus is a form of human life that must be accorded the protection of the law; those for whom a woman's right to choose whether to remain pregnant is paramount; and those who could be swayed either way by evidence and argument. It is this third group that is most likely to be influenced by progress in obstetric care, which has given a baby born at 24 weeks into pregnancy a fighting chance of survival. So the question arises: is it wrong to abort a baby that could exist independently of its mother's womb? It is easy to imagine two pregnant women side by side in a maternity hospital, one giving birth to a premature baby whom doctors will do their utmost to save, the other having a similar baby destroyed in the womb, possibly by the same doctors.

It is absurd for the committee to think that ethics can be left out of the equation. Indeed, in any other area of science and medicine the idea that the use to which science is put has no moral implications would be rejected as outrageous. But this is abortion, where almost no one thinks straight and the grossest partisanship is accepted as objective neutrality. Clearly, to the majority on the committee, to be pro-abortion is normal and those who oppose it are somehow weird, religious fundamentalists or worse. It is presumably to hold them ...

The chief responsibility of the leader of the Anglican Communion is not to be the last leader of the Anglican Communion, a burden that has weighed heavily on the shoulders of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, for several agonising years. By intervening in the deliberations of the bishops of the Episcopal Church of the United States in New Orleans, he raised the stakes as high as they could go, for had ...