Letters | 7 June 2018

A debate that won’t happen

Sir: ‘Westminster is overdue an abortion debate’ (Leading article, June 2). Yes, but there is little point in a debate without the possibility of changing the law. Governments will not take up this issue, regarding it as a matter of individual conscience. In 1967 the Abortion Act was the result of David Steel’s private member’s bill. But, crucially, the Labour administration gave that bill government time in Parliament.

Since then, every attempt to change the law in the light of medical advances concerning the viability of the foetus — even when a majority in the Commons seemed to favour change — has been easily ‘talked out’ by the pro-abortionists. Unless and until a government can find the courage to give such an attempt at reform parliamentary time, this absurd and unhappy situation will continue.
Francis Bown

London E3

Badgers and the public

Sir: The latest of Rod Liddle’s diatribes (‘The madness of murdering badgers’, 2 June) will come as no surprise to anyone who recalls how he was sacked as editor of the Today programme after a gloriously chippy rant about our supporters in his Guardian column.