Letter: Churches could focus less on gender-sexuality controversies and more on abortion and assisted dying

I worked in several regions of Great Britain as an NHS GP. The scale of abortion is staggering in the UK.

An 'Evangelicals Now' (Jan 2024) article asks if the England and Wales abortion rate has risen far above the pre-pandemic 25% rate. It suggests that 33% of pregnancies are being terminated. Yet, perversely, we often seem to attempt to resuscitate or sustain people whose ability to enjoy life is limited. Our Lord speaks about offering "life in its fulness" as the optimal spiritual vision.

While working as a GP, in some remote areas of rural Scotland, I never ceased to be amazed at how many clients (aka 'patients' in that era!) declined the option of hospital treatments.

The rejection of Christianity sees the UK terminate the lives of perfectly viable children on an industrial scale. But the mainstream UK, no longer anchored to Christian ethics or philosophy, has sometimes strived to keep alive elderly people whose quality of life is very poor. Increasingly, some clients and families seek a DNR Order (Do Not Resuscitate Order), to make a clear statement to treating physicians or nurses.

With advanced years, frailty or poor prognosis, this can be a wise move, consistent with the sentiments of the Bible: 'There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die'.

However, the risk with so-called 'assisted dying' ('assisted suicide') is that disabled or depressed younger people might be drawn to terminate their lives.

We might see a new assisted dying crisis, equivalent to the abortion floodgates which opened with the 1967 Abortion Act for England and Wales.

Our Protestant Churches, for understandable reasons, have often been utterly fixated on gender-sexuality controversies. Should they be much more focussed on UK abortion and assisted dying?

Our Lord's incarnation saw him fully share human vulnerability. The metaphorical hand, which placed the stars and planets in space, for a time developed a human fingerprint.

Should nativity displays include NHS Dating Scan's picture of the three month unborn child?

Dr James Hardy, Belfast BT5