Every life matters. In complex and emotional situations, especially those that happen at the beginning or end of life, it is important to recognise the dignity and value of all the lives involved. But often in our public conversations, lives are pitted against each other, where one life is privileged or dismissed over the other. Therefore, we advocate for laws centred on human dignity and which seek to protect the lives, health and wellbeing of unborn children, parents, the vulnerable and the elderly.
In the UK, since the 1967 Abortion Act, there have been more than eight million abortions in England and Wales. In England and Wales, for every three children born in 2019, one was aborted. In the last 10 years in England and Wales, out of almost two million abortions, only four were recorded as for the purposes of ‘to save the life of the mother’.
We stand with women and unborn children calling for world-leading support, adequate services and better care than abortion. Every abortion ends a human life, women are harmed by abortion, and we believe that both women and unborn children deserve better.
Where assisted suicide or euthanasia has been legalised safeguards are often quickly eroded. In Oregon in the US, for Instance, 55 per cent of those requesting assisted suicide cited fear of being a burden as influencing their decision. In the Netherlands, thousands of patients have been killed who did not request it, disabled babies have been given lethal injections and depressed 12 year olds have been helped to end their lives. The Evangelical Alliance works to see the current law against assisted suicide and euthanasia protected, because if either become an option for patients, the ‘right to die’ could quickly become a ‘duty to die’ for those who feel they are a burden.
From beginning to end, human life has immeasurable value no matter what a person may offer as judged by society’s standards. When human life and dignity are at stake, this is about more than a private choice; it is of community and public interest. Fundamentally, we want to preserve life, protecting human dignity and what it means to be created in God’s likeness.
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” – Psalm 139:13 – 16
