I DREAM OF HAGGIS

Today in a sermon from Scotland's most senior Roman Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, stated that the abortion rates in Scotland were equivalent to "two Dunblane massacres a day". Cardinal O'Brien also called on voters to not support MPs who defend such a "social evil". Cardinal O'Brien's sermon was to mark the 1967 Abortion Act, describing the seven million (give or take) abortions in Britain since then as an "unspeakable crime" and the "wanton killing of innocents".

You know what i find to be a massacre? Cardinal O'Brien's sense of logic and vulgar use of a tragedy to further his political agenda. Ah well, there's nothing like abortion to get every one's knickers in a knot.

So, for the sake of his (and other pro-lifers') argument, let's agree that abortion is murder. Why are all these old white men publicly shaming an act that is extremely private? Oh, right. It gets you a running headline on the BBC. Why do these old dudes still work themselves up into a tizzy over a woman's right to choice? This is 2007 and no longer are women viewed merely as vehicles for making babies and picking your shit up after you. Why not take up the case of vasectomies? Think of all those dudes shooting blanks! Or why not people - especially in America - on death row? Oh, right - because they're not viewed as "innocent deaths". An eye for an eye an' all that.

And so perhaps the rate of abortion has increased in the UK. It is faulty logic - post hoc, ergo propter hoc - to assume that such an increase is an example of the unholy times we live in. Guess what? There are more people than there was 40 years ago.

i think the Chief Executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Ann Furedi, said it best: "The cardinal has every right to hold his views. He obviously doesn't have to have an abortion, or provide one."