bogland - mr craig's english page -...

curriculum for excellencesuccessful learners > confident individuals > responsible citizens > effective contributors 1

"When I was a child and an adolescent I lived among peat-diggers and I also worked in the peat bog myself. I loved the structure the peat bank revealed after the spade had worked its way through the surface of the peat. I loved the mystery and silence of the place when the work was done at the end of the day and I would stand there alone while the larks became quiet and the lapwings started calling, while a snipe would suddenly take off and disappear..."

Bog PoetrySeamus Heaney

And some things that come out of Irish bogs…

Bog Butter

For many years farmers and turf cutters have been finding huge lumps of what looks like butter in the peat bogs of Scotland and Ireland.

The 'butter' is a waxy substance, usually a creamy white or very pale yellow colour. Lumps dating back as far as the Bronze Age, 3000 years ago, have been found in barrels, baskets or animal skins. They're buried in holes deep in the bogs.

Bog butter has fascinated experts for years as until now no-one's been sure exactly what it is.

A team of scientists have been running tests on bog butter from the Museum of Scotland and found that some lumps were made of dairy products while others were meat-based.


http://www.show.me.uk/museum/MW954.html

The Great Irish Elk

Irish elk is the common name for an giant, extinct deer, Megaloceros giganteus, characterized by enormous antlers. This is the largest deer known to have ever lived. Megaloceros giganteus appeared for the first time about 400,000 years ago and disappeared about 11,000 years ago. It ranged from Ireland and Great Britain in Western Europe and as far east as China and Siberia during the Late Pleistocene. Although large numbers of good quality skeletons have been found in Irish bogs, its range was much broader than Ireland.

Bog Bodies

The term bog bodies (or bog people) is used to refer to human burials, some likely sacrificed, placed within peat bogs of Denmark, Germany, Holland, Britain, and Ireland. The highly acidic peat acts as a remarkable


http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bog

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ireland

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Pleistocene

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Great_Britain

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ireland

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Deer

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Extinction

preservative, leaving the clothing and skin intact, and creating poignant and memorable images of people of the past.

In all, there have been about 700 bodies pulled from European bogs. The oldest bog body is Koelbjerg Woman, recovered from a peat bog in Denmark. the most recent dates to about 1000 AD. Most of the bodies were placed in the bogs during the European Iron Age and Roman period, between about 800 BC and AD 200.

Violence in the Bogs

In 1904 two naked bodies were found in the southern part of the Bourtanger Moor in the Netherlands. Because one of them lays on the outstretched arm of the other, who is obviously male, it was long believed that the second body was that of a woman. We now know that this body is also male. Both men died between 160 B.C. and 220 A.D. The intestines of one body (right) protrude from a stab wound in his left chest. How the other man died is unknown. (Drents Museum of the Netherlands, Assen)

In 1879 the body of an adult woman was found in a bog near Ramten, Jutland in Denmark. The body, known as Huldremose Woman, was very well preserved. The woman met her violent end sometime between 160 B.C. and 340 A.D. Her arms and legs showed signs of repeated hacking, and the diggers who found her body noted that her right arm was detached from the rest of her body. That arm was evidently cut off before she was deposited in the peat. (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen)

The mummified body of a 16-year-old girl was dredged out of a small raised bog near the village of Yde, province of Drenthe, Holland, in 1897. The body was badly damaged by the peat dredgers' tools. Yde Girl died a violent death sometime between 170 B.C. and A.D 230. The woolen band around her throat shows that she died from strangulation. A wound near her left clavicle was probably inflicted with a knife. With the girl were the remains of a large and rather worn woolen cloak. (Drents Museum of the Netherlands, Assen)

Elling Woman was found in 1938 in the Bjeldskovdal bog, west of Silkeborg, Denmark, only about 200 feet from where Tollund Man (see below) came to light 12 years later. Elling Woman was wrapped in one sheepskin cape, and another covered her legs and feet. She wore a woven belt around her waist. Elling Woman was hanged with a leather thong, which left a V-shaped furrow that is clearly visible in her neck. The leather belt that was used to hang her still survives. It has a sliding knot, making it suitable for execution purposes. This happened in the pre-Roman Iron Age, between 350 and 100 B.C. (Silkeborg Museum)Tollund Man was discovered in Bjeldskovdal in 1950. He lived in the third or second century B.C., and is thought to have died at 30-40 years of age, choked to death by hanging from a leather belt. He was found lying on his side with arms bent and legs drawn up, and he was naked except for a leather cap and belt. Much of his flesh had decayed, but his head was intact including the stubble on his chin. Analysis of his intestines indicates he probably had eaten a gruel consisting predominantly of barley and seeds available in winter or


early spring. (Drents Museum of the Netherlands, Assen)In 1859 the severed head of a female was found in Stidsholtmose in Jutland, Denmark. She was decapitated by a blow between the third and fourth vertebrae. Her hair was tied in a knot to which a woven band was fastened (this band no longer exists). The head has never been scientifically dated, and remains of the rest of the body were never found. (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen)

Two skeletons were found in 1949 in Sigersdal Mose, near Veksø on Sealand, Denmark. This skull was severely damaged during excavation. The cord that was used to kill this individual is visible around the neck. The sex of this 18-20-year-old person cannot be established with certainty. The individual died between 3650 and 3140 B.C. (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen)

The skeletal remains of Pormose Man were found by peat workers in 1946. He was 35-40 years old when he died around 3500 B.C. A bone arrow point was found projecting downward obliquely through his nasal cavity and the right half of his upper jaw. He was most likely killed by a second projectile which was found through his breastbone. (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen)

Grauballe Man came to light in 1852 in a small bog known as Nebelgård Mose, Jutland in Denmark. The naked body of this adult male had been placed in an old turf cutting. He died a violent death. His throat was cut, and he received severe blows on his head and left leg. Analysis of the contents of his intestines revealed that he consumed porridge which consisted largely of weed seeds. Because no remains of summer fruits were found, it is believed that he died in the winter. This must have happened between 170 B.C. and A.D. 80. (Forhistorisk Museum, Højbjerg, Denmark)

Kayhausen Boy, found in Lower Saxony, Germany, was tightly bound with garments. Strips of woolen fabric had been used to tie his arms behind his back, and a length of textile had been wound around his neck, passed between his legs and back up to his neck where the two ends had been tied. His feet were held together by a cape. He was also stabbed with a knife several times in his throat and left arm. This sinister act took place sometime in the last centuries B.C. during the Late Iron Age. (Staatliches Museum, Oldenburg)

And Seamus Heaney’s Poetry…

About his poem - Bogland - Seamus Heaney told the following: "The title of the poem refers to the bogs I knew while I was growing up and the stories I had heard about the things that could be preserved in the bog such as supplies of butter that were kept there, and about the things that were even more astonishing to a child, such as the skeleton of an Irish elk which our neighbours had dug out". Heaney

Boglandfor T. P. Flanagan


We have no prairies To slice a big sun at evening-- Everywhere the eye concedes to Encrouching horizon,

Is wooed into the cyclops' eye Of a tarn. Our unfenced country Is bog that keeps crusting Between the sights of the sun.

They've taken the skeleton Of the Great Irish Elk Out of the peat, set it up An astounding crate full of air.

Butter sunk under More than a hundred years Was recovered salty and white. The ground itself is kind, black butter

Melting and opening underfoot, Missing its last definition By millions of years. They'll never dig coal here,

Only the waterlogged trunks Of great firs, soft as pulp. Our pioneers keep striking Inwards and downwards,

Every layer they strip Seems camped on before. The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage. The wet centre is bottomless.

Seamus Heaney

Tollund Man


I

Some day I will go to AarhusTo see his peat-brown head,The mild pods of his eye-lids,His pointed skin cap.

In the flat country near byWhere they dug him out,His last gruel of winter seedsCaked in his stomach,

Naked except forThe cap, noose and girdle,I will stand a long time.Bridegroom to the goddess,

She tightened her torc on himAnd opened her fen,Those dark juices workingHim to a saint's kept body,

Trove of the turfcutters'Honeycombed workings.Now his stained faceReposes at Aarhus.

II

I could risk blasphemy,Consecrate the cauldron bogOur holy ground and prayHim to make germinate

The scattered, ambushedFlesh of labourers,Stockinged corpsesLaid out in the farmyards,

Tell-tale skin and teethFlecking the sleepersOf four young brothers, trailedFor miles along the lines.

III

Something of his sad freedomAs he rode the tumbrilShould come to me, driving,Saying the names

Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard,curriculum for excellencesuccessful learners > confident individuals > responsible citizens > effective contributors 7

Watching the pointing handsOf country people,Not knowing their tongue.

Out here in JutlandIn the old man-killing parishesI will feel lost,

Unhappy and at home.

Seamus Heaney

The To l lund Man’ – Seamus Heaney

Find quotations to support each of the following statements about this poem.

The body has been perfectly preserved by the peat bog.

The body has become part of the earth.

The man was killed in rather gruesome circumstances.

The bog itself is described as the goddess; the killing is described as a ritual marriage.

Heaney is fascinated and amazed by the Tollund Man, and recognises that if he saw the body, he would almost feel the need to pay tribute to him, or to worship him.

Heaney is able to relate to and empathise with the man.

Heaney compares the sacrificial Iron Age killing with brutal sectarian violence dividing Northern Ireland at the time of writing the poem.

Heaney suggests we should search for an alternative deity, to look for another religious symbol which could unite people and sow the seeds for peace.

Heaney acknowledges his own guilt and discomfort in suggesting the idea.


The Grauballe Man

As if he had been poured in tar, he lies on a pillow of turf and seems to weep

the black river of himself. The grain of his wrists is like bog oak, the ball of his heel

like a basalt egg. His instep has shrunk cold as a swan’s foot or a wet swamp root.

His hips are the ridge and purse of a mussel, his spine an eel arrested under a glisten of mud.

The head lifts, the chin is a visor raised above the vent of his slashed throat

that has tanned and toughened. The cured wound opens inwards to a dark elderberry place.

Who will say ‘corpse’ to his vivid cast? Who will say ‘body’


to his opaque repose?

And his rusted hair, a mat unlikely as a foetus’s. I first saw his twisted face

in a photograph, a head and shoulder out of the peat, bruised like a forceps baby,

but now he lies perfected in my memory, down to the red horn of his nails,

hung in the scales with beauty and atrocity: with the Dying Gaul too strictly compassed

on his shield, with the actual weight of each hooded victim, slashed and dumped.

Seamus Heaney

About his poem - Bogland - Seamus Heaney told the following: "The title of the poem refers to the bogs I knew while I was growing up and the stories I had heard about the things that could be preserved in the bog such as supplies of butter that were kept there, and about the things that were even more astonishing to a child, such as the skeleton of an Irish elk which our neighbours had dug out". Heaneycurriculum for excellencesuccessful learners > confident individuals > responsible citizens > effective contributors 10

Boglandfor T. P. Flanagan

We have no prairies To slice a big sun at evening-- Everywhere the eye concedes to Encrouching horizon,

Is wooed into the cyclops' eye Of a tarn. Our unfenced country Is bog that keeps crusting Between the sights of the sun.

They've taken the skeleton Of the Great Irish Elk Out of the peat, set it up An astounding crate full of air.

Butter sunk under More than a hundred years Was recovered salty and white. The ground itself is kind, black butter

Melting and opening underfoot, Missing its last definition By millions of years. They'll never dig coal here,

Only the waterlogged trunks Of great firs, soft as pulp. Our pioneers keep striking Inwards and downwards,

Every layer they strip Seems camped on before. The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage. The wet centre is bottomless.

Seamus Heaney

Punishment

I can feel the tugof the halter at the napeof her neck, the wind


on her naked front.

It blows her nipplesto amber beads, it shakes the frail riggingof her ribs.

I can see her drownedbody in the bog, the weighing stone, the floating rods and boughs.

Under which at firstshe was a barked saplingthat is dug upoak-bone, brain-firkin:

her shaved headlike a stubble of black corn, her blindfold a soiled bandage, her noose a ring

to storethe memories of love.Little adultress, before they punished you

you were flaxen-haired, undernourished, and yourtar-black face was beautiful.My poor scapegoat,

I almost love youbut would have cast, I know, the stones of silence.I am the artful voyeur

of your brain's exposedand darkened combs, your muscles' webbingand all your numbered bones:

I who have stood dumbwhen your betraying sisters, cauled in tar, wept by the railings,

who would connivein civilized outrageyet understand the exactand tribal, intimate revenge.

Seamus Heaney

‘Punishment’curriculum for excellencesuccessful learners > confident individuals > responsible citizens > effective contributors 12

1) Examine the presentation of the dead girl’s body and her death.2) What central issue do you think the poet is examining here?3) What is Heaney’s reaction to the girl? What does he imagine doing

had he been present at her death?4) Why do you think there are so many Biblical references?5) Do you agree with Heaney? Is he right to equate adultery with non-

conformism? Why does he acknowledge the ‘justice’ of the Catholic women’s punishment?

6) Can you identify the conflict between tribal and civilised in this poem?

Strange Fruit

Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd.Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth.

They unswaddled the wet fern of her hairAnd made an exhibition of its coil,Let the air at her leathery beauty.Pash of tallow, perishable treasure:Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod,Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings.Diodorus Siculus confessedHis gradual ease with the likes of this:Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terribleBeheaded girl, outstaring axeAnd beatification, outstaringWhat had begun to feel like reverence.

Seamus Heaney


Some Themes

Religion

‘The Tollund Man’ – “Bridegroom to the goddess”Heaney personifies the bog as the goddess of fertility, to whom these ancient sacrifices were made.“ Those dark juices working / Him to a saint’s kept body.”The bog preserves the bodies perfectly. Here there is a suggestion that the ‘Tollund man’ is like a saint – in the Catholic religion saints’ bodies are said not to decay.“I could risk blasphemy, / Consecrate the cauldron bog / Our holy ground …”Continuing from the previous quotation, Heaney suggests turning to an alternative religion, making the bog a new deity and worshipping that.

‘The Grauballe Man’ – “…hung in the scales…with the Dying Gaul…with the actual weight of each hooded victim, slashed and dumped.”Heaney compares the heroic, military death of a warrior Gaul with the futile, anonymous deaths of present-day sectarian victims.

‘Punishment’ – “I who have stood dumb / when your betraying sisters, / cauled in tar, / wept by the railings”Again, Heaney compares past punishments with present day conflict. In this case he describes an Iron age killing and imagines having the same reaction as he has when he sees young Catholic girls publicly punished for having relationships with English or Protestant soldiers.

Polit ics

‘The Tollund Man’, ‘The Grauballe Man’, ‘Punishment’ and ‘Strange Fruit’ – In these poems, Iron Age sacrificial killings are described. Heaney compares these killings with the violent, brutal deaths occurring in Northern Ireland at the time he was writing to show that violence is cyclical and human nature has not become anymore civilised – we still seek revenge for betrayal, and kill in the name of religion.

History – Irish

‘Punishment’ – “I can see her drowned body in the bog”Contemplation of a sacrificial, Iron Age killing leads Heaney to reflect on violent reprisals enacted in his own society. Once again, violence of the past is shown to be repeated in the present.


‘The Grauballe Man’ – “I first saw his twisted face in a photograph” In describing another ‘bog body’, many analogies are made between the man in the bog and the contemporary victims of sectarian atrocity.

‘The Tollund Man’ – “Out there in Jutland / In the old man-killing parishes / I will feel lost, / Unhappy and at home.”This poem is about another ‘bog body’ found in Denmark. Heaney empathises with the man, imagining “something of his sad freedom. Heaney knows that if he visited the scene of the brutal sacrificial killing he would recognise traces of the same vengeful practices that violate his own society.

‘Strange Fruit’ – “Diodorus Siculus confessed / His gradual ease among the likes of this”In Heaney’s final poem about a ‘bog body’, he refers to a Greek historian from the 1st century AD, who recorded his reactions to murder and violence, commenting that with each atrocity he became more desensitised. Heaney worries that the present day community is becoming used to the present day sectarian violence.

In all the ‘bog body’ poems Heaney refers to events from European history to draw comparisons with the conflict in Northern Ireland and to try to make sense of the sense of “tribal, intimate revenge” he sympathises with.

‘Irish Landscape and Traditions

‘Bogland’ – “The wet centre is bottomless”This is the first poem in these collections which explores the Irish bogs. For Heaney, the bogs become a symbol for the whole of Ireland. This is the start of Heaney really ‘digging’ into the darkness; he invites us to explore the past, showing how the bog can preserve things for “millions of years”. The bogs come to represent deep areas of memory and history, exposing the cycles of nature, as nature starts and finishes in the bog. In this poem Heaney describes archaeologists digging through the bog and finding many things: “the Great Irish Elk”, “Butter”, “waterlogged trunks / Of great firs”. The original quotation I chose suggests the search is infinite and endless – more and more rich, valuable wealth will be discovered. The men who dig for turf are also digging through history, mythology and folklore.

The ‘bog body’ poemsAfter ‘Bogland’ come the ‘bog body’ poems; indeed the bog has kept even greater secrets perfectly preserved. The ‘bog bodies’ help Heaney to explore Irish conflicts as he looks to the past to understand the future.

Other reasons why Heaney writes (many quotations can be found to support each of these):

To explore human cruelty;


To analyse, and attempt to understand present day sectarian conflict;

To explore the past, and use it to try to understand the present; To use explorations of the past to attempt to offer solutions for a

brighter future; To respond to the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, as he was

expected to, but to look inwards as well, and thus avoid merely ‘reporting’ on the Troubles;

To suggest, perhaps, that we might look to an alternative religion. Heaney looks to the past – to the ancient Pagan religion – suggesting that the whole country could unite, and perhaps worship natural objects, such as the bog.

SQA QuestionsPOETRY

13.Choose a poem which is strongly

linked to a specific location.Show how the poet captures the essence of the location and exploits this to explore an important theme. (2008)

13. Choose two poems on the same theme which impress you for different reasons. Compare the treatment of the theme in the two poems and discuss to what extent you find one more impressive than the other. (2007)

Some Websites

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/bog/violence2.htmlhttp://www.tollundman.dk/http://www.tollundman.dk/heaney.asphttp://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Irish_Elkhttp://www.seamusheaney.org/http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1392http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/heaney.phphttp://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/heaney.shtmlAnd a Power point presentation on the Network under Advanced Higher English.

An Extra….

A Comparison of two poems that look at the same subject from different points of view: Limbo by Seamus Heaney and Unto Us by Spike Milligan.

Start with Unto Us


Answers to questions on poetry should address relevantly the central concern(s)/theme(s) of the text(s) and be supported by reference to appropriate poetic techniques such as: imagery, verse form, structure, mood, tone, sound, rhythm, rhyme, characterisation, contrast, setting, symbolism, word choice . . .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/heaney.shtml

http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/heaney.php

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1392

http://www.seamusheaney.org/

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Irish_Elk

http://www.tollundman.dk/heaney.asp

http://www.tollundman.dk/

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/bog/violence2.html

I like to look at the Word choice Imagery Tone Dramatic monologue from the unborn child’s point of view Look at the way the Mother is portrayed.

Then look at Limbo – much more complicated in its meaning and presentation of the issues.

Word choice Imagery Tone The religious symbolism

- I would try to use an A3 bit of paper to put the poems side by side- Use colours to identify significant areas of similarity- Cautionary word – very sensitive issue for teenagers at this stage – be aware of

committing yourself to either opinion – safer to stick to the way the poets present the issues.

An extract from Encyclopaedia Britannica online…

“in Roman Catholic theology, the border place between heaven and hell where dwell those souls who, though not condemned to punishment, are deprived of the joy of eternal existence with God in heaven. The word is of Teutonic origin, meaning “border” or “anything joined on.” The concept of limbo probably developed in Europe in the Middle Ages but was never defined as a church dogma, and reference to it was omitted from the official catechism of the church that was issued in 1992. Two distinct kinds of limbo have been supposed to exist: (1) the limbus patrum (Latin: “fathers’ limbo”), which is the place where the Old Testament saints were thought to be confined until they were liberated by Christ in his “descent into hell,” and (2) the limbus infantum, or limbus puerorum (“children’s limbo”), which is the abode of those who have died without actual sin but whose original sin has not been washed away by baptism. This “children’s limbo” included not only dead unbaptized infants but also the mentally impaired…

The concept of limbo plays no role in contemporary Catholic theological thinking. In 2004 the International Theological Commission, an advisory body to the Vatican, under the direction of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) began examining the question of limbo. In 2007 the commission, with the approval of Benedict, declared that the traditional view of limbo offered an “unduly restrictive view of salvation” and that there was hope that infants who died without being baptized would be saved.” "limbo." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 21 Jun. 2009

Limbo

Fishermen at BallyshannonNetted an infant last nightAlong with the salmon.An illegitimate spawning,

A small one thrown backTo the waters. But I'm sureAs she stood in the shallowsDucking him tenderly


http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/676944/Benedict-XVI

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/432565/original-sin

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/4704/actual-sin

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/427211/Old-Testament

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/427211/Old-Testament

Till the frozen knobs of her wristsWere dead as the gravel,He was a minnow with hooksTearing her open.

She waded in underThe sign of the cross.He was hauled in with the fish.Now limbo will be

A cold glitter of soulsThrough some far briny zone.Even Christ's palms, unhealed,Smart and cannot fish there.

Seamus Heaney

Unto Us

Somewhere at some timeThey committed themselves to meAnd so, I was!Small, but I WAS!Tiny, in shapeLusting to liveI hung in my pulsing cave.Soon they knew of meMy mother --my father.I had no say in my beingI lived on trustAnd loveTho' I couldn't thinkEach part of me was sayingA silent 'Wait for meI will bring you love!'I was takenBlind, naked, defenceless


By the hand of oneWhose good nameWas graven on a brass platein Wimpole Street,and dropped on the sterile floorof a foot operated plastic wastebucket.There was no Queens CounselTo take my brief.The cot I might have warmedStood in Harrod's shop window.When my passing was toldMy father smiled.No grief filled my empty space.My death was celebratedWith tickets to see Danny la RueWho was pretending to be a womanLike my mother was.

Spike Milligan

An Extract from the Guardian:

Close result expected in anti-abortion referendum which would affirm threat of suicide as insufficient reason for termination writes Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent in The Guardian, Saturday 2 March 2002 01.23 GMT

Despite Ireland's strides toward social and economic modernisation, the influence of the Catholic church and conservative politicians remains strong, and abortion is still illegal, except where pregnancy physically endangers a woman's life. It is not permitted in cases of rape, incest or foetal abnormality.

This referendum is a government attempt to introduce a constitutional amendment affirming that a threat of suicide is not a ground for abortion, and that anyone aiding or procuring an abortion will be liable for 12 years in prison. Women will still be free to travel abroad for abortions.

The debate arose out of two notorious cases, in 1992 and 1997, involving two young girls, known as X and C, aged 14 and 13, who were suicidal because they were pregnant as a result of rape. Both girls trod a legal minefield before being allowed to travel to England for terminations.

Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, who could garner strong support from the pro-life lobby in the general election in May, is vehemently against abortion. He claims his amendment will protect women who suffer ectopic pregnancies or other life-


threatening conditions but will block back door efforts to use these cases to liberalise abortion laws.

"We believe the majority of people want to protect the lives of both women and unborn children and that they do not favour any moves toward more freely available abortion," he said.

Joe O'Carroll, chairman of the Pro-Life Campaign, said the amendment would provide a barrier against "anyone smuggling in abortion and describing it as medical treatment".

Britain's abortion debate lacks a moral dimension

We risk losing sight of the sanctity of life and the compassionate intentions of the 1967 reformers says Rowan Williams in The Observer , Sunday 21 October 2007

Most of those who voted for the 1967 Abortion Act did so in the clear belief that they were making provision for extreme and tragic situations: conception as a result of rape, foetal or perinatal complications threatening a mother's life. Forty years on, many of these same people have expressed their dismay at what has happened. As some of the issues are reopened in connection with the proposed legislation on embryo research, it is important to think about where this unease comes from and whether it has any lessons for us now.

Many supporters of the 1967 Act started from a strong sense of taking for granted the wrongness of ending an unborn life. What people might now call their 'default position' was still that abortion was a profoundly undesirable thing and that a universal presumption of care for the foetus from the moment of conception was the norm.

But the rapidly spiralling statistics - nearly 200,000 abortions a year in England and Wales - tell their own story. We are not now dealing with a relatively small number of extreme cases (and clinical advances have in fact reduced the number of strictly medical dilemmas envisaged in 1967 act's supporters). When we hear, as in a recent survey reported in the Lancet, that one-third of pregnancies in Europe end in abortion, we may well ask what has happened.


Recent discussion on making it simpler for women to administer abortion-inducing drugs at home underlines the growing belief that abortion is essentially a matter of individual decision and not the kind of major moral choice that should involve a sharing of perspective and judgment. And that necessarily means that certain presumptions have changed. Not only has there been an obvious weakening of the feeling that abortion is a last resort; the development of embryo research has brought with it the hint of a more instrumental approach to the human organism in its earliest days.

Paradoxically, the language of 'foetal rights' has strengthened over the last few decades, leading to a real tension with this growing normalisation of abortion. The pregnant woman who smokes or drinks heavily is widely regarded as guilty of infringing the rights of her unborn child; yet at the same time, with no apparent sense of incongruity, there is discussion of the possibility of the liberty of the pregnant woman herself to perform the actions that will terminate a pregnancy.

We need some joining-up thinking here, even if it's only in the recognition that the model of competing rights or liberties (the mother's and the unborn child's) is not the most useful vehicle for a coherent moral grasp of the question.


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