According to the British press, the long-awaited meeting between Card. Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Primate of England and Wales and leader of five million Catholics, and the Health Minister of Blair’s Government, Patricia Hewitt, is due today. The purpose of the meeting is the cardinal’s meaning to ask the Minister to lower the twenty-four-week time limit for having an abortion in Great Britain. However, a spokesman of the Ministry stated that no amendment to the law has been planned for the moment. The cardinal voices the request expressed by the majority of British women who in a survey a few months ago had stated they wanted to have a stricter abortion law. According to the survey, conducted by the Sunday paper “Observer”, 47% of women want a reduction in the number of weeks by which one can have an abortion, another 10% are against abortion at all, and 2% would like to have an even higher time limit. The new campaign for the amendment to the abortion law is also driven by the progress of medicine, which now enables even very premature babies to survive. "What we need is a Parliament-led public debate on the subject”, stated Geraldine Smith, a Labour MP who has promoted a motion for the establishment of a special committee.
