by Paul Nowak
London, England — The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Hereford have expressed their support for a cleric's lawsuit following a late-term abortion performed because the unborn child had a cleft palate.
Under British law, an abortion cannot be performed after the 24th week unless there is risk of a serious handicap. Since cleft palates are routinely corrected by surgery the Rev. Joanna Jepson argues that the police should have enforced the law and prosecuted the abortion practitioner.
“If this case is as the Rev Joanna Jepson states then I am quite sure that the abortion is wrong,” stated the outgoing Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Rev John Oliver.
Jepson has said that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, privately told her she has his “full backing” in her efforts to stop abortions performed for “trivial reasons.”
Jepson, who had corrective surgery herself for congenital jaw defects as a teenager, said that other bishops had told her of their support.
The support from these figures in the Church of England is important as the Church has no unified pro-life voice. Even these two high-level clergymen do not always oppose abortion.
“I do not take the hard line case against abortion. It is never good but sometimes the lesser evil,” said Rev. Oliver.
“I accept that the termination of a pregnancy is not necessarily in all circumstances the worst possible moral option, even though I consider this to be a termination of human life,” wrote Dr. Williams in his book Lost Icons.
“I don't see myself as a crusader for the sake of it,” Jepson said, “but as a clergywoman, it's part of my role to speak out where necessary.”
“I don't see how a cleft palate can be classed as a serious handicap,” said Jepson. “It shows how enslaved we are to the notion that the value of our human life lies in physical perfection. This case raises the increasingly worrying concern of eugenics in our society.”
A High Court judge rejected the original application for judicial review on October 29, but Paul Conrathe, Jepson's attorney, will again file the lawsuit on December 1, when oral arguments will be heard.
According to the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS), cleft palate reconstructive surgery has been performed since the early 1900s. Today, it is one of many routine surgeries, and pales in comparison to some of the more complex facial reconstruction cases that modern surgeons encounter.
Cleft palate occurs approximately once every 700 births, according to WrongDiagnosis.com, a website that provides symptom descriptions, treatment options and statistics for 1,200 diseases and conditions.
For more information on cleft palate's, click here.
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and LifeNews.com. For more information or to subscribe go to LifeNews.com or email ertelt@lifenews.com.)
