Nearly 100 state-funded schools have closed in the past four years, with 30 more expected in London by next September. The cost of living isn’t to blame, argues Christian Hacking — but unprecedented abortion rates are
June seems like a long time ago now. The warmest month since records began in 1884, it progressed like most Junes, with two vital exceptions. Amidst the clamour of national headlines came two catastrophic changes to our national law.
On the very same day that MPs debated decriminalising abortion up to birth, Southwark Council Cabinet members “agreed to close Charlotte Sharman Primary School”. This beautiful Victorian school, which sits on the corner of the Georgian square I grew up in, has for 141 years serenaded its leaning mulberry trees with the shrill cries of schoolchildren at breaktime.
Named after a Christian woman who ran an orphanage from the same site, it was one of two schools the council agreed to close that fateful day in June — the eighth of its kind within the Borough in the last three years. Council Leader, Kieron Williams, said the overall process had been “really difficult”.
Later in the summer, it was announced that up to 30 schools across London would merge or face similar closure by September.
All of this building on the bleak picture of 98 state-funded schools that have already been closed in the last four years, and the ominous Education Policy forecasting of a further drop of 52,000 primary school-aged children in London by 2028.
58 years. 10 million babies
While various explanations have been offered for this phenomenon — including cost of living, families moving abroad, parents choosing home education or parents moving their children into the independent sector — few are willing to connect it to what should be blatantly obvious: abortion.
If anything directly affects the number of babies entering schools, it is the number of babies being intentionally killed in the womb each year.
The latest official records released, dating to 2022, show 250,000 abortions a year are conducted in England and Wales, though some experts believe the number is now as high as 300,000. We’ve now passed 58 years of legalised abortion, bringing the total count of babies never to enter school to 10.8 million.
The figures are rarely reported; the connection, rarely made.
Faced with such a low ebb in moral standards, what can Christians do?
A few weeks back it was announced that a noble contingent of Lords are seeking to revoke the abortion-to-birth amendment. Capitalising on widespread unease to Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, Baroness Monckton and Baroness Stroud (who is an evangelical and married to a pastor) are leading efforts alongside other peers in the House of Lords. Their efforts aim to overturn the highly controversial abortion-up-to-birth amendment and to reinstate in-person consultations with a medical professional prior to an abortion taking place at home.
These are productive steps that we should get behind. However, even if they are successful, they do not represent the tide change we so desperately need.
The case for the UK’s heartbeat bill
That is why a small group of relatively unknown individuals have decided to take matters into their own hands and launch an independent petition for the UK’s first Heartbeat Bill.
The petition is designed to gauge support for a Bill that would protect babies in the womb from the moment a heartbeat is detectable (around six to eight weeks from the last menstrual period) but not in extreme cases. The extreme cases permitted by the Bill would mean abortion would still be legal for rape, to save the life of the mother, and when the baby is diagnosed with a fatal abnormality in utero.
While not going as far as some would like — and is by no means a full reflection of the orthodox Christian position, the petition has been carefully pitched not as a statement of faith but rather as an achievable goal for a nation in crisis — something that Christians and non-Christians can get behind.
Ultimately the bill aims to increase the number of healthy British babies given a chance to breathe British air, enter British schools and one day solve Britain’s problems while still allowing for abortion in the most horrendous situations often cited by those genuinely concerned about a full abortion ban.
The square where I grew up is strangely quiet this September. The decrepit mulberry trees now have no song by which to sway. Perhaps silence is necessary. A moment to come to our senses, and strategise how the playground can be filled again.
