From despair to hope: The euthanasia petitioner who changed her mind

The story of Seema Sood, who petitioned the president of India for euthanasia, provides evidence of why euthanasia must be unceasingly resisted both politically and, sadly with increasing frequency, by the bedside. See my earlier post Resisting euthanasia at the bedside.

Alison Davis, who has spina bifida, and leads No Less Human, a division within SPUC, says:

"The story of Mrs. Seema Sood explains in a nutshell why allowing legalised killing of vulnerable people by euthanasia is wrong. Mrs. Sood, who is now 37, longed for death two years ago, and even petitioned the President of India for euthanasia. She had lost all movement of her limbs for 15 years following a severe attack of rheumatoid arthritis, and was in despair. Now two years later, after surgery paid for by the Government of her state and her university alumni association, she says 'I regret the letter to the President. Everything was so dark for me ealier, but I'm excited about my mobility now and I'm confident I will improve.'

"Euthanasia would have robbed Mrs. Sood of the chance to recover her love of life, and to benefit from the surgery which revolutionised her life, and no one would have known that life held something better for her in the future. She is not the only vulnerable person who has changed her mind about wanting to die. I've been through the same experience myself.

"But euthanasia allows for no changes of mind. It is the philosophy of despair. What sick and disabled people who want to die really need is the sort of help and support which Mrs. Sood received both from politicians and her friends. Note well, politicians. Your actions could save a life like Mrs. Sood's rather than condemning her and others to death."

And, readers, note also SPUC's service to those who want to protect their loved ones from euthanasia: Patients First Network. By supporting and advising the friends and relatives of patients who are at risk of euthanasia by neglect, Patients First Network is enabling ordinary people to mount a bedside resistance to a premature and distressing death for their loved ones.

Happy Population Day!

The United Nations has declared today to be World Population Day. An organisation which respected the gift of human life and the dignity of the family would celebrate such a day by welcoming the report that Britain's birth rate is at its highest (1.91 children per woman of child-bearing age) since 1973. But the United Nations, in particular the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has created World Population Day as an opportunity to promote abortion and contraception as a means of population control. The organisers of World Population Day should have the honesty to re-name today World Anti-Population Day!

Steve Mosher, an expert colleague of SPUC and the president of the Population Research Institute (PRI), has written a very information piece about World Population Day here. PRI has also written:

"Some will find population decline a cause for celebration. But keep this in mind: The world's population will age rapidly in that time, due to the few births. Most of the world, including its poor nations, will develop the same massive social security and health care problems that increasingly plague fast-aging First World nations in Western Europe and North America as well as Japan. The UNDP [United Nations Development Program] projects the median age of the world will go from 28 today to 38 by 2050. The proportion of the population over 65 will go from 7.4% to 16.1%, the oldest old - those over 80, who cannot work and usually require daily if not constant care from others - will more than triple from 1.3% to 4.3%. That's a big bill for any society. At the same time, the proportion of the population of productive working age, defined as between ages 15 and 64, will go from 64.5% to 63.7%, while the next generation - those under 4 - will go from 9.5% to a crippling 6.7%."

But it's not all doom-and-gloom. Naturally, pro-lifers have, and continue to have, more children than anti-lifers, passing on their message to the next generation. So, population controllers, in the end we will outsmart you by outbreeding you.

Embryo bill postponement gives more time to lobby

Harriet Harman (pictured), the (pro-abortion) Leader of the House of Commons, announced this morning that the report stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill will now be postponed until after the summer recess. Speculation about the delay has featured in reports in the Guardian, the Telegraph and in the BBC news.

This delay gives us more time to lobby MPs on the pro-abortion amendments which have been tabled.

The effects of these amendments would include:

• reducing medical scrutiny of abortion from two doctors to one;


• abolishing the need for any legal grounds for abortion up to 24 weeks;


• allowing nurses and midwives to carry out an abortion;


• extending locations where abortion can take place to include doctors’ surgeries, local health centres, school sick rooms etc.;


• up to a 2 year prison sentence for any pro-life counselling group which “misled” expectant mothers by its adverts.

Over the summer months SPUC intends to initiate widespread action highlighting the plight of unborn children and their mothers. We will continue to build our campaign against the bill and against the pro-abortion amendments to the bill. SPUC will be urging its supporters and local clergy to contact prospective parliamentary candidates in their constituencies to ask them how they would vote on the pro-abortion amendments if they were in Parliament.

Such amendments, if approved by Parliament, will greatly increase the numbers of abortions, increase the growing number of women harmed by abortion, and place even greater pressure on women to submit to abortion – often under pressure from boyfriends or other parties motivated by self-interest. It is important to make this Bill, and the proposed pro-abortion amendments, an issue for parliamentary candidates at the next general election.

Contact me at johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk for further information on how to participate in SPUC's vital summer campaign against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill. This legislation will have catastrophic consequences in Britain and, without doubt, in other parts of the English-speaking, common-law world.

Progressio - listed as an international/third world Catholic agency - and its pro-abortion partner

Following my post on Progressio, a Catholic aid agency, one of my readers pointed out that Progressio’s partner in El Salvador, Las Dignas, is one of a number of organizations to put its name to a document entitled Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Central America. The document takes a somewhat surprising position on the Church’s teachings. (I find I get "You are not authorised to link to this page" message but I have the document for anyone interested and you can find it by googling '"Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Central America" Las Dignas')

Its ‘agenda for action’ includes:

“Defence of the Secular State. By persuading the region's governments to stop following the dictates of the most conservative sectors of the [Catholic] church, one of the principal obstacles to more progressive laws and policies would be removed.”

“Abortion. The right of each woman to take decisions about her own body should be a fundamental aspect of advocacy on this issue, in addition to arguments for decriminalisation based on public health and social justice. This includes the possibility of seeking that, in the first place, therapeutic abortion be decriminalised in those places where it is prohibited and that women are guaranteed access to this procedure where it is still legal.”

The document goes on to present a caricature of the Catholic Church’s teachings on human sexuality: “The churches, especially the Catholic Church, teach that sexuality is something bad, that it should only be exercised in limited circumstances, and that it must be related to reproduction…Women are taught to equate the exercise of sexuality with love and with reproduction, and even to believe that 'sexuality is something dirty and impure, only allowed for men, not for we women who should be clean and pure'. Women, but not men are obliged to accept a formula in which love = sexuality = reproduction = the maximum expression of love. Pleasure has no place in this equation.”

A little further on it states: “It should be emphasised that the church's opposition to abortion is not only due to its much trumpeted position that life begins with conception but also derives from its vision of motherhood as the destiny of all women."

Well, yes, the Church does teach that sexual activity should be loving and open to life. How Las Dignas works out that this renders it ‘something bad’ that should not involve pleasure is rather puzzling. It goes on: “sexual health includes 'the absence of feelings of shame and guilt, of unfounded beliefs and of other psychological factors which inhibit sexual activity or disrupt sexual relations'.” Furthermore, “to enjoy this right, women require information and access to high quality, dignified and efficient medical attention so as to be able to enjoy maternity without risks or to terminate an unwanted pregnancy safely, as well as for the prevention and treatment of infertility.”

The Catholic Church emerges as the enemy in a later discussion of the Millennium Development Goals: “Turning to the effects of religious fundamentalists and conservatives, their influence in international political forums has significantly increased. An important example of their success is how pressure from the Vatican and a small number of conservative governments led to the elimination from the Millennium Development Goals of a goal that would have established that 'all people of appropriate age should have access to reproductive health services by the year 2015 at the latest' even though it was supported by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and had been adopted in 1996 by the 21 governments that participate in the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)." "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.

It is not just the Catholic Church that is attacked for being pro-life. The document warns: “It should also be noted that the differences between evangelicals and the Catholic Church on these issues are more a question of form than substance. Evangelicals are also very conservative and equally opposed to the decriminalisation of abortion and the recognition of diversity in sexual orientation.”

I repeat what I said in my post last Saturday, how can Progressio canvass for support within the Catholic Church? Indeed why should it continue to be listed as a Catholic organization in the Catholic directory? This scandal must be addressed.

Resisting euthanasia at the bedside

I was very moved to read about a religious brother in the US who describes his experience and insights gained from caring for a brain-damaged member of his community for over 12 years. Brother Paul O'Donnell rejected both medical and church authorities' advice that he should allow Brother Michael to be dehydrated and starved to death.

Brother Paul effectively resisted euthanasia at the bedside of his fellow brother where it was most effective. This is where we need to resist euthanasia. And Patients First Network (logo, right) is doing exactly that. By supporting and advising the friends and relatives of patients who are at risk of euthanasia by neglect, Patients First Network is enabling ordinary people to mount a bedside resistance to a premature and distressing death for their loved ones.

A "coma stimulation programme" was developed by Brother Paul to help Brother Michael, although the doctors poured scorn on this loving care. It is a reality here too, that sick and disabled people are likely only to receive such dignified and individual treatment from friends or relatives, because hospitals have lost sight of this.

Alison Davis of No Less Human (NLH) can testify to this. NLH is a group within SPUC of disabled people and their carers which upholds the right to life and dignity of disabled people. Members of NLH show us all that the critical ingredients needed to look after vulnerable people are love and compassion. Sadly these are in very short supply in our hospitals.

We are going through a difficult time in our country's history with euthanasia by neglect enshrined in law through the Mental Capacity Act. My colleagues and I at SPUC's London headquarters want to speak in localities around Britain to explain how we can re-establish and re-build a campaigning movement which defends the sanctity of human life from conception to the grave. Resisting euthanasia at the bedside and how to go about it through Patients First Network will be one of our most important messages.

Please contact me by emailing johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk to arrange a meeting in your area.

More abortion won't mend our "broken society"

In the past 6 days, pro-abortion MPs have tabled about a dozen new amendments to the Abortion Act 1967 via the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill, to be debated on Monday. More amendments may be tabled in the next few days. Among the latest amendments, one tabled by Labour MP Frank Field would produce a sliding scale for the number of doctors who must authorise any abortion: one doctor for less than 13 weeks, two doctors for between 13 and 24 weeks, and three doctors for greater than 24 weeks. Given that over 90% of abortions occur before 13 weeks, most abortions will no longer be subject to the two-doctor rule. The effect of the amendment is primarily to streamline the majority of abortions taking place under 13 weeks gestation, possibly leading to more abortions.

The Telegraph reports that the amendment has the support of David Cameron, the leader of the Opposition.

David Cameron has been in the headlines today, calling for firm action to mend our "broken society". Mr Cameron said in a speech:

"[W]e're going to be uncompromising in taking on any vested interests or establishment cultural attitudes that stand in our way. ... Social problems are often the consequence of the choices that people make. ... [C]hildren are growing up without boundaries, thinking they can do as they please, and why no adult will intervene to stop them."

So Mr Cameron, why are you compromising with the vested interests and establishment cultural attitudes which promote easy abortion? What about the social problems which are the consequence of abortion - psychological and emotional trauma, relationship breakdowns, suicide and substance abuse? What are you doing to stop secret abortions for children as young as eleven, which parents are powerless to stop?

Catholic MPs avoiding their responsibilities to the unborn

Sometimes it's right and necessary for constituents to remind MPs, not least Catholic MPs, of their responsibilities to the unborn. That's exactly what Mrs Pat MacDonald, a SPUC supporter in Crosby, Liverpool, did recently when she wrote to her MP, Claire Curtis-Thomas (pictured), a Catholic. Mrs MacDonald wrote:

"Dear Claire Curtis-Thomas,

I again urge you to vote against the pro-abortion amendments that are expected to be placed before Parliament on Monday, 14th July. Your comments on May, 20th expressed during the debate are not acceptable for any member, and particularly not for the Vice-Chair Person of the "All Parliamentary Pro-Life Group" - "I am not opposed to abortion. ... I would be happier with 12 weeks - and that's where I stand, let women have the choice". The unborn child has no voice except ours. It is therefore imperative that you vote against any amendments which will make abortion easier to obtain.

The right to life is not for you or I to decide. It is a God-given right that only He can give and take.

Your comments and continued support and membership of "Emily's List" are a major cause of concern. They are a contradiction of the position you hold. If you do not oppose any pro-abortion amendments then you will be culpable and held responsible for your actions, or lack of them.

Yours sincerely, P.E. MacDonald - Mrs"

Mrs Curtis-Thomas replied:

"Thank you for your very rude E Mail. As the vice chair of the Parliamentary Pro Life group I take my responsibilities very seriously! Regards, Claire Curtis-Thomas MP"

Mrs MacDonald has commented to SPUC HQ: "I do not see why Claire Curtis-Thomas considers the truth rude; she persistently refuses to respond to my queries re 'Emily's List'.".

Mrs Curtis-Thomas received a grant from "Emily's List", which helps elect female Labour candidates to Parliament, but only if they are pro-choice i.e. pro-abortion.

If Mrs Curtis-Thomas really took her responsibilities as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group seriously, she would not have taken offence at Mrs MacDonald's points.

Similarly, another north-west Catholic MP, cabinet minister Ruth Kelly (pictured), is avoiding her responsibility to the unborn, by reportedly arranging with the Prime Minister to be absent on Monday when Parliament again votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill.

Mrs Curtis-Thomas and Mrs Kelly should be reminded that the Catholic Church teaches that:

• the late Pope "John Paul II, continuing the constant teaching of the Church,...reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a "grave and clear obligation to oppose" any law that attacks human life." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Doctrinal note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life", 2002)

• "Those who formulate law therefore have an obligation in conscience to work toward correcting morally defective laws, lest they be guilty of cooperating in evil and in sinning against the common good." (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Catholics in Political Life", 2004)

What is it about "obligation" and "any law" that Mrs Curtis-Thomas & Mrs Kelly don't understand?

Mrs Curtis-Thomas should resign as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, and not rejoin the group until she is prepared to take her responsibilities to the unborn seriously, by stating a total opposition to access to legal abortion at any point of pregnancy. Also, Mrs Kelly should resign from the government and campaign against the HFE bill (as well as the government's stem cell research policy, which she endorsed in 2005). The unborn deserve no less. Indeed they are entitled to a lot better.

Top stem cell scientist analyses US presidential candidates' position on the unborn

Dr James L. Sherley, a stem cell biologist in Boston, Massachusetts, examines here the positions of John McCain and Barack Obama on the right to life of the unborn. He concludes: "The clarion credo of the Abolitionists who upended slavery in our great nation must be applied to the unborn: 'None of us are truly free, unless we are all free.' This transformative ideal of human beings must apply to us at all stages of our existence, including embryonic and prenatal, if we want to become the nation of truly free women and truly free men. Hence, we should vote to elect a president who puts principle before political expediency. Now is the time for all Americans to demand that our presidential candidates are men and women of integrity. Now is the time to demand that our presidential candidates make patriotic declarations of independence for everyone by vowing to protect the fundamental right to life of one and all: born, unborn and embryonic."

Catholic authorities in England and Wales co-operating with government in providing schoolchildren secret access to abortion and contraception

It’s good to see another international conference in Rome coming up on the 40th annversary of Humanae Vitae, entitled "Humanae Vitae, A Topical and Prophetical (sic) Encyclical". It is badly needed, particularly for countries like Britain.

This international congress is important for Catholics and for everybody. It's especially important for the pro-life movement. As I have mentioned before on this blog, the prophecy of Pope Paul VI regarding artificial birth control has been fulfilled in ways that even he did not predict. 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)

Nowadays in Britain and elsewhere, the Government is "imposing" the use of birth control, including abortion, on families; and the Catholic Church authorities in England and Wales are co-operating with the government in imposing it in England - by welcoming into its schools Connexions whose job it is to make abortion and contraception available to children, without parental knowledge or consent, a point I made last year in an interview with Zenit.

As a father and a grandfather and as a Catholic I can say, without reservation, this is the worst thing that's happened since I got involved in the pro-life fight 34 years ago. By what right do Government and Church authorities rob parents of their God-given right to protect their children from such grave moral harm and from such serious risks to their health? By what right do their rob parents of the right to protect their grandchildren from being aborted?

The "lectio magistralis" is being given by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, archbishop of Bologna (pictured above). Cardinal Caffara is a contributing author to Why Humanae Vitae Was Right, edited by Janet E. Smith, which reproduced, as an article, his keynote address for a conference held in Rome to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. In her introduction to his article, Janet E. Smith writes: "He demonstrates that the use of contraceptives violates the dignity of man since it entails a rejection of the goodness of being...".

Elsewhere, Cardinal Caffara writes about the "intrinsic illicitness" of in-vitro fertilisation since it "establishes between the one performing the fertilisation and the one to be born a relationship of 'production of an object'".

The international congress is also being addressed by Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, the newly appointed president of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Scottish Cardinal's new "Cry of alarm" on abortion amendments must be heard by other religious leaders

As millions throughout the UK relax to watch the Wimbledon final tomorrow, as thousands of churches fill up with the faithful coming to worship God - spare a thought for what MPs have the power to do on Monday week, 14th July: to strip away as much of the little protection that is left in British legislation for unborn children, increase the pressures on mothers-to-be and on doctors and nurses striving to oppose abortion by conscientious objection.

I am pleased to report that Cardinal O'Brien, the archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, has sent out another clarion call in "The Scotsman" which I pray will not only reverberate in the hearts and consciences of Members of Parliament but will prompt many other Christian leaders to mobilise the faithful and all people of good will in defence of life.

With characteristic prophetic bluntness and in entirely appropriate dramatic terms, he writes:

"My letter to MPs is more than a piece of political lobbying. It is a cry of alarm; a final desperate effort to prevent our nation sleepwalking into one of the most shameful decisions of its history...Our spiralling abortion statistics are already a badge of shame for our nation and it confounds the reason of any decent person that such a situation should be exacerbated. From the time of the Abortion Act in 1967 we have watched the growing tragedy whilst its architects have refused to repent their handiwork. Now those who have demeaned every human life by targeting the most vulnerable would have us remove what little restraint there is in relation to abortion...As I grow older myself I will look back at the legislation we pass and ask myself whether I did everything possible to fight for the right to life of the unborn and I ask everyone in our nation, most especially our politicians who will be directly responsible, to ponder the same question themselves. A society which sacrifices its most vulnerable, for whatever reason, invests in its own future ruin."

Now forgive me, Cardinal, if I add my own heartfelt comment.

Never before in our history has outstanding pro-life leadership, such as yours, been needed from Christian leaders and religious leaders of all denominations. Not only will millions more human lives be destroyed and the lives of countless women blighted in Britain, anti-life legislation passed in Westminster will have a catastrophic, life-destroying, impact worldwide, especially in the English-speaking common-law world, as we have seen again and again since the passage of the British Abortion Act in 1967.

If the right to life of one priest, one politician, one nurse or teacher was to be swept away by the raw power of Parliament in the coming weeks, would we not be called to prayer, would we not be called to action, in urgent terms by religious leaders? The unborn in their desperate plight are entitled to be treated in exactly the same way. Pro-life lobbyists, pro-life politicians, pro-life clergy cannot win these battles on their own.

Catholic agency Progressio and its ambiguous position on the abortion law in El Salvador

As a Catholic, now that our offices have moved south of the river, I have started going to St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, for Mass whenever I can. On a recent visit, I noticed newsletters on display from Progressio, the working name for the Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR).

On Progressio’s website, they describe themselves as "an international development charity working for justice and the eradication of poverty", combining “a heritage of radical Catholicism and secular thought." Reflecting on its history, Progressio claims that after the Second Vatican Council (1962-5) "there was a clear division within the church between the progressive and the more conservative elements" and that "CIIR's then education department supported the progressive elements of the church in various liberation and human rights struggles in Central America, southern Africa and Asia. CIIR published booklets on liberation theology and promoted progressive church speakers."

64% of Progressio's funding comes from the British government – the Department for International Development, which the website links to ”with grateful thanks”. Catholic Action UK has compiled a dossier on Progressio’s work. Whilst some of the issues raised do not fall within SPUC’s remit, it makes sobering reading…

…Not quite so sobering as the spring 2008 issue of Progressio’s own publication Interact, in which a development worker working with Progressio’s partner La Dignas writes of her desire to make a documentary about ‘the serious consequences of the total criminalisation of abortion’ in El Salvador.

By the sound of it, this documentary won’t share the sentiments of a pro-life petition signed by every one of the 84 lawmakers in the El Salvador Congress. "Every human being should be protected and respected from the moment of conception…until his natural death," the petition reads. "Our primary responsibility as legislators is to unconditionally defend life. We condemn abortion as an abominable crime." Possibly Progressio’s principal funders, the British Government, which promotes abortion on demand worldwide, would have something to say about it if the documentary adopted the same line as El Salvador’s lawmakers!

Progressio's position on the abortion law in El Salvador is ambiguous to say the least.

Not only is Progressio being promoted among worshippers at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, it is listed in the Catholic Directory under “International/Third World Catholic Agencies”. Catholics have a right to expect agencies that claim any connection with the Catholic Church to uphold the Church’s teachings on sexuality and the sanctity of life. Agencies that fail to do so have no place looking for support in a Catholic cathedral.

Pro-abortion amendments due 14 July

The Report stage and 3rd reading of the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) bill has been announced for Monday 14 July. Several pro-abortion amendments to the Abortion Act 1967 via the HFE bill have been tabled.

The amendments attempt to remove safeguards on abortion, such as a second doctor's signature and specified medical grounds on all early and mid-term abortions. The amendments would also allow abortion providers to use nurses and midwives to perform abortions instead of doctors and allow abortions to be performed in a wider range of health care centres. SPUC has posted an analysis of the effect of the two main pro-abortion amendments here.

Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, has commented today: "These amendments are trying to say that abortion is no different to other medical procedures. But it is vastly different. The pro-abortion MPs insist that abortion is a woman's right to choose but there is no right, either in law or in ethics, for patients to demand a medical procedure with no medical benefit, let alone one which kills another human being, and may harm themselves.

"There is no legal requirement for abortion providers to offer counselling or tell women about alternatives to abortion. These amendments promote the abortion providers' 'conveyor belt' approach which denies women the opportunity to consider fully the gravity and possible consequences of an abortion. It will leave many women vulnerable to pressure and even coercion to have an abortion they don't want.

"An increasing proportion of doctors are refusing to be complicit in abortion, many for ethical reasons. Removing restrictions on abortion will place considerable pressure upon medical staff with a conscientious objection to abortion. Nurses and midwives should not be pressured to become abortion practitioners. Dumping abortion work on nurses and midwives will also put women's lives at risk, as they are not equipped to deal with emergencies that will arise during an abortion.

"It is expected that some MPs will also table amendments to restrict abortions in certain ways. If this happens MPs must be wary not to get embroiled in a trade-off, agreeing to sacrifice some babies in order to help others. SPUC therefore urges MPs with pro-life sympathies not to promote amendments on abortion, as Parliament's pro-abortion majority may well use the Report stage as the opportunity for a new settlement on abortion which will lead to more, not fewer, deaths of unborn children."

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, has written to all MPs, also urging them to vote against the pro-abortion amendments. The full text of his letter can be read below:

My dear Member of Parliament

As you may know, I recently had the opportunity of visiting the Houses of Parliament, of celebrating Mass and preaching in St Mary Undercroft, and of hosting a reception in the Scotland Office. This visit had been pre-arranged, but occurred shortly after the debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. This is a Bill, as you will be very much aware, which deals with extremely sensitive and controversial issues.

You will be aware also of the opposition I have expressed on behalf of my Church and many others to specific aspects of the bill specifically around inter-species embryos, abortion, saviour siblings and the role of fathers. These have been dealt with in Committee stage albeit not favourably from my perspective.

I wish now, however, to ask you to consider seriously any proposals at Report stage which would make early abortion more readily available. We already have a shamefully high level of abortions in the UK which continues to climb. This cannot be good for anyone involved in the whole process and I ask you respectfully to vote against measures which would exacerbate the situation.

I know that there is still no date set for the Report stage of the Bill. I am aware, however, that amendments have been put down to allow abortion on request up to 24 weeks gestation, with approval needed from one doctor only and a further amendment to allow nurses and midwives to perform abortions. These amendments do reflect very sadly on our society at this present time.

I would hate to think that as I myself grow older, I will look back at the passage of the legislation and ask myself whether or not I did everything possible to fight for the right to life of the unborn. Consequently, I am asking you to seriously use your conscience at this time and let that be your guide as to how you will vote in the short time which lies ahead concerning this Bill.

You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Yours sincerely in Christ

+ Keith Patrick Cardinal O’Brien
Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh

Student skydives for SPUC

A first-year medical student performed a 14,000 feet skydive on Saturday to raise awareness of the pressure on medical staff to take part in abortion against their consciences. Siobhan Fearon, 19, of Hull York Medical School did the jump from Black Knights Parachute Centre, Cockerham, Lancaster. The sponsored parachute jump is also raising money for SPUC.

Siobhan experienced 50 seconds of freefall and then descended the rest of the way by parachute for eight minutes. Though admitting to terror before the jump, afterwards she wanted to do it again.

Siobhan writes: "I think it is vital that society understands and appreciates the sanctity of every human life whether it is a developing child in the womb or somebody approaching the end of their life. When I graduate and become a doctor I am hoping to be able to use my skills to help save lives. I think abortion is never the answer and hope that one day, as a doctor, I will be able to help women to make the right decision."

Two years ago, Siobhan, of Crosby, Merseyside, did a sponsored walk for SPUC around Hyde Park in London. She is one of six children who have all been involved in pro-life work. Mrs Anne Fearon, her mother is an active member of the local SPUC branch and region. Abigail Smith, also 19 and at Hull York Medical School, was prevented by bad weather from jumping on Saturday. She plans to skydive for SPUC in September.

Recommended Standards for Sexual Health, a government-endorsed document, has intensified pressure on doctors and nurses and is putting more unborn babies at risk from abortion. The document demands access, without hesitation or delay, to abortion and to "morning-after birth control". These are drugs and devices which may cause an early abortion only days after conception.

The document steps up pressure on health professionals to provide these so-called services which promote the killing of unborn children. It also includes a thinly-veiled warning of severe punitive action against health care professionals who break a strict code of secrecy concerning abortions for children under 16.

SPUC recently also criticised Recommended Standards for Sexual Health for being part of government policy to fast-track abortions. Figures for England and Wales out earlier this month showed the highest-ever abortion totals (205,598), the highest abortion rate (18.6 per 1000 residents) and the greatest rate of child-abortions.

Anne Fearon, Siobhan's mum, left, has written a vivid and witty account of the day. Our website has a page with more about the event and details of how to sponsor the jumpers.

Rights for apes?

Spanish parliamentarians could pass a law giving rights to apes. Proposed measures would stop the animals from being used for experiments, filming, television advertising and circus performance.

The Spanish proposal takes animal welfare into the realms of rights. This runs contrary to the widely-held beliefs that animals are not persons and that only persons are capable of possessing rights. Indeed, permission for abortion, embryo experimentation and (in certain cases) euthanasia is often predicated on the erroneous belief that unborn children and the severely mentally incapacitated are not persons.

The Spanish measure is inspired by the Great Ape Project, which calls for human-style rights for several types of mammal. A leader of this initiative is Dr Peter Singer, a bioethics professor at Princeton University, New Jersey. Peter Singer has been quoted as saying: ''I do not think it is always wrong to kill an innocent human being. Simply killing an infant is never equivalent to killing a person.''

The proper treatment of animals is a legitimate concern. We need to treat all aspects of our world responsibly, and it's wrong to abuse any creature even if it's not human. One could debate whether it actually is cruel to get animals to perform in public. There's also the issue of whether medical research on other creatures can be justified if it benefits humans.

What is striking, though, is that we find concern for animals among those who are happy to deprive humans of their right to live. Like so many western countries, Spain allows the abortion of human babies. There will be a tragic irony if that country affords extra dignity to apes while continuing to deprive some of its youngest human inhabitants of every possible dignity by killing them.

Europe assembly approves resolution with pro-abortion wording

The Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly today approved a resolution which contains pro-abortion language. The resolution and its accompanying report promotes "legal and easier access to sexual rights and reproductive health services" such as "contraception and abortion".

The resolution's subject is abandonment at birth. Its title describes abandonment as the first form of violence yet this is untrue. The first form of violence is abortion. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines children as every human being under the age of 18. It calls for protection before as well as after birth.

What kind of world do politicians live in where they call for the abortion of children in order to avoid their abandonment at birth? Quite apart from the cruel fate of the children aborted, this policy will result in the abandonment of the mothers who are being aborted, and the continuation of the social problems which the report claims to address.

The Council of Europe is out of control. Assembly members appear completely out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Europeans, who will be appalled that such a resolution has been pushed through. We must spread the message far and wide – that the Council of Europe thinks that child abandonment can be solved by killing the children to be abandoned – with a view to addressing this serious situation in one of Europe's major debating chambers.

Patrick Buckley, who spent the last few days lobbying for SPUC in Strasbourg, said: "Of the assembly's 636 members, just 65 attended the debate and only 40 voted. This is a sad reflection on what Europe in general thinks of the rights of the unborn." The resolution was approved by 39 votes to one.

Despite promises to the contrary the report was not taken on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. Six amendments were proposed and accepted.

Mr Michael Hancock, a British member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, presented a report which formed the basis of the resolution. He said the law meant nothing if the most vulnerable (the newborn) were not protected. The report and resolution were intended:

• to raise awareness of the issue of abandonment
• to protect the interests of the child
• to ensure that every born child had the right to live and be given a decent chance to achieve his or her potential.

These are noble sentiments, but they ignore the unborn. Worse, the resolution contains language which puts them in even greater danger than at present. The assembly's resolutions can have significant influence on law, in particular human rights law.

Child abandonment: legal analysis of pro-abortion agenda behind Council of Europe motion

As I blogged recently, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will debate tomorrow a draft resolution on the subject of child abandonment. The draft resolution contains a clear promotion of abortion. Please contact your country's representatives in the Assembly immediately - see my 20 June blog for more information. The UK members of the Assembly can all be emailed via one email address coepa.del@parliament.uk Simply send a separate, individually-addressed email for each UK member.

The European Center for Law and Justice (ECLJ) has published a comprehensive legal analysis of the pro-abortion agenda which has been inserted into the draft resolution. The ECLJ has condemned the draft resolution's:

"utilitarian calculus promoting abortion over life as a result of being born into inadequate social and financial circumstances. As social and financial circumstances are changeable and the termination of pregnancy irreparable, it is institutionally unacceptable for the Parliamentary Assembly to promote such a worldview with its underlying shadow of social eugenics."

Life-respecting doctors threatened by BMA motion

Doctors who protect the unborn are under threat again. Dr Evan Harris, the pro-abortion MP and member of the British Medical Association (BMA) Medical Ethics Committee, has tabled a motion for the BMA's forthcoming Annual General Meeting (ARM), 7-10 July. Dr Harris's motion would marginalise doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion, specifically by effectively barring them from seeing patients with unplanned pregnancies. The Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF), led by Dr Peter Saunders (pictured), has published a comprehensive analysis of Dr Harris's motion and his parliamentary agenda for more abortion. SPUC seeks to support doctors with a conscientious objection to abortion. If you wish to see the flyer and briefing SPUC sends to doctors, contact me at: johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk

Abortion on demand amendment to Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

A beautifully clear exposition of a new terrible danger of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill on which I blogged earlier this month has been provided by Fr Finigan, the parish priest of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, Blackfen.

I strongly recommend that readers draw the attention of local clergy and other religious leaders to Fr Finigan's blog on this matter. Please order a quantity of our new leaflet "No to more abortion" http://www.spuc.org.uk/hfeabort.pdf and distribute them door-to-door, in the street and at churches.

I also ask readers of my blog who believe in prayer - to pray, and to ask local clergy to lead their communities in prayer, that Evan Harris's and Chris McCafferty's pro-abortion amendments to the HFE bill will not succeed.

Pro-abortion lobby's double standards

A report by ActionAid on discrimination against women through sex selective abortion and infanticide was the subject of a meeting hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health in Parliament yesterday. Disappearing Daughters makes harrowing reading. There are an estimated 35 million missing girls in India. On average there are just 800 girls for every 1000 boys, with the number as low as 300 in Punjab. Though sex-selective abortion is illegal in India, it is widely practiced with ultrasound scans routinely used to determine the sex of the child. Women are taunted, abused and bullied if they fail to produce a son and feel that they have no option other than to abort their unborn daughters.

ActionAid’s work exposing and fighting against the killing of baby girls is commendable. However, it is a terrible irony that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health is lending its support to preventing women from being pressured into abortion in India whilst caring so little about women who are pressured into abortion in this country. The chair of the all-party group, Christine McCafferty MP (pictured) has tabled an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill that would remove the requirement for two doctors to sign an abortion authorisation, meaning that more women will be rushed through the abortion process and more women, particularly young girls whose pregnancies are regarded as ‘mistakes’, will be pressured into seeking abortion.

Consider that some medical professionals in India, according to ActionAid’s report, regard the abortion of baby girls as a “social duty which prevented the ill-treatment of unwanted daughters or helped with population control.” Only last week, a columnist in The Times, argued: “Instead of looking down on these teenage girls who opt for an abortion as feckless, we should, almost perversely, be grateful for their decisions. After all, nearly every single negative consequence of abortion - emotional, social and the risk to future reproductive health - has an impact solely on the women having these abortions. They, very kindly - and potentially at great cost to themselves - make what could be a problem for us all, simply vanish.”

One does not have to look very far to find a callous disregard for the welfare of pregnant women in the name of ‘social duty.’

Margaret's plea to Romanian authorities: Don't abort the reported raped girl of 11

A harrowing story of a young Romanian girl raped, it is said, by her uncle was reported by AFP on Friday. A medical ethics panely has, reportedly, examined her and decided that "abortion should not be imposed" for certain legal reasons.

This young girl is only 11 years of age. It's said she did not know that she was pregnant and that her parents only found out by accident when she was given a medical after suffering stomach pains. Rape by an uncle is, it's reported, suspected but not proven. Margaret Cuthill of BVA, an experienced Post Abortion Trauma Counsellor of 20 years, said “If indeed the young girl has been raped, then performing an abortion on her would be akin to a further assault on her young body. It seems she has not had any say in what has been happening to her at all, and that the adults in her life are making all the decisions for her. In my experience those who have had late abortions in their teenage years are the most psychologically damaged.”

This is borne out by The Elliot Institute in America who recently published the following statistics relating to teenage abortion:-

• Teenagers are 6 times more likely to attempt suicide if they have had an abortion in the last six months than are teens who have not had an abortion.


• Teens who abort are up to 4 times more likely to commit suicide than adults who abort, and a history of abortion is likely to be associated with adolescent suicidal thinking.


• Teens who abort are more likely to develop psychological problems, and are nearly three times more likely to be admitted to mental health hospitals than teens in general.


• About 40% of teen abortions take place with no parental involvement, leaving parents in the dark about subsequent emotional or physical problems.


• Teens are times more likely to seek subsequent help for psychological and emotional problems compared to their peers who carry “unwanted pregnancies” to term.


• Teens are 3 times more likely to report subsequent trouble sleeping, and nine times more likely to report subsequent marijuana use after abortion.


• Among studies comparing abortion vs. carrying to term, worse outcomes are associated with abortion, even when the pregnancy is unplanned.

For these reasons and others I will be joining Margaret in appealing to the relevant authorities in Romania to stick to their decision and not to "impose abortion" on this young girl.