This is my only ad hominem poem as far as I recall. I find Ann Furedi's justification of mass killing so obnoxious that, following the example of Shelley dashing off in haste "The Mask of Anarchy," I similarly rushed through this poem. It relies on immediacy for its effect.
It was written after listening to Anne Furedi defend and extol abortion as a great achievement of women’s autonomy and career ambitions. She made no mention of the rights of the child or, indeed, of fathers. Particularly eye-widening were her admission that the unborn human has special status – but not special enough to save it from convenience killing, and her claim that there should be no laws whatever governing abortion (abortion up to birth being just one of those things). She is also on record as defending the killing of young girls in the womb in favour of boys, if the mother so desires. Such is today's murderous feminism.
How ironic are our constant arguments about the mass immigration deemed necessary as a solution for the growing shortage of working age people in the British labour force. No mention is made that since abortion was legalized “for difficult cases only” in 1968 over ten million young British workers have been killed in the womb by the moral foulness of abortion – thus resulting in the current labour shortages and the rapid ageing of the population.
“And what goes round goes round:” during the Covid pandemic abortion was returned to its “roots” when unsupervised home abortion by pills was made universally available. Inevitably, the casualty list of women needing emergency treatment for incomplete or botched abortions has soared. Back street abortion is once more a reality.
We have ended up in the “civilized” post-Christian position of doing all we can to keep the elderly alive and all we can to kill as many young as possible. Is it a surprise that the judgement of God is upon the entire West?
“And what goes round goes round:” during the Covid pandemic abortion was returned to its “roots” when unsupervised home abortion by pills was made universally available. Inevitably, the casualty list of women needing emergency treatment for incomplete or botched abortions has soared. Back street abortion is once more a reality.
We have ended up in the “civilized” post-Christian position of doing all we can to keep the elderly alive and all we can to kill as many young as possible. Is it a surprise that the judgement of God is upon the entire West?
On a lighter note, I wrote another poem about a horror - "The Constant Companion" - in July 1980 and posted it on this blog on 1 March 2012. It is linked here.
--------------
(Note: Ann Furedi retired as BPAS Chief Executive in December 2020 and is now Vice-Chair of the Governing Body of MidKent College of Higher and Further Education).
Since 1968
When killing in the womb
Became a “freedom” thing,
10 million in spate
Young British folk and true
Have fallen to their fate:
And that is why I sing
In praise of Ann Furedi.
In 2021
A quarter million plus
Of young in the womb’s spring
Were drugged or knifed to none;
The mothers, fraught, went home,
The slaughter slick and done:
And that is why I sing
In praise of Ann Furedi.
A “libertarian,”
Gradgrind in her logic,
The right to keep or sling
One’s child, for her is clarion;
Thus, that boys might live
Girls must become carrion:
And that is why I sing
In praise of Ann Furedi.
“The best job in the world”
She called her work at BPAS
Attracting the media’s bling –
Their approval blatant, birled,
For “record-breaking growth”
Was hers, like a black flag unfurled:
And that is why I sing
In praise of Ann Furedi.
Abortion policy,
She’s said, should be a blank,
A Wild West where money’s “ping”
Kills up to birth scot-free.
She’s helped at a late-term killing
Then slept all night like the sea:
And that is why I sing
In praise of Ann Furedi.
Well, Britain’s millions short,
We’re told, of working folk,
But that’s abortion’s sting –
There’s pint where should be quart:
At MidKent now, Mère Ann
Tempts the young to abort:
And that is why I sing
In praise of Ann Furedi.
And what goes round goes round:
Home aborts by pill –
What joy, the postman’s ring! –
Bring back to its old ground
Death with its cramps and blood –
Back street killing is crowned!
And that is why I sing
In praise of Ann Furedi.
And so, the self-demise
Of the West’s Christian fact
To which so few now cling
Results in Ba’al’s flies
Crawling the newborns’ faces
Exposed under pagan skies:
And that is why I sing
In praise of Ann Furedi.
====================
© May/June 2023
