Great-Great-Grandson Says Wilberforce Would Have Fought Abortion.

Editor's note. As many readers know, it was William Wilberforce in the waning years of the 18th century who successfully led what seemed to be an utterly quixotic campaign to end the British slave trade. Last year, a wonderful film, Amazing Grace, was released about his story. (See www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/March07/nv030807part1.html.)

Lord Alton is modern-day champion of the unborn. He and other pro-lifers are fighting to make sure that if the first examination of abortion in England in nearly 20 years does not improve the law, the results at least do not make the situation worse. Lord Alton recently sent out a letter he had received from Wilberforce's great-great-grandson, Fr. Gerard Wilberforce, a priest from Plymouth Diocese.

I am writing as the great-great-grandson of William Wilberforce, who campaigned vigorously for the ending of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, which ultimately paved the way for the abolition of slavery itself throughout the entire British Empire in 1833.

I am often asked what would be the campaigns Wilberforce would be fighting if he were alive in 21st-century Britain. I believe that there would be a number of different issues, among them human trafficking and the scourge of drugs. But almost certainly at the top of the list, would be the issue of abortion.

As the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill comes before Parliament over the next few weeks, the opportunity presents itself to amend the abortion Act. With the number of abortions having reached 200,000 per year in the UK alone, the time is right to tighten up the law that was designed to protect women by ending illegal abortion, but never to allow such a high degree of deprived life.

There are great similarities between the status of the fetus and the status of African slaves two centuries ago. Slaves ...