London, England -- The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales provoked criticism among pro-choice groups yesterday when he compared abortion in Britain to the eugenics practised in Nazi Germany.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said the termination of six million lives since the introduction of the Abortion Act meant "we are already on that road".
Pro-choice groups said the comparison was insulting to Jews and betrayed little understanding of the issues surrounding abortion.
Writing in The Telegraph, the cardinal condemned the ''terrible truth that it is the strong who decide the fate of the weak".
He wrote: "Human beings therefore become instruments of other human beings. That way lies eugenics, and we know from German history where that leads.
"We are already on that road: for what else is the termination of six million lives in the womb since the Abortion Act was introduced, and embryo selection on the basis of gender and genes?"
The cardinal insisted that he was right to add his voice to the political debate on abortion, despite being criticised for praising Michael Howard for his stance on reducing the limit on abortions from the 24th week of pregnancy to the 20th week.
"I am glad I spoke out, for a nerve was touched and it gave a chance for many people to express their unease at the thousands of abortions which take place each year," he wrote.
Yesterday, Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Britain's largest single abortion provider, said the comparison was insulting. "To be comparing the termination of a pregnancy, which is the ending of a human life that does not even know it is alive, to the extermination of the Jews is hugely insulting to the Jewish people,'' she said.
"If you look at eugenics and you look at the Holocaust, it is a very different situation to the situation of abortion in Britain today. Abortion is about a woman, not the state, deciding for whatever reason, that she feels she cannot continue a pregnancy.
"This is a deeply moral issue and to my mind the people who are most morally competent to make that decision are the women who are going to have to live with that decision for the rest of their lives."
A spokesman for Brook, the sexual health charity for young people, added: "Brook supports women's right to choose whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy. Our priority must be to minimise the number of women who face such a difficult decision."
However, anti-abortion groups yesterday added their support to the cardinal's comments. Prof Jack Scarisbrick, of the charity Life, said: "It is absolutely right to speak of the enormity of the destruction of unborn children in this way. I see no moral distinction between killing adults and killing unborn children.''