Aborted babies bodies burned to heat hospitals

One of the most startling stories of the week appeared in the Telegraph which reported that the bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals.

According to the report ten NHS trusts have admitted burning the bodies of the aborted and miscarried babies, which are described simply as ‘foetal remains’, alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.

The UK Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which was described by health minister Poulter as being ‘totally unacceptable.’

According to the article which was published in advance of a Channel 4 dispatches programme on the issue, at least 15,500 'foetal remains' were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years.

One of the country’s leading hospitals, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. The mothers were told the remains had been ‘cremated.’

Another ‘waste to energy’ facility at Ipswich Hospital, operated by a private contractor, incinerated 1,101 foetal remains between 2011 and 2013.

They were brought in from another hospital before being burned, generating energy for the hospital site. Ipswich Hospital itself disposes of remains by cremation.

The programme a Channel 4 Dispatches programme aired on Monday also found that parents who lose children in early pregnancy were often treated without compassion and were not consulted about what they wanted to happen to the remains.

 

Paul Tully, General Secretary of Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) issued the following statement on the revelations in the programme.

    “We welcome the efforts of those who have highlighted these appalling practices, but we insist that the answer is not as simple as having a new code of practice or better ways of treating babies’ remains. We must stop killing babies like these by abortion and then we will know how to respect the dead.

    “The way we treat those who have died is important, yet parents who lose a baby by miscarriage or abortion are rarely consulted over the disposal of the baby’s remains.

    “The reluctance to consult families in these situations is undoubtedly linked to our barbaric abortion policies, even if sometimes after late abortions everyone admits that the baby is a baby and tries at least to respect his or her remains.

    “There are two issues at stake here. One is the feelings of the parents, and the other is the respect due to the dead – in this case a dead unborn child, killed by abortion or who has died as a result of spontaneous miscarriage.

    “Some argue that because very early spontaneous miscarriage is not marked by social ceremony, and may be unrecognised by the mother herself, this indicates that the human embryo is not a person. This approach is used to argue for an arbitrary time before which the unborn are treated as non-persons.

    “In fact the unborn has all the essential attributes of a person from conception, even though some characteristics take months or years to develop fully. If we feel differently about the unborn, it is simply because he or she is a stranger – someone we have not yet met or developed affection for.

    “Until we reject the abortion culture and learn to honour all mothers – including expectant mothers and bereaved mothers - the sickening consequences of aborting over 500 babies every day will continue to resurface and unsettle us.”

African, Caribbean and Pacific States condemn western sanctions against Uganda and Nigeria

Following the enactment of recent anti homosexual legislation in Uganda and Nigeria, the response of the European Parliament to isolate them from the Cotonou Partnership Agreement and the response of Member States of the European Union, the United States of America and Norway in deciding to either withhold aid directed to the Ugandan Government or redirect aid away from the government to civil society organizations, the Parliamentary Assembly of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States has issued a strongly worded declaration condemning the actions of the countries involved and expressing support for both Uganda and Nigeria.

The Parliamentary Assembly during its 35th Session in Strasbourg on 14 and 19 March 2014 point out in their declaration that 76 countries consider homosexuality a crime, and it continues by pointing out that one of the universally held cardinal principles of democracy is acceptance of differing opinions on matters of principle and that democracy and human rights do not allow forceful imposition of unilateral points of view by one country over another sovereign country.

The declaration states that the new laws in Uganda and Nigeria were enacted by democratically elected Parliaments following widespread consultation in each case, and reiterates the right of sovereign governments and their democratic institutions to reflect and respect the will of their people. Interestingly the declaration points out that the former British colonial governments in Uganda and Nigeria had enacted legislation to punish homosexuality with a 14-year prison sentence under section 145 of the Uganda Penal Code Act and with a 7-year sentence under section 214 of the Nigerian Criminal Code respectively.

The declaration asserts the right of a society to determine its own moral values and norms and accuses the European Parliament of double standards in addressing democracy and human rights issues as manifested in the reaction to the issue of sexual orientation and homosexuality in ACP Countries.

The declaration continues by calling on the EU to respect the democratic processes of sovereign States and to refrain from taking action which could undermine partnership with the ACP Group, and to desist from tying sexual orientation and homosexuality to development aid and cooperation. It also reaffirms its rejection of any attempt to pressure the ACP countries into accepting values contrary to the wishes and aspirations of their peoples.

The declaration also expresses regret that some ACP countries are being punished for observing and upholding the generally acceptable norms in their societies and urges the EU to accept that there is no common ground between it and Uganda and Nigeria on the question of sexual orientation and homosexuality.

Row breaks out over availability of abortifacients in Irish Pharmacies

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Human Life International Ireland (HLII) came under attack in the pharmacist’s magazine, the ‘Irish Pharmacist’, following its recent survey of Irish Pharmacies on the issue of dispensing abortifacients such as the morning after pill. 

The HLI executive director Patrick Mc Crystal has responded to the criticism in the ‘Irish Pharmacist’ and has issued a press release which is set out below.

Having just surveyed 3000 pharmacies on dispensing abortifacient "morning-after" pills, Human Life International Ireland has rebutted accusations of "Catholic militancy", "fundamentalism" and "totalitarianism" and "extreme" in the March edition of "Irish Pharmacist" magazine.   (greencrosspublishing.ie) See rebuttal here.

 

Responding to criticism in February's edition of "Irish Pharmacist" , Patrick McCrystal, Executive Director of Human Life International (Ireland) outlined that many of their supporters want to know what pharmacies do not dispense abortifacients. See criticism article here.

 

In his article, Mr McCrystal described how he ceased dispensing abortifacients as a pharmacist when he realised the implications of the loss of human life through the dispensing of these life destroying drugs.

 

He stated: "As a pharmacist, I held that if a woman conceived and presented in my pharmacy, I had two patients to consider not one. There is a silent holocaust countrywide despite the clean clinical image projected."

 

"Whilst many pharmacists I know are consciencious and hard-working, if human life is sacred there were uncomfortable realities as a pharmacist I simply had to face, realities that transcended mere professional ethics."  As a result, Mr McCrystal was unemployed for three years due to his ethical stance.

 

Further clinical and ethical considerations are our dedicated website at www.positivepharmacy.org, which is attracting international attention. This is a big issue for pharmacist's way beyond our Irish shores.

Of the 40 pharmacy responses, only two indicated they did not dispense the abortifacient morning after pill.   All dispensed the everyday oral contraceptive pill. However, several pharmacies indicated their willingness to explore the matter further.

"If even one pharmacist considers taking a different path, it will have been worth it." said Mr McCrystal.

Pharmacists and all healthcare professionals are thrust into the frontline of a moral quagmire that university clinical training does not equip them to deal with.

For more information Contact: Patrick Mc Crystal (BSc Pharmacy) tel 087 2305709
Human Life International Ireland

Controversy at 58th Commission on the Status of Women brings the United Nations into disrepute

This year’s annual Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW58), held during the past two weeks at the UN Headquarters in New York ended in controversy when the 45-member Commission adopted an outcome document entitled “Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls”. These negotiations are supposed to be based on consensus and the outcome document or agreed conclusions is meant to represent just that, genuine agreement.

Following two weeks of negotiations that had become deadlocked, the Chair produced a new text just before midnight on Friday, which still contained some of the more controversial paragraphs on which there was no agreement. Given the lateness of the hour, Member States were given less than a minute to voice any last minute objections before the Chair adopted the 24 page text in its entirety.  This type of farce is precisely what brings the UN into disrepute.

Twenty - two, (22) Member States, some of which represented large groups of member states, made reservations to the text, the implication being that around half the countries in the world were unhappy and do not support the outcome. The rich countries lamented the fact that the document included a reference to " the family " as they wanted a reference to "various forms of the family". They were also upset that there was no reference to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI)

The controversial document includes references to “comprehensive evidence-based education for human sexuality”, so called emergency contraception and “safe abortion” where such services are permitted by national law. It also includes “reproductive health care services, commodities, information and education.”

Abortifacients and abortion are not health care, and the fact that they are included in the document says more about ideology than any genuine effort to reduce maternal and child mortality and morbidity.

The term “reproductive rights” which appears in three places has been qualified by referencing the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which is intended to protect countries’ sovereign rights to determine their own national laws on reproductive health.

Needless to say UNFPA, The pro-abortion United Nations Population Fund, welcomed the so called agreement claiming that it clearly reaffirms the international community’s commitments to gender equality and the empowerment and human rights of women and girls and the Commission’s reaffirmation of the importance of the ICPD Programme of Action.

The Commission also negotiated a resolution on “Women, the girl child, and HIV/AIDS.” Presented by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Malawi, to bring to the attention of the international community the challenges of realizing MDG 6 on HIV/AIDS.

The draft resolution on HIV/AIDS as proposed supported the idea of fidelity and delay of sexual debut. The Netherlands during the debate in the plenary presented controversial oral amendments, which included deletion of the term “early sexual debut” and adding “comprehensive evidence-based education for human sexuality,” The amendments also referenced controversial references from outcome documents of regional conferences organized by pro-abortion organizations

 The amendments proposed by the Netherlands were supported by Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Costa Rica, Norway, Australia, Iceland, and Paraguay.

Because of the fact that resolution had been arbitrarily changed the African Member States withdrew co-sponsorship of the resolution, followed by Russia and China. Malawi then called for the withdrawal of its sponsorship.

Despite the fact that there were no sponsors remaining the amended resolution was brought to a vote. The results of the vote were 22 in favor and 16 abstentions, while 7 did not vote.

The African Member States expressed disbelief and disappointment at the fact that the resolution they had proposed had been hijacked, and it was significant that in the final analysis none of them accepted the amended resolution as it ran counter to their experience in how best to tackle HIV/AIDS.

WHO concedes that making abortion legal does not make it safe

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The pro-life movement has always rejected the rhetoric put forward by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) the World Health Organization (WHO) and many others in favour of so called ‘safe and legal abortion’. 

Hillary Clinton is on the record for making statements such as the following (Toronto Star 2010)

“You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health and reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortions,” 

The implication in this statement and many other similar expressions, is that all legal abortions are safe and illegal abortions are unsafe.

A standard response to this claim from pro-lifers has always been that irrespective of whether the terms ‘safe and legal’ are used it is never safe for the baby and regularly unsafe for the mother.

The World Health Organization should have known better than to blindly follow  pro-abortion propaganda but it seems that they have had a late conversion to the fact that making abortion legal does not make it safe judging by an editorial in their latest Bulletin.

The editorial with the title, ‘From concept to measurement: operationalizing WHO’s definition of unsafe abortion’, considers the definition of “unsafe abortion” and distinguishes the safety of abortion from its legality. This is a reversal of a policy that has been in place since the early 1990s and a step in the right direction.

The article acknowledges, “WHO has historically used a pragmatic operational construct that measures safety in terms of only one dimension—legality—in developing its regional and global estimates of rates of unsafe abortions.”

Thus, illegal abortion is not synonymous with unsafe abortion, as indicated by the original definition: “... legality or illegality of services, however, may not be the defining factor of their safety [...] the safety of abortion must be considered within both the legal and legally restricted contexts.”

Rates of induced abortion are difficult to measure because of frequent underreporting or misclassification in surveys, hospital records and health statistics.

In light of this, WHO has historically used a pragmatic operational construct that measures safety in terms of only one dimension – legality.

Clearly this methodology distorts the number of so called “unsafe abortions” in countries that prohibit abortion, and has been a useful tool in the hands of pro-abortionists in persuading Governments to legalize abortion.

In point of fact legalizing abortion has never made it safe. It only makes it more common. Evidence from around the world clearly demonstrates that legalizing abortion is not necessary to reduce maternal mortality and protect the lives and health of women.

The article concludes, 

“This emphasizes that the termination of pregnancy is neither as simple nor as safe as some advocates of abortion would have the public believe. Moreover, the incidence of such complications as infertility, recurrent miscarriages, premature labor, ruptured uterus or emotional manifestations cannot be assessed at this stage.“

It is to be hoped that the WHO conversion to the truth in respect of this one issue will continue and that they will revise their entire approach to motherhood and childcare by recognizing the humanity of the unborn, the injustice of terminating the lives of unborn babies and that they will genuinely research the physical, psychological and emotional consequences of abortion for women.