Pronouncements

Once again, superstitious nutters are trying to force the social agenda. This time, it's Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of that paedophile ring known as the Catholic Church. For some reason granted a private meeting at the Department of Health, he used it to urge a "rethink" on current abortion law. Now let's acknowledge here that our laws are not immutable. Maybe the current limit is too late. Maybe it's not. But the question is one that must be decided by empirical evidence and rational enquiry - when can we call a clump of cells a human being? Clearly, it isn't at the moment of conception - a view which is purely founded on dogmatic adherence to religious text, and a concurrent dislike of sex outside the realm of procreation.
Indeed, we should make a more general point, one which is possibly the underlying theme to many entries on WWPD - people who try to make such judgements based purely on dogma - faith, if you will - and not on reason and evidence, are ethical cretins, holding back not merely our understanding of the world, but our ability to do good. How can we decide what actions are ethical in the light of more evidence about the world if that evidence is discarded in favour of a book written something like 2000 years ago?