This is a bleak time to be pro-life. The holistic vision of human life from conception to natural death as being invested with dignity and worthy of respect is being steadily undermined by legislatures.

In Britain and Ireland, there are moves to introduce assisted dying into law. An Irish parliamentary inquiry has recommended legislation to allow people with incurable terminal illnesses to be assisted to end their lives if their predicted life expectancy is from six to 12 months. In Britain, a celebrity campaigner, Dame Esther Rantzen, has led moves to introduce assisted dying in parliament, and the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer – the probable next prime minister – has promised to provide parliamentary time for legislation and to back it himself.