Pro-Abortion Catholics are "Liars"

In an essay published in his diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Sentinel, Robert Vasa, Bishop of Baker, Oregon has condemned politicians who support abortion and claim to love God as 'liars'. He writes that "the inspired scriptures tell us that whoever does not love his brother or neighbor does not and, indeed, cannot love God" and that “the pre-born child is our brother, our sister, our neighbor!”

He goes on:

“It may sound a little strong to state that legislators ‘hate’ the pre-born child but hate is an absence of love and love means to wish another well. There is nothing about abortion that wishes the pre-born child well.

“The preservation of abortion ‘rights’ is already an absence of love for the pre-born child but the passage of FOCA could be construed as nothing less than active and positive disregard, even hatred, for these our brothers and sisters.”

Doctors must become Conscientious Objectors

Cardinal Poletto, Archbishop of Turin, has encouraged doctors to exercise conscientious objection and refuse to starve a woman to death. Eluana Englaro, whose case is being compared with the late Terri Schiavo, has been in a Persistent Vegetative State since being injured in a car crash in 1992. Last November, her parents persuaded a court to order the withdrawal of her food and fluids, but health workers have refused to carry out the order.

Let us hope that Eluana's doctors and nurses will have the courage to obey the first command of the Hippocratic Oath: First Do No Harm

'Dignitas is an organisation that must be stopped'

So says Soraya Wernli, a nurse and former employee of the Swiss suicide business. A believer in assisted suicide, Mrs Wernli worked for Dignitas for a number of years, latterly as a police informer, passing on information about Ludwig Minelli's dubious practices. She was so appalled by the abuses she came across that she is now determined to expose Dignitas to the widest possible audience and get it shut down.

In the interview she gave to a British newspaper, she described being told to sort through sackfuls of personal possessions from dead clients which were sold on to secondhand shops and pawnbrokers; she describes the filthy room in which people died and Minelli's evident lack of concern for the individuals concerned. She could not recall a single time when a doctor refused to prescribe the fatal drugs after the perfunctory interview with the client and admitted that vulnerable people were rushed through the process as quickly as possible, being given the drugs to take just hours after they had arrived in the country so that they would be unable to think over their decision.

Mrs Wernli's most harrowing experience involved watching a man using a faulty 'suicide machine' which failed to kill him. It took 48 hours for him to die, writhing and frothing at the mouth in terrible agony.

There is little in this disturbing interview that will surprise those of us who have campaigned against assisted dying for years, except perhaps the fact that the nurse still believes in it after the terrible abuses she has witnessed. This is where we part company. The problem is not just with corrupt organisations like Dignitas it is with assisted suicide itself, which by its very nature preys upon the fears and uncertainties of the most vulnerable people. Dignitas must certainly be stopped, but so too must dangerous legislation that facilitates such abuses.

Heroic Witness

Standing on my Head carries the moving story of a priest facing death from a degenerative illness, with courage and serenity. At a time when the euthanasia movement is spreading the lie that dignity is to be found in suicide, the world needs the heroic witness of people like Fr Tom, who died a peaceful, natural death, surrounded by members of his community.

Mass for the Unborn

A special Mass for the unborn is to be celebrated in London on 2nd February, for parents who have lost a child through miscarriage and stillbirth. The Mass will take place at the House Chapel in Mount Street, beside Farm Street Jesuit Church at 7pm.

The Importance of Fathers

LifeNews reports an illuminating study by National Right to Life in the United States about reasons why women have abortions. Contrary to popular belief, most women do not cite poverty and hardship as reasons for seeking abortion. One of the commonest reasons for abortion was lack of support from the father in the day-to-day care of the child. Women said things like: he cannot be trusted to "watch the child for a week," or "take good care of the child," the father "does not support the mother's way of raising the child." Hence, the number of abortions being performed on women who already have another child has increased.

A survey like this reinforces the need for fathers to take an active role in the raising of their own children and to respect women in their role as mothers. Lives clearly depend upon the willingness of men to embrace their responsibilities and to support women in embracing theirs.

Chinese Women Want More Children

Chinese family planning officials have released a survey which found that 70% of women in China want to have two or more children. The BBC makes only a cursory mention of the more severe methods that are used in certain regions to force women into abortions and sterilisations, stating that they have to 'pay fines and may face discrimination at work.'

I have mixed feelings about the release of this survey. On the one hand, it shows all too clearly the extent to which women are paying the price for China's one-child policy by being denied the right to have children, and issues such as sex selective abortion and the social problems facing only children have been raised. On the other hand, the way the survey is being reported in no way does justice to the suffering of women in China, aided and abetted by western aid agencies.

The one-child policy is described in the BBC report as 'controversial'. I suppose that is one way of describing the nationalisation of women's fertility; the abortion of millions of babies; the suffering of women who have been coerced or forced into abortion; the arrest, imprisonment and torture of those who have protested against this policy. Or it could, in the words of Wendy McElroy, be described as 'the greatest bioethical atrocity on the globe.'

Embryo Research

As a response to the decision by University College Cork (UCC) to carry out embryo research in Ireland, independent Senator Ronan Mullen published a private members Bill, the stated intention of which was to protect the human embryo. The Bill which was debated in the Irish Senate in November was not well supported and was not put to a vote.

The bill in addition to protecting the human embryo, sought to prohibit research involving the destruction of human embryos including the use of any stem cells derived from the destruction of human embryos. The Bill also sought to prohibit the creation of cloned human embryos or human-animal hybrids, their subsequent destruction in research, or the use of any cells derived from them.

An analysis of the bill prepared by the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute (SCBI) says that despite the stated intentions of the Bill, it does not achieve its goal.

The main problem according to the report is that the Bill, in excluding in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfer (ET) or diagnostic procedures from the definition of “embryo-destructive research”, provides explicit approval for Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) thus placing human embryos at extreme risk, with by far the majority being either discarded, subjected to procedures and processes involving their destruction, or allowed to succumb when unwanted.

The report says that by enacting legislation permitting IVF and ET, this Bill would provide formal approval for ART in general, which cannot be separated from processes and procedures in which human embryos are far from being protected.

Paris March for Life

The annual European March for life will take place in Paris on Sunday next 25th January. During the last five years, the Paris March for Life has become the largest annual pro-life gathering in Europe. Every year, it attracts more delegations from other European countries: Italy, Spain, Belgium, the UK, Poland, Switzerland, Germany and Ireland among others. It began in 2005 when French pro-life organizations came together to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1975 French law legalizing abortion, under the slogan “30 years is enough!” The march is non-denominational and non-partisan. It brings together catholic, protestant, evangelical and secular organizations on a common platform in the defence of every human life.

Opponents of the right to life are actively working to extend the availability of abortion in Europe. In April 2008, the Council of Europe approved a resolution attacking pro-life laws in European countries; - A powerful campaign is underway by the pro-abortion lobbies to demand a European Commission directive to make abortion a human right as evidenced by the recent vote in the European Parliament.

The March for Life is arranged to demonstrate opposition to such a downward spiral in European legislation and to advocate:

* That Europe, should respect the life of every human being, from conception to natural death
* That abortion be abolished in all 27 countries of the EU and Council of Europe
* That pro-life/pro-family public policies be enacted to help women in crisis pregnancies

The 2009 rally will have a decidedly European theme – notably because of the elections to the European Parliament scheduled next June. But more broadly, because Europe is standing at a crossroads : - Will she remain true to her values of Justice and Equality, by protecting unborn life – as do Ireland, Malta and Poland? Or will she reject the right to life of the unborn in favour of a spurious anti life agenda?

Anyone interested in joining or helping the Paris March for Life, contact : edelfr@wanadoo.fr or paul@ginouxdefermon.com

Living Wills

According to an Irish Independent report a living will is NOT euthanasia. A living will, according to the report allows you to take responsibility for your own health and care right up to the end of your life by allowing you to state, in advance, the medical treatment you would, or would not, like to receive in the event that you could no longer communicate.

A living will or advance directive may not necessarily be a request for euthanasia, but these statements can be used to demand that doctors bring about a patient's death by, for example, specifying that nutrition/hydration or medical treatment should be withheld. Living wills may be helpful to doctors in forming an impression of a patient's preferences, however if they are binding, they could tie the hands of doctors, preventing them from acting in the patient's best interests. Doctors might act on an advance directive in circumstances which the patient did not foresee, or misinterpret the patient's wishes. For these reasons living wills, are used as a tool of the pro-euthanasia lobby to achieve their goals.

A patient may not realise that withholding treatment will not necessarily lead to an earlier death with less suffering. Death by starvation and dehydration is truly awful and a high profile case occurred in 2005 when Terri Schindler Schiavo died of marked dehydration following more than 13 days without nutrition or hydration under the order of a Circuit Court Judge.

Obnoxious Propaganda from the BBC

Bashing Secularism carries the story of a BBC detective drama that portrays pro-life campaigners as violent extremists who kidnap and murder young children. The plot involves two children from different women who have a history of abortion, being abducted by a pro-life group who want a film depicting abortion to be broadcast on national television. When the deadline passes, one of the children is murdered by lethal injection.

I wonder if the BBC would care to explain why telling such hate-ridden lies about pro-life campaigners does not constitute a hate crime? Besides the insult and injustice of such a portrayal, promoting the false suggestion to millions of viewers that pro-lifers are violent and dangerous leaves pro-life campaigners at increased risk of violent attack themselves. Stigmatising and inciting hatred against any group leaves them vulnerable to attack by people who are genuinely led to believe that they are a threat to society. A group like the Christian Institute should consider calling those responsible at the BBC to account in a court of law.

Obama

Check out this YouTube video being shown around the US

The real story behind suicide II

I posted last year on the disturbing story of a young man in the United States who committed suicide on live internet TV, egged on by viewers. Standing on my Head carries a similar story reported in The Telegraph about a young man with a history of depression and suicide attempts, who jumped to his death after being taunted by a baying mob. A police negotiator said that he was 'within inches' of saving Shaun Dykes when one particular taunt proved too much for him and he jumped, dying instantly of serious injuries. As I said about the last case:

At the heart of such an act lies loneliness and despair, not compassion. The lies the euthanasia movement tout fall apart when people are confronted with this ugly reality, so far removed from love, dignity and personal autonomy that it is almost obscene to use such language in this context. Commentators who self-righteously claimed in defence of the assisted-suicide documentary that people need to 'get to grips' with the reality of suicide may have a point. The public need to lose the sentimental image the euthanasia movement has given to suicide, of a person dying peacefully and contentedly in the arms of a loved one. They need to see suicide for the unbearable tragedy it is.

These cases show extreme examples of a person being encouraged to end their life, but a question we must all ask ourselves is; to what extent are all people who choose to end their lives being 'persuaded' to do so by others, directly or indirectly? How can doctors, in countries where euthanasia is legal, be sure that the patient requesting help to die is doing so of their own free will, without it being suggested or hinted to them that it is the best decision?

This is not an attempt at scaremongering either. It has been acknowledged by doctors and ethics committees exploring euthanasia that it is almost impossible to be sure that a person seeking help to die is doing so entirely of their own free will and the euthanasia movement does not have an answer to this.

Don't Underestimate Women

Feminists for Life of America have released the fourth in their series of video talks, entitled Don't Underestimate Women. This time, Karen Shablin, a former card-carrying member of NARAL, talks about the abortion she now regrets and her change of heart from abortion supporter to pro-life campaigner.

Can I live?

I can't pretend I am the world's greatest rap fan and I had never heard of Nick Cannon before I was shown this video, but it is incredibly moving, based on his own life story.

Smokescreen?

Torch of the Faith captured this anti-smoking advert on a billboard in a British town.

Interesting, isn't it, how the very best efforts of the abortion lobby cannot hide the humanity of the unborn baby from public consciousness. That inconvenient fact just won't go away.

My Children are a Gift

The Catholic mother of conjoined twins has resisted pressure to have an abortion, stating that her children are a gift from God. Lisa Chamberlain's unborn children share a body and have been given a 20% chance of survival, but Mrs Chamberlain has spoken publicly about her determination to give them the chance of life.

Her husband, Mike, 32, said to journalists:

"We just want everyone to give us a chance. We know it's going to be very tough and we're prepared for that as much as we can be. We've struggled so long for the chance to have children. Now that we've got that chance we're not going to throw it away."

Protecting the Pre-Natal World

An article in Tuesday's Irish Times highlights the growing body of evidence that the unborn child's environment has a lasting impact on his emotional wellbeing. It is known that unborn children can hear from early in the pregnancy and can recognise the sound of the mother's voice, different tones of voice, music and rhythm. Consequently, it is believed that negative sounds - raised voices, arguments, outbursts of violence - can have negative effects on a child's future wellbeing.

Marie Murray, the author of the article, makes the following observation towards the end of the article:

Inevitably, some of the research on womb life has been exploited in educational programmes by those who promote prenatal education for intellectual advancement and advantage over others.

But that is not the primary purpose of research on interuterine conditions. Rather than exploiting knowledge about life in the womb for competitive gain, this is information to be used to provide the most conducive environment for the development of human potential, happiness, security and love in order to lay down the psychological foundation that will support the child through all the developmental stages that lie ahead.

I am not quite sure what she means by this, but it is inevitable that such powerful evidence in support of the humanity of the unborn child will be used by the pro-life movement as part of its campaign for recognition of the unborn child's right to life. It is impossible for it to be otherwise. We cannot talk about the need to create a safe environment for the unborn child and avoid mentioning the violence of abortion.

NACF's open letter

John Smeaton reports that the National Association of Catholic Families in the UK has penned an open letter to the Catholic Education Service, accusing the CES of "arrogantly and undemocratically [attempting] to usurp our rights (as parents) and challenge our moral authority as primary educators and protectors of our children".

The letter follows Oona Stannard, Director of CES, publicly welcoming Government plans to make Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) compulsory in all primary and secondary schools. However, it is also a visible sign of the growing dissatisfaction and anger among ordinary Catholic parents, who feel betrayed by a service that is supposed to support them in the education of their children but instead appears to be selling out to the demands of an aggressively anti-life government.

The Catholic Education Services needs to start taking the views of Catholic parents seriously or risk losing any credibility among the increasingly embattled Catholic minority of England and Wales. Might I suggest that Oona Stannard takes another look at the excellent Fit for Mission? Schools document by Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue on the subject of Catholic education?

Death by Indifference

The Telegraph reports on a damning study released by the disability charity Mencap, which exposes the horrific deaths of six people with learning difficulties in NHS hospitals. One such man, was Martin Ryan, a 43-year-old with Down's Syndrome who was left unable to swallow after a stroke and died of starvation, in terrible agony, because of a 'breakdown in communications.'

Another, Emma Kemp, aged 26, was denied life-saving cancer treatment. The father of one of the people whose deaths were investigated in the Mencap report said: "People like my son are treated as less than human."

According to the report, these six cases were not 'isolated incidents', proving what pro-life campaigners in the UK have known for years - that vulnerable people are being allowed to die through indifference and wilful neglect in British hospitals because disabled and incapacitated people are not valued by society. This goes beyond simple breakdowns in communication. It exposes the eugenicist mentality towards human life that has been taking hold in Britain for decades and is now coming home to roost.

EU Parliament Anti-Life, Anti-Family, Resolution

This Wednesday Jan 14th 2009 the European Parliament will vote on a resolution which seeks to promote abortion and same-sex unions throughout the European Union. The resolution, authored by Giusto Catania, an Italian Communist MEP, calls upon EU member-states to guarantee access to "sexual and reproductive health and rights", a term which is often interpreted to include abortion on demand. The resolution also calls on EU member-states to recognise same-sex unions equally with (heterosexual) marriage. The full report can be read accessed here

This resolution relates to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights attached to the Lisbon Treaty which was rejected by Ireland because it was perceived as a threat both to the right to life of the unborn and to the family based on marriage. The Charter is therefore not legally binding and member states cannot be forced to use it. European Life network recently prepared a report on the threat posed by the Fundamental Rights Agency and its panel of “experts”, this can be accessed at http://www.europeanlifenetwork.org

The resolution should be rejected, because it threatens unborn children and repeats the usual calls by the pro-abortion lobby for more contraception, more sex education and more confidential advisory services. Provision of these so called “services”, however, does nothing to decrease the numbers of abortions, sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies, and may in fact serve to increase them.

The resolution should also be rejected because it is detrimental to the common good of society. It attacks the traditional family based on marriage of a man and woman, by seeking to impose upon EU member-states the recognition of same-sex unions.

We encourage readers to MEPs for your country and region, urging them to vote against the resolution on Wednesday. A full list of all MEP’s and their e-mail addresses can be accessed by following the links at
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members.do?language=en
specifically by clicking on your country and/or region on the coloured map.

Spanish Disability Rights Group Speaks Out

Catholic News Agency reports that Luis Cayo, president of the Spanish Commission of Representatives of Handicapped Persons, has spoken out against the law that permits abortion in cases of disability. He said that eugenic abortion was “immoral”, based on the premise that “persons with handicaps have less value.”

Alison Davis of No Less Human has fought for many years against the fatal discrimination of eugenic abortion. She has spina bifida and a number of other serious disabilities, she has to cope with pain that is not always well-controlled and speaks publicly about how, for ten years, she wanted to end her life and made a number of suicide attempts. One of the aims of No Less Human is 'To challenge the contemporary philosophy that disabled people are "better off dead".'

This is all too necessary in a culture where the majority support the killing of disabled babies before birth and where there is growing pressure to legalise euthanasia of disabled and terminally ill people.

Baby Faith Hope

H/T to My Heart was restless for drawing my attention to this moving new blog Baby Faith Hope, written by a pregnant 23-year-old who refused an abortion and is charting the progress of her pregnancy.

I couldn't resist quoting part of her first post here:

When given the option to either carry her to term or terminate the pregnancy, I immediately told the doctor that I wanted to carry her to term. It was not a decision that I had to think about. For some reason I had to give the doctors my decision over and over again, which was frustrating. One doctor asked, "Can I ask why you want to continue this pregnancy?". I guess some people are baffled by unconditional love.

Abortion Lobby ducks the issue - again

IPAS has taken up the issue of sex selective abortion, a practice that has killed at least 100 million baby girls... and decided that it is all somebody else's fault. IPAS may have a point that cultural preference for boys is a major cause of sex selective abortion but I would argue that it is misleading to suggest that it is the root cause. A culture may have a preference for boys but this will only develop into widespread gendercide if abortion is accessible and widely accepted.

As usual, the abortion lobby is missing the very large elephant in the room, namely that abortionists are colluding with an unjust prejudice against women that is causing the deaths of millions - all in the name of women's rights. A cultural preference for boys may push a woman into the abortion facility, but abortion providers welcome them with open arms and are wholly and entirely responsible for carrying out the act of killing.

Ipas's criticism of media campaigns against sex selective abortion for using "loaded words that personify the fetus" touches upon another sore point the abortion lobby would like to ignore; that any discussion on abortion inevitably draws attention to the personhood of the unborn child. The pro-life lobby does not create those "well-formed fetuses left in wells, lakes or drains", they are a stark reminder to the world that the abortion lobby is involved in the killing of the most innocent. In the end, no eloquent self-justification on the part of an abortionist makes a dead body bearable to look at or excuses their hypocrisy in killing baby girls under the guise of women's advancement.

The 'wicked' doctors who refuse to kill

Dame Mary Warnock, one of the most prominent advocates for the culture of death in Britain, has called doctors who would refuse to help a terminally ill patient commit suicide "genuinely wicked."

This is a woman who came to Ireland last year to tell us of our "moral obligation" to allow embryo research and who has spoken in the past of frail, elderly people having a "duty to die." Journalist Melanie Phillips has described Warnock as a 'monster' and in many ways she symbolises the warped, twisted ideology Britain has embraced over the past forty years. She is very little different from the fashionable eugenicists of the twenties and thirties, figures such as Marie Stopes and Margaret Sanger who were Nazi sympathisers and yet are lauded as altruistic souls who just wanted to help everyone. As John Smeaton puts it: "Reasonable-minded citizens should be genuinely frightened of Mary Warnock."

Novena for the Unborn

The Hermeneutic of Continuity is advertising a novena for the unborn, starting on 13th January. Thousands of Masses have been scheduled across the world and a number of bishops and a cardinal have agreed to offer Mass for this intention. Please consider adding your prayers or asking your priest to offer Mass.

A Potential Abortion Victim Writes

57 years ago, Gregory Kane's mother, a 28-year-old woman with a low income and two other, very young children to support, decided to undergo an illegal abortion. At the last minute, she changed her mind and Gregory's life was saved. Now a journalist, Mr Kane told his story in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspaper and it is reported in LifeNews. He writes specifically about why the circumstances of his birth led him to oppose Barack Obama when so many other black Americans supported him. He concludes:

The abortion debate is about more than a "right to choose" or a "right to privacy." It's about consequences, responsibility and a right to life. It's about all those things my mother no doubt struggled with 57 years ago, when she decided that my right to life trumped her right to choose.

That's why I'm around to celebrate my 57th birthday, and to vote against any candidate who can't see why a right to life trumps a right to choose.

The unforgivable heresy

Monstrous Regiment of Women carries the story of a journalist who cannot get over her decision to abort a child with a serious disability. Monstrous Regiment looks particularly at the treatment of women who dissent from feminism on the issue of abortion, a part of the abortion debate that often gets overlooked.

Northern Ireland abortion statistics released

Northern Ireland abortion figures recently released by Health Minister Michael McGimpsey show that 1,343 Northern Irish women had abortions in England and Wales in 2007. This shows an increase of 48 on the 2006 figures. (See Belfast Telegraph article Friday Jan. 2nd 2009)

The figures also show that there were 99 so called “legal abortions” in Northern Ireland which prompted pro-life organisations to seek disclosure of the circumstances behind the terminations carried out in Northern Ireland hospitals. Whilst it is perfectly legitimate for hospitals to carry out life saving treatment for women this should be done without targeting the unborn. In such circumstances if the embryo dies as a consequence of the treatment this is a secondary effect which cannot be avoided. There is grave concern however that some of the 99 abortions recorded may have been carried out for eugenic reasons.

Pro-abortion MPs who last year tabled a Parliamentary motion at Westminster to extend the 1967 abortion act to Northern Ireland claim that the newly released figures show a need for abortion to be legal in Northern Ireland. The parliamentary motion was defeated but the pro-abortion MP’s and abortion providers continue to press the Government and Health Department to change its pro-life laws.

Abortion and Fatherhood

Interesting article in Inside Catholic on Abortion and the Rights of Fathers.

The article focuses on a young man in the United States who took legal action to save his unborn child when his girlfriend decided to have an abortion. Like others who have sought to defend their children in court, he lost the case and the child perished. Tragically, this situation is repeated every day around the world as a result of unjust laws that see an unborn child as mere 'pregnancy tissue' to be extracted and a father, in the words of the article, as 'little more than a soulless contributor of DNA'.

Brave Bishop O'Donoghue

Patrick O'Donoghue, Bishop of Lancaster, has been forced formally to break the diocese of Lancaster's ties with the Catholic Caring Services, after it voted overwhelmingly to abandon its Catholic ethos rather than stand up to the British Government's new laws on adoption.

This has clearly been a very painful decision for Bishop O'Donoghue and he deserves our support. He is one of the only bishops of England and Wales who has been prepared to take a stand in defence of human life and the family at a time when the state is aggressively breaking down what little remains of British society's moral framework.

Please consider writing to Bishop O'Donoghue to thank him for his courageous leadership:

Rt Rev Patrick O’Donoghue
Bishop’s Apartment
Cathedral House
Balmoral Road
Lancaster LA1 3BT
UK

I am the hard choice

Rebecca Kiessling was conceived through rape and adopted after surviving two botched abortions. She is an ardent pro-lifer campaigner, writing and speaking on this most difficult of subjects and will be speaking at the SPUC International Student Conference in March (I will link to the website when it has been updated). Her website tells her incredible story and that of other 'hard cases' like her.

Ending Anti-Woman Sex Education

Britain's Opposition Party, the Conservatives, appear to have finally woken up to some of the dangers to women inherent in current sex education policies. Their new strategy 'Ending Violence Against Women' apparently includes teaching children about the concept of consent as part of sex education classes. After decades of teaching that sex is 'all about me', some one may just possibly have got the message that young people need to be taught that sex is about more than self-satisfaction.

What nobody is prepared to admit, however, is that the bill for the so-called 'sexual liberation' of the 60s is being paid by women. Under the guise of empowering women to enjoy their sexuality, the twisted ideology of laissez-faire, value-free sex has contributed to violence and abuse towards women by turning women into sex objects for male satisfaction. It will not be enough to teach children about consent, though it is a small step forward. The whole ideology of sexuality that is taught in schools and promoted through the media has got to change dramatically before women can begin to be treated with the respect and dignity to which they are entitled.