Northern Ireland abortion guidance

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children have issued an update on the current position regarding the provision of abortion guidance in Northern Ireland through their NI development officer Liam Gibson, who issued the following resumé of the current situation:

"The consultation on the latest proposed guidance on abortion law and clinical practice in Northern Ireland finished on Friday 22 October. This consultation was a result of SPUC’s legal victory last year when the High Court ordered the withdrawal of the health department’s original guidance. SPUC’s success was a serious setback for both the department of health and the abortion advocates who had hoped to use guidelines to undermine Northern Ireland’s abortion law in the same way the euthanasia lobby undermined the law on assisted suicide. The original guidance had the potential to make abortion more readily available in the province and would have forced pro-life doctors to facilitate abortion by referral. SPUC therefore had no choice but to seek a judicial review.

The High Court singled out flaws in two crucial areas, counselling and conscientious objection. The importance of these issues is underlined by the fact that the problems in these sections meant the entire guidance had to be withdrawn. Despite this, however, the health officials were so determined to press ahead with the guidance that it was quickly reissued without the sections on counselling and conscientious objection. It was only after SPUC was granted permission to begin a second court action, that the health department finally withdrew the entire document and called the consultation process which has just ended.

The new proposals contain many of the problems of the original guidance. For example:

* the need for specialised counselling for women traumatised byabortion is ignored
* there are no proposals for comprehensive monitoring procedures to ensure doctors comply with the law
* it lacks a forthright rejection of eugenic abortion
* it misinterprets statements on conscientious objection from the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

But the most serious difficulty with the new version of the guidance is that it has failed to take on board the criticisms of the High Court regarding conscientious objection. Section 4.2 describes the circumstances where “a practitioner or other healthcare professional may not refuse to participate in a termination procedure”. It describes these circumstances as including “where the life of the woman is in danger”. The High Court ruled that the same statement in the original guidance failed to make sufficiently clear whether such circumstances would include a threat to life on mental health grounds. Remarkably this passage still appears in the reissued guidance.

Pro-life efforts to date have resulted in gradual improvements but the overall tone of the guidance still reflects a broadly permissive interpretation of abortion law in Northern Ireland. Ultimately, the ministers in the Executive will have to give their approval to the guidance before it can be published. Until then the pro-life movement must continue to call on politicians to ensure the final version of the guidance establishes highest possible levels of protection for children, their mothers and members of the medical profession."

US midterm elections show massive rejection of Obama anti life policies

The majority of the nominal pro-life Democrats who along with Representative Bart Stupak provided the votes for the pro-abortion health care bill were sent packing as a result of voter outrage. Meanwhile pro-life Republicans such as Christopher (Chris) Smith (see photograph) were easily returned

The Democrats claimed at the time that the legislation that would allow a government-run health care program, which did not fund abortions and claimed that an executive order signed by President Barack Obama would ensure that was the case.

Pro-life voters however were not taken in and punished the betrayal in Tuesday’s election: Representatives Alan Mollohan, Steve Driehaus, Baron Hill, Chris Carney, Kathy Dahlkemper, Marcy Kaptur, Charlie Wilson, Brad Ellsworth, Jim Oberstar and John Boccieri lost their seats with only a handful escaping the voters' wrath.

On the other hand one of the few pro-life Democrats to oppose the pro-abortion health care bill, Rep. Dan Lipinski from Illinois, won his re-election bid.

Concerned Women for America Director of Legislation and Public Policy Shari Rendall said afterwards

“Last night's vote was crystal clear: Americans do not want their money to pay for abortions,”

And CWA CEO Penny Nance said,

selling their votes to pass the controversial health care bill most Americans oppose was their ticket home. “Yesterday's vote showed that Americans realized that President Obama's executive order was just a sham to ram through this unpopular bill.”

Holy Family Maternity Hospital Bethlehem clebrates 50,000th birth

The 50,000th baby to be born at the Holy Family Hospital in Bethlehem recently was a cause of particularly great joy for all concerned. Aisha is the daughter, and first-born, of a young Palestinian couple. Commenting on the occasion, the general manager of the hospital, said: ‘Women are symbolic of the future, and here in this country we have to work a lot for the women of Palestine to get their rights, including decent health care.’
The Holy Family Hospital has been in Bethlehem since 1990, and it is run by the Order of Malta in partnership with the Daughters of Charity order of nuns.
Readers will recall my blog (30 May 2009) about another fantastic hospital in Bethlehem – the Caritas Baby Hospital – and the wonderful work of caring for the mothers and babies of Bethlehem, and surrounding areas, that is taking place there.

UN World Youth Conference: The battle for the minds and hearts of youth

At the UN World Youth Conference that was held in Leon, Mexico, in August last, the Holy See expressed its concern that the final document of the conference, the Guanajuato Declaration, did not reflect the true position of marriage and the family. The Holy See, during its interventions at the conference, emphasised the necessary role of parents in the lives of their children, particularly in the area of education in sexuality, and pointed out that ‘the word “parents” does not appear once in an outcome document devoted to youth, which means that the vital role parents must play in fulfilling their responsibilities for them has not been recognized.’ Further, the Holy See expressed concern that

‘the reference to “comprehensive education on human sexuality” stands alone without reference to parents’ “prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children”, including religious, moral and spiritual dimensions of authentic human love, and related matters concerning the nature of sexuality, marriage and the family.’

The Holy See also stated that, in the context of the term

‘sexual and reproductive health’ used in the document, it ‘does not consider abortion or access to abortion as a dimension of this concept, nor contraception or the use of condoms as an acceptable family planning measure.'

Referring to the term ‘family … in its plurality of forms’, used in the document, the Holy See set out its recognition of ‘one family form’ – only –

‘based on marriage, the equal partnership between one man and one woman, that is, husband and wife, and the duty of the state to strengthen the family.’

This is the point at which I would like to refer to the booklet Tried but Untested – the aims and outcomes of sex education in schools that I mentioned in this blog recently.
The booklet was published by the Family Education Trust (Milton Keynes, England) in 1995, and it is an invaluable reference source in relation to the question of ‘sex education’ in schools. Contributors include Valerie Riches (‘Sex Education and Social Engineering’); Paul Atkin (‘Local Authority Sex Education Policies’); Robert Whelan (‘Teaching Sex in Schools: Does it Work?’), and others. Even though it was written fifteen years ago, an Appendix entitled ‘Local Action for Parents’ is still very relevant to the problems that today’s parents face with regard to ‘sex education’ in schools. In introducing her contribution to the booklet, Valerie Riches says:

‘Most people would agree that children need to be told properly about human sexuality, rather than being left to find out about it for themselves. Many parents will take comfort from the fact that schools now provide sex education, perhaps believing that they are thus being supported in their parental duty to bring their children to a sensitive understanding of one of the most important aspects of human life.
‘However, my own family’s experience, as well as research that I have done, suggest that sinister motives underlie the sex education movement, and that the content of a lot of sex education is actually hostile to the family values which many parents still support.’

Nothing much has changed! If you don’t already have a copy of Tried but Untested do try to acquire a copy of it. It can happen that the relevance of something written many years ago is brought home to us only much later.

Irish customs seizure of abortion drugs

The truth is out!
Reporting on the confirmation by the Irish Medicines Board recently that the Irish customs authorities made 1,216 seizures of ‘illegal drugs to induce abortions in Ireland’ during 2009, The Irish Times newspaper in a report dated Oct 28th states that:

‘Medical experts have warned many women taking these drugs may be unaware of the proper dosage or administration of the drugs which can result in severe bleeding or incomplete abortions.’

[The Life Institute, having made official enquiries about the seizures and having established that the figure of 1,216 actually refers to the number of tablets involved, and not to the number of ‘seizures’ have accused the Irish Times of sloppy reporting.]
The report goes on to say that:

‘Clinics such as the Marie Stopes Reproductive Choices … say they have seen an increase in women seeking assistance after taking these drugs. In many cases, they say women affected said they could not afford to travel abroad for an abortion or, in the case of immigrant women, felt unable to leave the country due to their residency status.

’(The severe CEDAW admonitions to Ireland some years ago included the recommendation that Ireland’s pro-life laws should be relaxed to accommodate immigrant women, amongst others.)
The newspaper report continues:

‘Experts say medical abortion should only be completed in the first nine weeks of a pregnancy. The medical complications of abortion include bleeding, infection, incomplete abortion, laceration of the neck of the womb, perforation of the womb and the possibility of a clot moving. The later the abortion the greater the risk of side-effects.’

It is extraordinary that such information should be made so available in the media – if a pro-life agency or group were to offer this information in the public arena they would be, and indeed so often have been, targeted as ‘right-wing fundamentalists trying to frighten women’!
Despite the truth about the evil of abortion being given an airing such as this in the national media, let us not be distracted, however, from the relentless push by pro-abortion forces, for Ireland's pro-life ethos and its Constitution to be diminished or, indeed, overturned.