THE Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, has clarified her position on abortion, saying that she mustn’t be “simply categorised” as “pro-choice”.
Bishop Mullally, the Archbishop-designate of Canterbury, made her comments after participating in a service of remembrance during Baby Loss Awareness Week, at St Giles Cripplegate, within the City of London, on 15 October.
The liturgy was designed and led by the Revd Lucy Newman Cleeve, an assistant curate at St Giles’s, who explained to the congregation that the Baby Loss Remembrance Service was for “anyone who has been affected by miscarriage, stillbirth, or the lack of a toddler; to those that struggle with infertility; to those that long for kids; and to those that have made the difficult decision to finish a pregnancy”.
After prayers, readings, and meditations, the congregation were invited to light a candle to mark “the lives of babies lost in pregnancy, at, or soon after, birth”. Bishop Mullally led prayers and the lighting of candles, and offered anointing for healing.
Afterwards, she wrote on social media that it had been “a privilege to collect . . . for a special service to recollect babies lost while pregnant, at birth, or shortly after birth”, and posted a photograph of the lit candles in front of the altar.
Speaking to the Church Times after the service, Bishop Mullally, a former Chief Nursing Officer for England, and the Church of England’s lead bishop for health and social care, said: “I’m aware that I even have prior to now been labelled as ‘pro-choice’ — perhaps due to my previous profession — but this can be a complex debate, and I don’t think my or others’ views will be so simply categorised.
“I support the Church of England’s principled opposition to abortion, which comes with a recognition that there will be strictly limited conditions under which abortion could also be preferable to any available alternatives.
“Above all else, women facing unwanted pregnancies require compassion and care, and a path that supports them. They are confronted with the toughest of selections, and they need to be supported.”
She referred to a statement that she had made criticising a debate within the House of Commons to permit abortion as much as birth. She restated her concerns that “decriminalising abortion could inadvertently undermine the worth of unborn life, eroding the safeguards and enforcement of the legal limits.” She said that girls affected by coercion, or were victims of sexual or domestic abuse, could be essentially the most vulnerable to the proposals.
When her nomination to Canterbury was announced this month, some religious commentators criticised her for a view that she had expressed in 2012 on her blog: “I might suspect that I might describe my approach to this issue as pro-choice reasonably than pro-life, although if it were a continuum I could be somewhere along it moving towards pro-life when it pertains to my alternative after which enabling alternative when it related to others.”
In her conversation with the Church Times, she said that church services could play a significant part in supporting those whose lives had been affected by baby loss.
