ANKARA, TURKEY (Catholic Online) - A bill proposed by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) would have reduced the time in which an abortion could be performed from 10 weeks down to six. Although this is still short of a full ban, it would have nonetheless saved the lives of thousands of unborn children. 

Despite that, anti-life forces rallied against the ruling AKP party and exerted enormous pressure on the government to abandon its plans - and the unborn. The party has also promised not to propose any new bills on the issue, at least for now. 

This leaves the unborn unprotected, and a baby must survive to 10 weeks in the womb before it can enjoy the rightful protection of law that should extend to all human beings. 

The country's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip has made clear that abortion is murder. In fact, his statements on the subject have bordered on inflammatory and he has faced harsh criticism for it. He recently compared abortion to a regional atrocity performed against ethnic Kurds by Turkish military forces last December. 

Although those comments were clearly controversial at best, the Prime Minister was correct in pointing out that abortion is nothing less than an atrocity carried out against the unborn. 

Although improved anti-abortion measured will not be adopted at this time, most members of the government agree that abortion should not be used as a "family planning" method and still object to abortion as a form of birth control. 

Abortion has been legal in Turkey since 1965 for medical reasons and in 1983 it was extended as a "right" to women within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. 

The only silver lining in the current issue is that nobody is proposing new pro-abortion legislation in the country at this time. A small consolation for babies whose simple desire is to love their mothers and be loved in return. 

© 2012, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.