Call for Europe-wide Referendum

Declan Ganley, leader of the Irish NO campaign, has called again for a Europe-wide referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. As he said during a debate in the European Parliament:

"I can tell you as a citizen having read the Treaty and campaigned on it, it is undemocratic and unacceptable to the majority of my country. Nor do I believe it is acceptable to the majority of the citizens in other countries."

Both the president of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Poettering and French president Nicolas Sarkozy have used the outbreak of the Georgia war to argue for a speedy ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, prompting criticisms that a humanitarian crisis is being used to force through a treaty the majority of Irish people have already rejected.

Reaffirming Human Rights for All

I am in Paris attending the conference on human rights Reaffirming Human Rights for All: the Universal Declaration at 60. The conference was introduced by the UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura and the keynote speaker was Simone Veil. UN Director General Ban Ki Moon addressed the conference by video link.

This conference is a lead-in conference to the UN special conference. The choice of Paris as the location of this conference is symbolic as it was here that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was agreed 60 years ago. Simone Veil reminded the assembly that the UDHR was negotiated as a reaction to the horrors of the preceding Nazi period and the annihilation of six million Jews and said that NGOs have a vocation to focus on the rights of those who are not recognised, which of course is the reason I am here. The one group of people whose rights are consistently denied are children who are yet unborn and sadly the figures have now reached countless millions.

IVF, Eugenics and Dr Edwards

Some 30,000 women seek IVF treatment every year, even though the success rate is only about 15% and the treatment itself places a huge burden on the woman. Besides the serious health risks involved such as Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome, the emotional and financial strain causes many couples to abandon treatment prematurely.

Behind the pictures of smiling IVF practitioners cuddling newborn babies, there is the little-told story of the greed, power and callous indifference of many practitioners to their patients. An article in the Independent published shorly after Louise Brown's 25th birthday stated:

"It is interesting to note that almost all the big names in this business are male. I found only four women IVF doctors, and two of them agreed that the inordinate power of some practitioners was making proper regulation almost impossible. Embryologists and other specialists have, off the record, told me that many disallowed techniques were being used in some clinics, and that this information was concealed during HFEA inspections."

As to the patients themselves, "they were scathing about the commercialisation, ruthless speed, motives and lack of care during and after procedures."

It is sad but not surprising in the current climate, that there are calls for the father of this exploitative and unethical industry, Professor Robert Edwards, to be given a special honour for his part in the killing of millions of human embryos and the pain and emotional distress caused to thousands of women. This is a man who has claimed that it will soon be 'a sin' for a woman to give birth to a disabled child and 'burden society'.

However, with the exception of No Less Human, I have not heard any disability rights groups denounce Dr Edwards' eugenicist comments, just as remarkably few journalists have the courage to investigate and challenge the public image of IVF practitioners as caring, altruistic and responsible. It therefore falls to the humble blogger to circulate the information the media and the medical establishment do to have the courage to release.

By Their Fruits

On the subject of eugenics, Ann Farmer has published a new book entitled By Their Fruits: Eugenics, Population Control and the Abortion Movement, examining the history of the abortion movement and the link between population control and eugenics.

This book is a timely work of revisionism which challenges the received wisdom that the population control and abortion movements have ever been altruistic or pro-woman in their ethos.

More on Marie Stopes

The news that Marie Stopes is to appear on a Royal Mail stamp has caused outrage among Catholic bloggers. Catholic Perspective,The Hermeneutic of Continuity and Saint Mary Magdalen to name just three have all carried the story of Marie Stopes and her racist, eugenicist ideology.

Just out of interest, I looked up the Marie Stopes International website to see what they have to say about their founder. The timeline of her life has a large gap in it between 1930 and 1958 when she died, which is a pity as they could have informed people about such significant events as Dr Stopes' appearance at the International Congress for Population Science in Berlin, held under the auspices of the Third Reich [1935].

The Marie Stopes website describes Stopes and her fellows as having "played a major role in breaking down taboos about sex and increasing knowledge, pleasure and improved sexual and reproductive health." Of her anti-Catholic, anti-semitic views and her promotion of eugenics, they have not a word to say. Oddly enough, I could not find any links to her publications either. This is surely an unfortunate oversight on the part of the MSI directors - why else would they deprive the public of the opportunity to appreciate Dr Stopes' love poems dedicated to Adolph Hitler?