“Stop exploiting embryonic human beings”: Bishop of Lancaster plea to Gordon Brown

In a passionate Easter homily, the Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue is once again fighting strongly in defence of human life in the public forum saying: “As your bishop, I want to join my voice to that of Cardinal Keith O’Brien and others, in protesting in the strongest terms against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill”. See my blog of yesterday: Courageous Scottish Cardinal speaks out

Bishop O'Donoghue tells Gordon Brown bluntly to "stop the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill". In another passage, listing the many guises of death in Britain today, he refers to
"euthanasia through the withdrawal of food and fluids" and says "here the numbers are countless".

Last week, I blogged on the calm eloquence with which the Bishop of Lancaster stood his ground before the House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Select Committee – defending not only the position of the Catholic church, but also defending human life, parental rights, and the rights of the family.

Last night, Bishop O’Donoghue preached at the Easter vigil Mass with passionate eloquence. Please write to the media supporting what he says and write to your Member of Parliament to oppose the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Full a full briefing on the Bill, click here.

Finally: Write to Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue to thank him for his clarity, and for the moral authority of his Easter message – to the Catholic faithful, to the general public, and to the British government. Write to him at bishop@lancasterrcdiocese.org.uk

Here’s an extract from his homily which I urge you to read in full:

"We must hold on to the hope of these words: Jesus conquered death! We need to hold onto this truth today because death takes on so many guises; through legalised abortion – that kills nearly 200,000 children a year, through experimentation on the unborn, that has resulted in the deaths of 2.2 million, and euthanasia through the withdrawal of food and fluids, here the numbers are countless.

"Jesus has conquered death, but the powers of death and evil still strive to overcome the light of love and life. The tragedy is that the authority and power of Government seem to be behind the greatest threat to the dignity and rights of human life.

"As your bishop, I want to join my voice to that of Cardinal Keith O’Brien and others, in protesting in the strongest terms against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. If this bill becomes the law of the land, it will allow the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos for medical experimentation.

"Supporters of this so called ‘medical’ experimentation, justify it by offering the hope that at some unknown date in the future the dissection and destruction of unborn human life will lead to cures for truly terrible diseases, such as cancers, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and M.S.

"All right thinking people will agree that we must seek to discover cures for diseases that cause so much human suffering. But compassion cannot result in us exploiting and destroying the life of unborn human beings.

"Many in government, the media and research are so strident in promoting research on embryonic humans that they forget to mention that the greatest strides in discovering cures derive from adult stem cell research - not the defenceless unborn.

"We need to ask who are these vested interests in the promotion of experimentation on embryonic humans and the creation of animal-human hybrids. I read about them but I’ve yet to find them in person.

"The Prime Minister has made it clear that he wants Britain to be the world's number one centre for genetic and stem cell research. He sees it as building up the hi-tech sector of British industry and contributing to economic growth.

"It is good to develop British industry and foster economic growth, but not through exploiting and destroying embryonic human persons.

"A society that seeks medical cures and economic development at the cost of human rights, human dignity and human life is ‘monstrous’. It is not the defenceless, human-animal embryo, that is ‘monstrous’; it is we ourselves who have become ‘monsters’ for allowing the exploitation of the unborn for our economic and medical gain.

"On this holy night when we celebrate life conquering death, I want to make two appeals as your Bishop:

"First, to the Prime Minister and his ministers. Please stop the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Stop exploiting embryonic human beings, and support adult stem cell research instead…

"…Second, I call on the Catholic community - clergy and laity - to speak with one voice and insist that parliament: protects and cherishes human life. Pray, Protest, and Petition your Member of Parliament to stop this monstrous medical experimentation on human beings.

"Never give up hope, nor allow it to be dimmed, because the light of Christ shines out in the darkness, and the darkness can never overcome Him."

The bishop also released a robust press release in advance of his homily which you can read here. His postal address is in the press release.

Courageous Scottish Cardinal speaks out

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, is courageously speaking out against the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embrology Bill.

In his Easter Sunday homily tomorrow, the Cardinal is saying:

"It is difficult to imagine a single piece of legislation which, more comprehensively, attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular bill...This bill represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life. "

He was already under attack last night in the BBC studios for daring to tell the unvarnished truth.

It would be an excellent idea to send messages to the media and to Members of Parliament to explain why the Cardinal is right.

Look here for a detailed briefing when writing to the media and to MPs.

Also, drop a line to the Cardinal. Write to him at: cardinal@staned.org.uk

See also my post on Bishop Tartaglia, the bishop of Paisley in Scotland, on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

Russian Orthodox leader condemns human rights trends

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kallingrad, a Russian orthodox leader, has condemned “dangerous trends” in human rights and has called for worldwide inter-religious dialogue on human rights – a concept brought into Europe by Christianity.

In a major address to the 7th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva this week, Metropolitan Krill has condemned the monopoly on human rights of a limited number of representatives of the human species.

“…These human rights are just defending the right to choose but nothing is said about humans’ responsibilities and as a result the freedom of the individual from evil is left undefended…”, he said.

Metropolitan Krill announced that the Russian Orthodox Church was calling for worldwide inter-Christian and inter-faith dialogue in human rights and the representation of religious views on human rights at the highest councils of the United Nations.

Here are some extracts from his speech:

“The attraction [of human rights] is based on a very simple and easily accessible idea – namely, that we should be concerned about the happiness of each individual. This idea in European culture is something that was brought by Christianity which has always proclaimed access to salvation for every person irrespective of that person’s national or social origins and the unique nature and value of each individual in the Divine conception of the world has always been stressed. Christians cannot simply remain on the sidelines when it comes to the fate of this important factor even when it’s expressed in secular language…

“...Now, many Orthodox Christians, when it comes to the development and implementation of human rights today, note that there are trends which are arising now which are dangerous when it comes to the defence of these high ideals. The development of institutes of human rights is something that has become the monopoly of a limited number of representatives of the human species. International organizations frequently, when they deal with matters of human rights, draw their conclusions on the basis of the opinions of a limited group of experts or civil servants or audible, though well-organized, minorities.

“Many States are also under the influence of these forces and they are losing the ability to translate the authentic values sought by their peoples. Something which is typical is that the most widespread and most widely used concept of human rights – that is, human dignity – is something which is not broadly or clearly understood…This concept provides the key to how we understand the individual, the person that is, and therefore human rights...

“...For Orthodox Christians something which is obvious is that human dignity cannot be conceived of without a religious and spiritual and moral dimension. At the same time in order to ensure the acceptability of the concept of human rights for people of different views, very often the distance between human rights and religion is stressed. As a result religious views have become a private matter and are not seen as a source of modern law, including human rights, and this is happening despite the fact that according to widespread information some 80% of the inhabitants of the planet are religious. What is in fact happening is that there are requirements that religious views should be subject to legal norms which are based on non-religious ideas and this leads to a dominance of an agnostic or even a materialistic approach to life which causes anxiety amongst believers…

“...In addition, the woman’s right to abortion neglects the right of the embryo. And no reference is made to ethics when scientific experiments are carried out on human embryos. And it’s even more astonishing to hear that human rights should now include the right to euthanasia because human rights are based on the most fundamental right of all, that is the right to life and yet soon it might turn out that human rights are favouring death rather than life...

“...On the other hand there are serious questions when it comes to the enjoyment of human rights. One of the problems in this area is the interpretation of the idea of freedom…These human rights are just defending the right to choose but nothing is said about humans’ responsibilities and as a result the freedom of the individual from evil is left undefended.

“Before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe last year His Holiness Alexis II. Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia said:

'Morality is freedom in action, that is, freedom which has already been enjoyed
as a result of a responsible choice and which restricts itself in the interests
of the good and benefit of the individual and also society'

"I’d like to recall that UN standards on which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, is based, suggests the restriction of the freedom to choose in order to satisfy the fair requirements of morality. Unfortunately the European Union’s Charter of Rights does not include such a restrictive parameter...

"…In our view human rights should not contradict moral norms…

"...A non-conflictual way out of the situation which has come about could be found in conducting an intensive dialogue. The Russian Orthodox Church is involved in a process today of developing a comprehensive approach to human rights. It is planned that the document being developed in this regard…will be adopted by the Council of bishops. On the basis of an inter-Christian and inter-religion dialogue we know that other Christian confessions and world religions have approaches to human rights and it would be appropriate to take into account these views within the context of the Human Rights Council and, all together, within the context of the United Nations..."

help stop Europe-wide abortion campaign

The pro-abortion lobby has launched a major new campaign against the unborn throughout Europe. The Council of Europe is due to consider a radical new report calling for every European country to remove all restrictions to abortion. The Council of Europe (which is distinct from the European Union) has a Parliamentary Assembly consisting of representatives who already sit in the legislatures of the Council's 47 member-states. Although the Parliamentary Assembly cannot pass laws, it does pass resolutions which may have significant influence on law, in particular human rights law. The report, by the Assembly's Equal Opportunities committee, calls upon the Council's member-states to:

– decriminalise abortion, if they have not already done so;

– guarantee unrestricted access to abortion;

– make sex education of young people compulsory. (Most "sex education" is infected with an anti-life mentality, and compulsory sex education would undermine the role and rights of parents).

To back up its recommendations, the report makes some of the usual false pro-abortion claims - huge numbers of illegal abortions, an unmet need for more birth control to reduce abortion rates, discrimination against women, etc.

The report will undoubtedly be used as leverage towards the creation of a right to abortion on demand in international law, which has always been the most important and ultimate goal of the worldwide pro-abortion lobby.

Please contact the representatives of your country in the Assembly immediately, urging them to reject the report when it is debated by the Assembly's plenary session, 14 - 18 April. Contact details for Assembly members can be found here. Please remember to email any replies you receive to Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary

Click here for SPUC briefing: Abortion law and the Council of Europe
Click here for Southern Cross Bioethics Institute (SCBI) response to the report
Click here for SPUC's Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe campaign page

The danger of abortion amendments

In today’s Daily Mail, David Cameron, the Leader of the Opposition, who says that he will vote to lower one of the upper time limits for abortion from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, also says he will vote for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill as a whole and to retain abortion up to birth of disabled babies.

Most MPs will only consider a change in the 24-week line if abortion up to birth continues for disabled babies; and we can expect further conditions to be demanded before they allow restrictions on late-term social abortions.

These conditions could include removing restrictions to abortion on demand in early pregnancy, allowing nurses to perform certain types of abortion and extending the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.

That’s why SPUC considers it dangerous to introduce upper limit or any abortion amendments in the current Parliament.

Hippocratic Oath posters and leaflets for pro-life doctors

Reading The Times this morning “Go public if you have any ethical qualms, doctors ordered by GMC” prompts the following observation: A peaceful resistance movement against abortion, euthanasia by neglect, in vitro fertilisation and embryo experimentation is an appropriate way forward for those who respect the inviolable right to life of the human person from conception till natural death in Britain’s increasingly anti-life culture.

The Times reports tells us: “Doctors must display posters or give out information leaflets detailing any ethical objections they hold on abortion or other contentious medical issues under new guidelines published today by the medical regulator… They must also set aside their own beliefs where a patient wishes it, or directly refer the patient to another doctor who does not hold the same objections.”

This is what the great pro-life leader, respected by people of all faiths and none, Pope John Paul II, said on the subject: “Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws: instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection” (Evangelium Vitae, 73, emphasis as in the original).

SPUC is offering doctors posters and leaflets promoting awareness of the Hippocratic Oath which states: “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy.”

Tibet and genocide

The world needs to know that Communist China imposes population control upon Tibetans. The Dalai Lama said yesterday that “cultural genocide” is taking place in Tibet. And on Wednesday, it was reported that 36 Tibetan women (pictured) protested at the Chinese embassy in the Indian capital, New Delhi, demanding that the one-child policy in Tibet be stopped.

SPUC has for many years helped to voice the opposition of Tibetans to coercive birth control in Tibet, and the complicity of the UK government in its imposition:

“What is the UK doing helping to fund birth control policies in Tibet, an occupied country? With Tibetans a rapidly shrinking minority in their own land, rigid birth control - especially in conjunction with China's inhumane policies of enforced sterilisation and abortion - amounts to genocide. How is it possible that the UK can support a system where Han Chinese in Tibet are allowed more children than Tibetans? It's time the UK government behaved ethically.” (Tibet Vigil press release, 24 August 2000, quoted by SPUC 16 November 2005)

The UK government gives millions of pounds every year to UNFPA (the United Nations Population Fund) and IPPF (the International Planned Parenthood Federation), who in turn help the Chinese Communist regime to manage its population control programme, the main feature of which is a one-child-per-woman policy, brutally implemented by both the threat and the practice of forced abortion.

The BBC has been airing a programme recently entitled “A year in Tibet”. The Independent Tibet Network has launched a petition which, among other things, accuses the programme’s producers of bias for claiming that the one-child policy has never been applied to ethnic Tibetans. I would add that the BBC’s reported claim would not be the first time that an attempt has been made to present a false picture about population issues in Tibet or in China-proper. (N.b. The Independent Tibet Network is strictly concerned with human rights and supporting independence for the Tibetan people. They hold no position on the issue of abortion per se, and do not endorse or oppose either side of that debate. They are concerned, however, with coercive birth control as a major human rights violation against women in Tibet, East Turkestan and China.)

The moral maze created by IVF

The increasing ethical confusion which has arisen from the invention of IVF was highlighted last night's edition of The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4. The subject was whether or not the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill should allow deaf parents specifically to select for implantation those embryos which have been diagnosed as likely to be deaf. One of the panel, Melanie Phillips, the social commentator, asked one of the witnesses, Julian Savulescu, an Oxford professor:

"You said earlier that we all have disabilities; so in your perfect universe or pursuit of perfection, where is this going to end?"

Prof. Savulescu's answer proves - if proof were needed - that eugenics and a eugenic society is the goal of embryo research:

"Well, it will actually end by transferring power from nature to families and couples to make decisions about the kinds of children they wish to bring into the world."

The programme's presenter, Michael Buerk - who had introduced the programme by blithely informing the audience that IVF is "a wonderful medical technique that has given hope to thousands of otherwise childless couples" - asked Ms Phillips:

“[I]f there are to be guidelines and it is not to be just a matter for parental choice or leaving it on a random level, where would the line be drawn? Would the line be drawn on treatable things or be drawn on things that are life threatening or drawn on some notion of pain and hardship?”

Ms Phillips got to the core of the issue in her answer:

“Well, I think we are up a gum tree. I mean, personally, I would not have started from here, I would not have gone down the IVF road.”

I have blogged previously on the intrinsic wrongnesss of IVF.

On the specific question of deaf parents selecting deaf embryos, Alison Davis, national co-ordinator of No Less Human. a group within SPUC, provided the correct ethical position as long ago as 2000:

"The idea of deliberately producing disabled babies is simply an extension of the current belief that there is a 'right to choose' the kind of baby whom an individual will accept or reject. Of course, in most cases this means that disabled children are thrown away or killed by abortion, but the principle is equally unjust and unethical in the case of rejecting non-disabled babies.

"The truth is that every human being, disabled or not, has infinite value and should be welcomed into the world whatever his or her abilities. 'Manufacturing' human beings, and then rejecting those who do not measure up to our ideas of what is desirable, is a form of eugenics which should be rejected by all who recognise and respect the value of human beings.

"Designing children and throwing away those we choose to reject for whatever reason is a form of fatal discrimination, which should not be tolerated in any civilised society."

The only ethical action, therefore, that MPs can take regarding the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is to vote against it when it comes before the House of Commons, which could be soon after Easter. Please contact to your MP today – visit http://www.spuc.org.uk/lobbying/ for guidance.

Bishop stands up under fire

Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue of Lancaster came under fire at a meeting of the House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Select Committee.

Fiona McTaggart MP challenged the bishop on the fact that his recent guidance to Catholic schools (Fit for Mission? – Schools) indicated that they should not support fund-raising appeals with an anti-life ethos. He pointed out that it was not feasible to expect Catholics to support organisations – despite the good work they might do – if their leadership adopted policies contrary to basic Christian principles. The bishop emphasised that the values upheld by Catholic schools in his diocese were values shared by those of other faiths, such as Moslems, at Catholic schools.

The Bishop was also criticised for saying in the document that schools in his diocese should see it as their prime duty to teach the Catholic faith and to evangelise. Committee members said they thought this meant non-Catholic pupils were to be proselytised. The Bishop denied this – pointing to the distinction between genuine evangelisation – proclaiming the truth to others – and proselytisation, which was characterised as coercive.

Barry Sheerman MP, the Committee Chairman, asked if Church leaders were not worried that it seemed that church schools had become adept at keeping out poor and needy children.

The Bishop said that Catholic schools [within the state ‘comprehensive school’ system] should not be selective, and said he would intervene if schools were found to have been selecting children on the basis of their social class. He maintained, however that admission quotas for different class or religious groups should not be imposed on schools.

On the question of interfaith schools, the committee chairman asked whether there had been a change in policy under Pope Benedict XVI (or, as Barry Sheerman impolitely put it: under the “present occupant of the Vatican”!) Bishop O’Donoghue said the policy had not changed as far as he was aware – not in his diocese.

If you want to write to congratulate Bishop O’Donoghue for his brave defence of values, particularly pro-life values, during his questioning in Parliament today, write to him at: Bishop’s Apartment, Cathedral House, Balmoral Road, Lancaster, LA1 3BT.

pray for bishop's witness to life

Spare a thought this morning for Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue, the bishop of Lancaster. At 10.45 a.m. he will be giving evidence in Parliament during a formal oral evidence session of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee.

Remember some of the things Bishop O’Donoghue has been teaching in his diocese in his document “Fit for Mission? Schools”:

“…Schools and colleges have to cope with increasing government ‘social engineering’ legislation, seeking to impose secular values on our curriculum and ethos…

“…Parents, schools and collegesmust reject secularized and anti-life sex education, which puts God at the margin of life and regards the birth of a child as a threat (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, 137)

“Sterilization, contraception, abortion, and IVF should only be discussed during adolescence and only in conformity with the teaching of the Catholic Church. Therefore, the moral, spiritual, and health values of methods for the natural regulation of fertility, such as Natural Family Planning, must be emphasized (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, 137).

“Parents must insist on continence outside marriage and fidelity in marriage as the only true and secure education for the prevention of AIDS. Parents, schools, and colleges must also reject the promotion of so-called “safe sex” or “safer sex”, a dangerous and immoral policy based on the deluded theory that the condom can provide adequate protection against AIDS. (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, 139)…”

Of course, this is exactly what very many citizens, Catholic or not, are crying out to hear from their religious leaders – and thank God Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue has been saying it. We live in a country in which the Government’s policy, enacted in schools, including Catholic schools, is to provide abortion and abortifacient birth control to children without the knowledge or consent of their parents.

Bishop O’Donoghue is calling for resistance to this policy in accordance with the teaching of Pope John Paul II who wrote: “Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection”. (Emphasis as in “Evangelium Vitae”, 73)

However, Barry Sheerman, MP for Huddersfield and chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, dismisses citizens’ rights to oppose anti-life sex education as fundamentalism.

Simon Caldwell writes in today’s Daily Mail:

“The bishop has been criticised by Barry Sheerman, the chairman of the schools select committee. ‘A lot of taxpayers' money is going into church schools and I think we should tease out what is happening here," said Mr Sheerman, the Labour MP for Huddersfield. A group of bishops appear to be taking a much firmer line and I think it would be to call representatives in front of the committee to find out what is going on. It seems to me that faith education works all right as long as people are not that serious about their faith. But as soon as there is a more doctrinaire attitude questions have to be asked. It does become worrying when you get a new push from more fundamentalist bishops. This is taxpayers' money after all.’”

As I make this post, all we can do is pray for the bishop. Pray that Barry Sheerman and his committee fail to convict him in the court of public opinion for standing up for the natural, inalienable, rights of citizens to defend the sanctity of life and the right to protect and promote the dignity of married love.

UN report could be used to make abortion a right

A United Nations official is today presenting a report in Geneva which, if adopted, will be used by international pro-abortion bodies, including UN bodies, to seek to establish a global right to abortion.

Mr Paul Hunt's document says that states have a legal obligation to provide health services, and it's hard to take exception to that. However, he includes in this provision: "sexual and reproductive health services including information, family planning, prenatal and post-natal services, and emergency obstetric care."

"Sexual and reproductive health services" is a term used by UN bodies such as the UNFPA and CEDAW to promote legal access to abortion on demand – and to put pressure on developing countries worldwide to legalise abortion.

What's needed is a firm declaration by the international community that none of this report is to be taken to imply a right to abortion. Better still, nations should re-assert what the Convention on the Rights of the Child says about how children need special protection "before as well as after birth".

Please contact your country's foreign ministry to ask them to ensure that your nation opposes any interpretation of the Hunt report as supporting abortion. In the UK, one can contact the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at King Charles St, London, SW1A 2AH. Their website has a feedback form here.

Worldwide prayer alert to protect Northern Ireland

I am in Belfast today at a meeting of the SPUC Northern Ireland executive committee.

The number one item on our agenda is the British Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

There is a terrible danger of Parliament imposing the British Abortion Act on Northern Ireland - which is so overwhelmingly opposed by the politicians and public alike here.

In addition to their political campaign, SPUC Northern Ireland wants to build on any existing prayer campaigns against the government bill and, in particular, against the pro-abortion lobby's agenda for this Bill.

If any readers know of existing prayer campaigns against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, either locally or on a national level, and either in Britain or in Ireland or in any other part of the world, please contact me at johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk

Please would other bloggers, reading this post, pass on the message.

By the way, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is a danger to the world. Just as the British Abortion Act has been copied throughout the world and, therefore, British politicians responsible for the killing of unborn children worldwide; just as the Human Fertilisation and Embrology Act 1990 and the permission it gave for IVF and human embryo experimentation has been copied around the world; so will the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill and the permission it gives for the creation of human-animal hybrids be copied around the world - if it is enacted by the British Parliament in the coming months.

So this is a worldwide prayer alert.

Giving counselling or taking lives?

Marie Stopes, the abortion provider, has launched a so-called telephone counselling service for women considering an abortion. SPUC's Anthony Ozimic has commented: "Marie Stopes has a financial interest in abortion - they run abortion clinics. What incentive is there for abortion providers like Marie Stopes to give women the necessary information about abortion, such as the full facts about the development of their baby and the physical and psychological risks of abortion to themselves? Women should be extremely wary of speaking to counsellors who are employed by an agency that exists to kill unborn children. Marie Stopes, the birth control pioneer, was driven by the desire to ensure that women she saw as 'unfit' should have fewer children. Her ideas live on in the agency that names itself after her and they are certainly not fit to give advice to today's expectant mothers."

MP's muddled thinking on abortion

In an article calling for a lower upper limit for abortion, Mrs Nadine Dorries MP speaks movingly about the killings of babies at 19, 24 and 28 weeks. However, pro-lifers must be wary of her proposal for reasons I explain, in a different context, in a letter published in the Catholic Herald this weekend. (Since I cannot link to the letters’ pages of the Herald, I reprint it below.)

The dangers of Nadine Dorries’s proposal are clearly illustrated in her own position on abortion. She endorses a woman’s right to choose abortion. She introduced a 10-minute rule bill in 2006 which included a provision to fast-track abortion once the final consent had been given. This provision, if the Bill had succeeded, could have led to even more resources being spent on killing the unborn.

Her revulsion at late abortion is wholly appropriate, but her tactics in trying to curb it are wrong, dangerous and likely to make matters worse, not better.

Her inconsistent stance politically is perhaps a reflection of her muddled thinking on abortion, best expressed by Ms Dorries herself in today’s Daily Mail: “What got me was the total lack of regard for human life. I have no issue with abortion at the right time. But this is murder."

My letter in this weekend’s Catholic Herald:

It’s misleading to describe SPUC’s approach to abortion law reform as “all or nothing”. (Catholic Herald, Interview, 21^st December 2007)

For many years SPUC has pointed out that the Abortion Act 1967, terrible as it is, could be made significantly worse. A careful examination of the recent votes on abortion in the current Parliament shows many more MPs supporting the pro-abortion lobby than the pro-life lobby.

With the numbers stacked against us, it makes no sense at all to add to the calls of the pro-abortion lobby for Parliament to amend the abortion law.

When Parliament last voted on the upper limit for abortion (in 1990), exceptions were included which resulted in the legalisation of abortion up to birth. Leading pro-abortion politicians have since indicated that want abortion to be more widely available. Negotiating any lower limit is likely to involve a trade-off with more exceptions being allowed beyond the limit – up to birth – thus resulting in more abortions taking place.

The beginning of political influence for the pro-life movement in the UK both inside and outside Parliament must be a candidly honest assessment of our political strength. Only after such an assessment, can prudent decisions be made about how to limit the harm of Britain’s abortion legislation.

Thus, along with other pro-life groups, SPUC is working closely with leading pro-life politicians in Northern Ireland who are calling on Gordon Brown to seek to prevent a House of Commons vote extending the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.

It is wrong to say that SPUC does not communicate with other groups.

SPUC has always acknowledged that our lobbying and educational work is not the whole of the pro-life battle. We have encouraged and supported the work of other groups especially in the field of pro-life counselling. We continue to liaise with other organisations through the London-based ‘Choose Life’ committee and in several areas, particularly Scotland, SPUC collaborates with LIFE on education work. Although the national Pro-life Umbrella Committee is not meeting at present, we support its revival.

SPUC fights for the right to life of all unborn children, and works on the basis of a realistic political strategy. It is not an “all or nothing” approach. It’s one which takes into account the real danger of making things worse, as well as the urgent need to devise strategies that will enable us to make progress despite the hostile political climate.

Yours sincerely,

John Smeaton

SPUC national director

retirement of Rev Dr Ian Paisley

There have been many tributes paid and comments made on the occasion of the announcement of Dr Ian Paisley's retirement as DUP leader and Northern Ireland first minister. Here are my observations:

• In February 1984 he co-sponsored a motion (along with Rev Ivan Foster) in the Northern Ireland Assembly rejecting the extension of the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. The motion was approved by 20 votes to 1.
• In autumn 1992 he led a rally in Belfast to oppose the opening of a Brook Advisory Centre in the city. Brook refers for abortions and provides girls under the age of consent with abortifacient birth control drugs and devices.
• On 20 June 2000 he spoke in the New Northern Ireland Assembly in favour of a motion reiterating the rejection of the Abortion Act saying: "As a public representative, I shall speak for the child today, the child who feels, who can recognise its mother's voice and know pain, who is a member of the human family and who has been given the unique gift of human life. We cannot get away from that."
• As a member of the House of Commons and an MEP, Dr Paisley has consistently supported the pro-life cause, working with other elected representatives regardless of religious or political differences.
• He is expected to lead his party's opposition to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill.

You can read the rest of Dr Paisley's speech quoted above in this transcript of a Northern Ireland Assembly debate. Scroll down a few screens till you reach it.

SPUC's briefing on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill is here as a PDF.

Chinese regime: no end to one child policy

China has denied reports circulated last week in the Western media (Reuters and the Guardian, among others) that China is considering scrapping the one-child policy, according to a domestic newspaper. Beijing News has reported that "[n]ews of abandoning the one-child policy is inconsistent with the facts", quoting the National Population and Family Planning Commission describing the reports as “incorrect”. Beijing News, and the Yangcheng Evening News, another state-run newspaper, said that "China will continue to pursue even better its population and family planning policy." [Reuters, 2 March] SPUC warned last week that Western media outlets had misinterpreted misleading comments by Zhao Baige, China's minister in charge of the policy. [SPUC, 28 February] Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, comments: "The Chinese Communist regime has played its old trick of soft-talking to the Western media, whilst tough-talking to its oppressed citizens, and yet again the Western media fell for it. Journalists should question the words of a regime that has ordered the killing of millions of unborn children and the torture of their mothers."

Chimp or person?

Mexico's former attorney general and ex-chairman of that country's human rights commission has reportedly said that early unborn children are chimpanzees. Dr Jorge Carpizo McGregor cited scientific discovery as a reason for his opinion. Dr Carpizo's apparent view reminds me of something said by the late Professor Jérôme Lejeune (pictured), the world-renowned geneticist who discovered the cause of Down's syndrome. In testimony to the US senate's judiciary subcommittee, he said: "[I]f at the beginning, just after conception, days before implantation, a single cell was removed from the little berry-looking individual, we could cultivate that cell and examine its chromosomes. If a student, looking at it under the microscope, could not recognize the number, the shape and the banding pattern of these chromosomes, if he was not able to tell safely whether it comes from a chimpanzee being or from a human being, he would fail in his examination." [California Prolife, 2000]

The child’s life which does not haunt Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown spoke movingly the other day about child poverty. Watch him here as he says: “When we allow just one life to be degraded or derailed by early poverty it represents a cost that can never be fully counted. What difference could that child have made? What song will not be written? What flourishing business will not be founded? What classroom will miss out on a teacher who could awaken aspiration? Because just one child’s life wasted haunts us with the thought of what might have been. So this government must end child poverty in this generation.”

You may like to write to him to tell him that exactly the same sentiments could be applied to the unborn and to abortion.

Check here for Gordon Brown’s voting record on abortion. In 1988 and 1990, he voted with the pro-abortion lobby no fewer than 16 times, including three times for abortion up to birth.

one-child policy propaganda

Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, has commented today on how Western media outlets are disseminating misinformation by the Chinese Communist regime allegedly implying that China might scrap or significantly relax its one-child, forced-abortion population control policy.

Reuters and the Guardian have today published reports analysing comments by Zhao Baige, Chinese's population control minister, to a Beijing press conference. The headlines read "China could scrap its one-child policy" and "China considers ending one-child policy", even though nothing in the minister's comments suggests such a move.

Anthony comments: "Experts know that the Chinese Communist regime makes misleading statements about human rights when the international spotlight is on China, such as now in the run-up to the Olympics. Such statements are intended for Western consumption only and specifically designed to mislead Westerners into wishful thinking that the regime's crimes against humanity, such as the one-child policy, are coming to an end.

"The false claim by the Guardian's Tania Branigan that the one-child policy's 'enforcement system is far less punitive than in the 80s and early 90s' is one such example of how the Chinese regime has been successful in planting such misinformation into the Western media.

"After the Olympics, the Western media should conduct on-the-ground investigations into the one-child policy's implementation, where they will discover the reality of continuing forced abortions rather than the myths the Communist regime has led them to believe," Anthony concludes.

Pictured is Hui Rong Mesrinejad, a refugee from the one-child policy (read more about her story here).

Most Excellent Order?

It’s sad to see that Vivien Crouch, a nurse who promotes the culture of death to schoolchildren, has been made an OBE (Officer of the British Empire). The notice from Buckingham Palace says that:

“For the last 27 years she has worked as a school nurse in the Bath area. She ensures that young people are aware of and can access confidential guidance on sexual health issues. One of her innovative approaches was opening up the way for girls, at one school, to access emergency contraception through establishing a drop-in clinic linked to a local GP practice. She works alongside schools, young people and parents to promote and develop effective programmes of sex and relationships education to allow young people to make informed decisions....She is a trustee for the Brook Advisory Service which promotes the rights and needs of young people in sexual health.”

We know of course that “confidential guidance on sexual health issues”, “emergency contraception”, “informed decisions”, and “rights and needs of young people in sexual health” are all euphemisms for abortion and its promotion without the knowledge or consent of parents.

Brook started in 1964 as an offshoot of the Family Planning Association, which is basically the UK’s national branch of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the world’s largest provider and promoter of abortion. Brook pioneered the tactic of divorcing children from their parents' protection by an absolute rule of confidentiality when providing ‘counselling’ (i.e. brainwashing with anti-life propaganda), which often leads to Brook referring them for an abortion.

See today's SPUC release commenting on the latest teenage pregnancy statistics.

Although it is true that OBEs and most other recipients of royal honours are nominated by the Government and not by Her Majesty the Queen herself, it is nonetheless sad to see any link between our monarchy and the culture of death. In 1989 HRH The Princess Royal (Princess Anne) visited Brook to celebrate its 25th anniversary, one of a number of cases over recent decades when members of our Royal Family have either explicitly or implicitly supported anti-life activities. I hope that one day our national leaders, both royal and governmental, will give a better example to society by promoting a culture of life.

abortion is never therapy

It’s good to read the report about scholars from the Catholic University of St. Paul, in Arequipa, Peru, pointing out that abortion is never a therapy, even in pregnancies when the life of the mother is endangered. The scholars’ statement is made in response to an aggressive pro-abortion protocol published by the regional government which lists 24 reasons for which a “therapeutic abortion” may be justified.

The scholars have medical science on their side. In 1992, a group of Ireland's top gynaecologists wrote: "We affirm that there are no medical circumstances justifying direct abortion, that is, no circumstances in which the life of a mother may only be saved by directly terminating the life of her unborn child." (John Bonner, Eamon O'Dwyer, David Jenkins, Kieran O'Driscoll, Julia Vaughan, 'Statement by Obstetricians', The Irish Times, 1 April 1992)

The Peruvian scholars’ statement also usefully draws attention to the distinction between abortion – the direct killing of the unborn child – and ethical treatments in which the death of the child is foreseen but not intended.

abortion amendments at best a distraction

The Daily Mail reports today that David Cameron, the Conservative leader, would like to vote to reduce the current 24-week deadline in what is the first Parliamentary vote on the issue since 1990. "If there is an opportunity in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, I will be voting to bring this limit down from 24 weeks.”

With all due respect to Mr Cameron and the Daily Mail, they are jumping the gun.

Or rather, they are watching the wrong hare – one that isn’t even running yet. Of prior importance is the HFE bill itself – a hare that is running, and on a disastrous course. It is a wholesale extension of the already deplorable law on embryology. The bill contains a plethora of measures that will lead to the abuse, manipulation and destruction of countless more embryonic human lives.

Talk about abortion amendments is, at best, a distraction which will prove helpful to the government which wants to maximise its majority at the Bill’s second reading.

Euthanasia, the white rose and students

One of SPUC's most important campaigns involves campaigning against euthanasia, and another involves university students, including Christians. Today marks the 65th anniversary of the trial and execution of the leaders of the White Rose Society, a group of Christian students at Munich University which resisted Nazism. These students read the famous 1941 sermon by Clemens August von Galen, Catholic bishop of Munster, against the Nazi euthanasia programme. One of the group, Hans Scholl, stated in the spring of 1942: “Finally someone has the courage to speak”. Bishop Galen's protest prompted and encouraged Hans Scholl and fellow student Alexander Schmorell to write their own anti-Nazi leaflets in June-July 1942. In his sermon Bishop (later Cardinal, and more recently declared 'Blessed') von Galen said:

"Once admit the right to kill unproductive persons . . . then none of us can be sure of his life. We shall be at the mercy of any committee that can put a man on the list of unproductives. There will be no police protection, no court to avenge the murder and inflict punishment upon the murderer. Who can have confidence in any doctor? He has but to certify his patients as unproductive and he receives the command to kill. If this dreadful doctrine is permitted and practised it is impossible to conjure up the degradation to which it will lead. Suspicion and distrust will be sown within the family itself."

The students took a white rose as their symbol, to represent purity and innocence in the face of evil. Pictured here is Hans Scholl (left), Sophie Scholl (centre), and Christoph Probst (right) with a white flower between them. (The 2005 film 'Sophie Scholl - The Last Days' has won many awards.) SPUC adopted the same symbol and SPUC's White Flower appeal is held every year.

Human and civil rights was the White Rose Society's main theme and the human and civil rights is also the main theme of the international student pro-life conference SPUC is organising in Scotland, March 28-30 (visit www.spucconference.org.uk for more information)

Fr John Fleming on the Mental Capacity Act

I am in Nottingham today with Fr Fleming, the bioethicist, member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, and adviser to the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). He is speaking to Catholic clergy in England this week on behalf of the Society. His talk includes an unflinching analysis of the Mental Capacity Act.

The Act provides for euthanasia by omission of reasonable care, Fr Fleming says. It does this by a faulty understandings of ordinary care, autonomy and “best interests”.

Ordinary care

Fr Fleming explains Pope John Paul's teaching that the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. However, under the Mental Capacity Act, artificially-delivered food and fluids is seen as medical treatment.

Autonomy

Autonomy is the right to self-determination, the right to free choice. However, free choice is linked to fundamental human values and inalienable human rights such as the right to life. A person cannot exercise his autonomy by giving away his right to freedom, for example, by selling himself into slavery. Neither can he use his autonomy by denying his right to life as the Mental Capacity Act permits.

Neither can my autonomy be exercised by another person. The Mental Capacity Act falls prey to a false understanding of autonomy in this respect too. “Autonomy” cannot be handed on like a baton in a relay race, Fr Fleming says. You can make decisions on my behalf when I am not able to do that for myself but that is not an exercise in autonomy. It might be you acting autonomously on my behalf.

This leads to another danger: Relatives can be overcome with identifying with the patient's suffering and the problem of transference arises: "Please put grandma out of my misery".

“Best interests”

Hurt a child and the law intervenes, Fr Fleming says. The law ensures that parents' choices on behalf of their children are constrained by the child's objective “best interests”. However, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 imposes no such constraint on those with power of attorney for, and doctors caring for, mentally incapacitated patients.. The patient's “best interests” in the new law are not objective but are subjectively defined.

The Mental Capacity Act by enshrining in law euthanasia by neglect is the first legislative step to active euthanasia, and those behind it know that's the case, Fr Fleming says.

Remembering but not mourning Deng Xiaoping

Today is the 11th anniversary of the death of Deng Xiaoping, the de facto leader of Communist China between 1978 and 1992. Deng is well-known for having ordered the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Deng is less well-known as the founder of China's one-child policy, which is implemented by forced abortions and many other coercive means. The one-child policy only started in 1979 once Deng, one of the founders of Communist China, had taken control of the regime. Deng - who himself had six children! - said in 1987: "In order to reduce the population, use whatever means you must, but do it!” Deng is pictured here with Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State and author of the infamous NSSM 200 (National Security Study Memorandum 200), which recommended that the United States should promote population control in the developing world in order to secure American interests. The West should reject the amoral Realpolitik of NSSM 200 and instead ensure that the Chinese Communist regime cannot use this year's Olympics to divert attention from its crimes against unborn children and their mothers.

Saving the children?

Save the Children, the international humanitarian charity, has again undermined its cause by promoting an anti-life approach. In a report issued today entitled "Saving children's lives: why equity matters" (PDF 428KB) Save the Children states that in Sierra Leone "understanding of sexual and reproductive health is low" and so "[i]n 2005 [Save the Children] provided basic reproductive health equipment" to clinics in a particular district. The staff in the Save the Children-supported clinics are now enabled "to discuss a range of health and family planning issues" with pregnant women. The report goes on to claim that "[a] huge reduction in neonatal deaths is also possible if pregnant mothers can access appropriate support, including help to control the timing and frequency of pregnancies....The effective use of contraception can help mothers to control their fertility and space their pregnancies in a way that enhances their health and that of their babies." We can say a number of things in relation to this report:

• Save the Children is not pro-life - indeed, as detailed in SPUC's charity bulletin (PDF 123KB), it supports the ideology of abortion;

• 'Reproductive health', 'family planning' and 'contraception' are terms which often entail abortion operations and/or abortion-inducing birth control drugs and devices;

• Even where the particular methods of artificial birth control used are not themselves abortifacient, the mass provision of artificial birth control is accompanied by a rise in abortion - the killing of children - as leaders of the pro-abortion lobby acknowledge;

• Population control endangers a country's prosperity by depleting its best natural resource - people - and money that could otherwise be spent on primary health care.

the rights of the unborn in international law

I was in Ireland this week with Dr John Fleming, President of Campion College, Sydney, a new Catholic university. He was speaking to priests in Galway on the rights of the unborn in international law at a meeting organized by Pat Buckley, director of European Life Network, Ireland.

Dr John Fleming is a Catholic priest, married with three children. He is a bioethicist and widely published in that field. He was a foundational member of UNESCO’s International Bioethics Committee, which produced the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights.

He has recently co-edited a book Common Ground, launched in Melbourne last September, which contains a chapter by Fr Fleming entitled “What rights, if any, do the unborn have under international law?”

Copies of his book are available from SPUC at £15 plus postage and packing.

Why Humanae Vitae was right about contraception

It's good to see that Janet Smith, the famous author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation later and editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right is speaking in Westminster Cathedral Hall on 6th March.

After 34 years working in the pro-life movement, I am convinced that the teaching of Humanae Vitae on the inseparable connection between the unitive significance and the procreative significance of the marriage act is of fundamental importance for the future of the family and for the sanctity of human life throughout the world. Furthermore, I believe that what is happening today to the family and to the sanctity of human life in Europe provides overwhelming evidence of the prophetic importance of Pope Paul VI’s words:

“The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life." Humanae Vitae, 11

In a presentation in Warsaw last May, at the World Congress of Families, I said:

Britain is witnessing the fulfilment of the prophetic message of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s historic encyclical which celebrates its 40th anniversary next year. Speaking about the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative significance of sexual intercourse he wrote: “Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone.” (Humanae Vitae 17)

Moreover, as Pope John Paul II points out in Evangelium Vitae (13), there is a close interconnection between contraception and abortion.According to the manufacturers, one of the contraceptive pill’s modes of action is to cause an early abortion.

Last year [2006], a teacher at a Catholic comprehensive school for boys and girls in Kent, England, spoke out publicly about the sex education given to her class of 13- to 14-year-old children. The teacher, a Miss McLernon, said: “I think people should be aware of what is going on in schools. I witnessed the nurse using a plastic model to show these children how to put on what she said was a chocolate flavoured condom.” She went to on to explain to her pupils that flavoured condoms had been made because prostitutes didn’t like the taste of rubber.

Miss McLernon added: “Every child in the class was given a card explaining where you could get free contraceptives and the abortion-inducing morning-after pill. The card also gave details of a website for young people explaining how a surgical abortion could be arranged. This is a Catholic school where you would expect children to be protected from this sort of thing.”

Sadly, more and more Catholic parents are telling us at the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children about terrible experiences in Catholic schools, both at secondary and primary school level. Protests on the part of Catholic parents and teachers seeking to protect young people do not appear to be heard.

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The full text of my talk is here. A list of resources published by Janet Smith is here.

The intrinsic wrongnesss of IVF

A story in the Sunday Telegraph points towards the intrinsic wrongnesss of IVF, proving how allowing human life to be created outside the body and inside the laboratory has led to the killing of human beings and the abuse of human dignity. The Sunday Telegraph reports that the government has admitted that in recent years there have been hundreds of accidents in which embryos have lost, damaged or destroyed by IVF centres.

It is only because legal permission for IVF has turned early human life into a commodity that the IVF centre staff involved haven't been charged with unlawful homicide. Imagine the outcry if hundreds of new-born babies were accidentally lost, damaged or destroyed by neo-natal medics.

Build peaceful pro-life resistance

In addition to developing prudent political opposition to the killing policies of the UK government and parliament, we need, I believe, to develop peaceful, pro-life resistance campaigns against such policies. My belief is reinforced by news I received this weekend.

Morning-after pill manufacturer’s admissions and evasion…

A reader forwarded me a letter sent to her friends this week by Bayer Schering Pharma, the manufacturers of the morning-after pill (which may cause an early abortion by preventing the embryo from implanting in the lining of the womb).

The Bayer Schering letter underlines three major concerns for UK citizens, especially parents:

1. There is very limited medical evidence on the effects of the morning-after pill on girls under the age of 16. [Levonelle 1500 delivers 50 times the daily dosage of the Norgeston daily mini-pill.]
2. Scherings carefully avoid answering the question of whether they are accountable for any ill-effects arising from the administration of the morning after pill. If Scherings isn’t accountable for the effects of their product, who is?
3. If pregnancy occurs after taking the morning-pill, the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy should be considered.

Bayer Schering’s important letter is a reminder of the shameful teenage pregnancy policy of the government, personally introduced by Tony Blair, as Prime Minister, in June 1999. His government’s policy, amongst other things, targeted children under the age of 16 to be given the morning-after pill without the knowledge or consent of parents. Tony Blair said: “This is a comprehensive programme of action which we will put into practice straight away”.

The government pursues this policy with reckless disregard for the unknown ill-effects of the morning-after pill on the children, our children and grandchildren.

Ectopic pregnancy is a significant cause of maternal death.

Health professionals, pharmacists, teachers, school governors should be encouraged by pro-lifers to resist the government’s policy by conscientious objection. Those who make decisions on our children’s behalf – providing abortifacient birth control and abortions to children under the age of 16 and others – must be made aware that we hold them accountable for those decisions.

Contact me if you want to join SPUC’s peaceful pro-life resistance campaign.

suspended sentence for assisting suicide

This time last week the press reported on the sentence given to a man from West Sussex who, reportedly, placed a plastic bag and pillow over his wife’s face after she had taken an overdose of pills. His wife, Mrs Cook, had multiple sclerosis. Mr Cook was given a suspended jail sentence for assisting her suicide “on the ground of diminished responsibility”.

Alison Davis (pictured), the leader of No Less Human, a division of SPUC, wrote to The Times about Mr Cook’s sentence. Alison believes that the underlying reason for the light sentence was that Mrs Cook was disabled, depressed and wanted to die. Since Alison’s letter to The Times has not been published, she suggests that I publish it instead:

“It seems to me that this [kind of sentence] has become the norm when disabled people who are simultaneously depressed are deliberately killed. It is assumed that the disabled person is "right to want to die" and no effort is put into trying to ameliorate the effects of severe depression - something that would be done as a matter of course for people with no obvious disabling condition.

“I have several disabling conditions and use a wheelchair full time. I experience severe spinal pain on a daily basis, and even morphine doesn't always control the pain.

“Twenty years ago, when doctors thought I didn't have long left to live I decided I wanted to die. It was a settled wish that lasted over 10 years. I attempted suicide several times, and had assisted suicide been legal then I would have requested it. Under the rules that apply in Holland, Belgium and Switzerland I would have qualified for it. Failing that, if I could have found someone prepared to "assist" me to die, I would have jumped at the chance.

“It took my friends many years to help me change my mind about wanting to die. I still have the same level of pain now, and my disabling conditions have deteriorated significantly. What has changed is my outlook on life. If assisted suicide had been available to me then,no one would ever have known that the future held something better for me, and that the doctors' prognosis was wrong.

“I suggest that what sick and disabled people like me really need is help and support to live with dignity until we naturally die. Cases such as that of Mr & Mrs Cook only serve to underline a negative view of the value of suffering lives, and create a double standard - non-disabled depressed people are treated, disabled depressed people are killed. This is unfair, unjust and unworthy of a civilised society.”

supporter climbs 22,800' peak for SPUC

One of our supporters has climbed the highest mountain in the world outside the Himalayas to raise funds for SPUC’s work. Mr Mark Norbury, who is British-born but lives in Canada, set off to climb Aconcagua, Argentina, on the 10^th of last month and reached the summit of the Andean mountain on the 27^th. He has since made it safely back to base camp.

Mark had to contend with altitude sickness, windburn and sunburn. He said: “Nearing the summit I felt really dizzy with the altitude and my body kept telling me to just lie down and rest, but I continued on, one step at a time. I never once seriously considered giving up. I'd come this far and was so determined to reach the top. I crawled on to the summit at 4 pm.”

Mark has been a keen mountaineer since his youth. His first climb was Great Gable in the Lake District, England, at the age of two. In 2002, he conquered Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, the highest mountain in Africa. Aconcagua is 6,962 metres (22,841 feet).

Mark said that deciding which organisation to support through sponsorship for his climb was not difficult. “Protecting the lives of children is, I believe, the most important challenge facing the world at this moment. Life begins at conception, as scientists can prove, and there is little that distinguishes a baby within the womb from a baby who has been born. Both are dependent on their mother for nourishment, warmth, love and all that sustains their life. The average mother or her doctor would not dream of killing a baby after birth, yet sadly it has become socially and politically acceptable to kill a baby within his or her mother's womb."

If you would like to make a credit/payment card donation to Mark’s fundraising efforts please ring (01772) 258580.