Photo by Peter F. Wolf on Unsplash

Scotland’s laws give more protection to seagulls than unborn humans

My eyes were recently drawn to an article in a newspaper in which it was suggested Scots need to find ways to live with the growing problem of seagull attacks.

Seagulls have been known to swoop remarkably low and at speed as they forage for food for themselves and their young, terrifying members of the public in the process and sometimes even harming them. It is a problem many of us will have been unfortunate enough to experience. A hungry gull can be vicious, especially if it is simultaneously trying to protect its young. 

It would appear, however, that little can be done to deal with this avian headache. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it illegal to destroy a seagull or to interfere with seagull eggs and nests in Scotland. There are some instances when seagull control is permitted, however, NatureScot, Scotland’s national wildlife agency, has said that seagull nest and egg removal is a last resort. So, the seagull problem is here to stay.

Many will breathe a sigh of relief that these birds are unlikely to become the target of mass destruction at the hands of adult humans and can live to fight another day.

But here is the puzzle: whilst seagulls, including seagull eggs, are given strong protection, the law fails to provide the smallest human beings the same protection from wilful destruction.

The law in Scotland may be a friend to vulnerable baby seagulls, but it is no friend to vulnerable baby humans. Our ‘liberal democracy’ allows for the smallest humans to be destroyed at any point in the first 24 weeks of their existence. If a baby human has a physical or mental ‘abnormality’, including Down’s Syndrome, our ‘enlightened’ nation declares that the baby may be destroyed right up to the moment of birth.

Seagulls are treated differently. A baby seagull, cosily snuggled up inside its little egg, is deemed worthy of greater protection than its human equivalent.

This is mind-blowingly absurd. Yet it is our reality. It is the country we have become.

During a recent debate in the Scottish Parliament, one MSP said that Parliamentarians needed to “acknowledge that there are areas where we need more effective management and consideration of how we can co-exist with gull populations.” The same MSP lamented the demolition of a hangar in Burntisland which resulted in a group of young, flightless herring gulls being killed.

This is a sad incident, but the deliberate killing of a vulnerable human being is not just sad, it is absolutely devastating and without doubt a significantly greater injustice than the death of seagulls.

Sadly, however, too many MSPs are unwilling to find ways that we can ‘co-exist’ with unborn babies who may be unwanted or whose mothers find themselves in a challenging situation and unable to raise a child because of a lack of support.

Instead, the Scottish Government has set up a working group which is busily drawing up plans to decriminalise abortion in Scotland and which could result in a law that allows unborn children to be killed right up to the moment of birth for any reason, including being the ‘wrong’ sex.

The Scottish Parliament reconvenes in little over a month. It would serve humanity if MSPs did the right thing and took the first step towards dealing with this desperately anti-human injustice.

The next time a seagull attacks you or steals your food, remember that Scotland’s perverse laws afford them greater protection than unborn humans. 

Please contact your MSPs about this grave injustice by clicking this link (click the link, enter your postcode and use the tool to write to all eight of your MSPs).