Why are animals more important than unborn children?

Most of the time I feel perfectly at ease in my own country, and that would be the case had we voted Brexit or Remain, Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn. But just occasionally Britain seems to me an utterly alien place – bizarre even. Today, Jeremy Corbyn launched his manifesto for pets. He wants to ban foie gras, make it mandatory for motorists to report that they have run over and killed cats, and pass a law giving tenants the right to keep a pet. I don’t suspect that he will encounter a great deal of opposition on these things – bar a token protest on the last from buy-to-let investors. Fox hunting aside, no political party in recent times has come to much harm by doing something to help furry, feathery or scaly animals. In the past 20 years, we have had animal laws by the dozen, controlling the use of animals in circuses and in advertising campaigns, laws against sow stalls and numerous others.

This would all be fine – I can’t say I have a problem with much of the above – if it weren’t for the utter refusal on the part of our main political parties to even discuss what seems to me a far more pressing issue for human beings: the rights of unborn children.