The Abortion Lobby's Massive Deception

It says something for the desperation of the abortion lobby that they are - yet again - resorting to lies as part of their campaign to extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. According to a post on John Smeaton's blog, Diane Abbott has claimed to the British press that women in Northern Ireland are “facing conditions more reminiscent of the 19th century,” and that “[m]ost working-class women must take their chances with the backstreet abortionist.”

She offers no evidence to back up her comments, presumably because there is no evidence to support her position. Indeed, if the British media cared to challenge her comments, they would discover that the 'conditions more reminiscent of the 19th century' Ms Abbott speaks of include a health system which boasts of the lowest maternal mortality rate in the UK.

As Liam Gibson, SPUC, is quoted as saying:

“No-one in Northern Ireland voted for Diane Abbott, Evan Harris or any of the other pro-abortion extremists in Parliament and yet these MPs seem to think they are our colonial masters and that we must do as they say."

Ironically, Bernard Nathanson, the former abortion practitioner and co-founder of NARAL, has just been interviewed on the very subject of backstreet abortion. Nathanson oversaw 75,000 abortions at his U.S. clinic before the advent of ultrasound forced him to accept the horrific reality of abortion. Now a pro-life campaigner, Nathanson is quoted as saying:

"We claimed that between five and ten thousand women a year died of botched abortions. The actual figure was closer to 200 to 300 and we also claimed that there were a million illegal abortions a year in the United States and the actual figure was close to 200,000. So, we were guilty of massive deception."

This massive deception by the abortion lobby continues and must be challenged in the media and at government level. Voters in England, Scotland and Wales need to write to their MPs to expose this lie once and for all and to ask politicians such as Diane Abbott to leave Northern Ireland alone.

The Guardian doesn't get it

Another article in The Guardian on George W. Bush’s policies on sex education, contraception and abortion, particularly with regard to foreign policy. As usual, it dusts down the all too well-rehearsed arguments in favour of sex education, contraception and abortion, using a fair amount of emotion and very little in the way of hard evidence. One particular complaint from the abortion-promoting agency IPAS came to my attention as it is such a common accusation posing as a question that pro-abortionists fire at pro-lifers. ‘Why do people who oppose abortion tend not to support contraception?’

Here are a few things to consider. Britain has unrestricted contraceptive use: it is available from doctors, nurses, family planning clinics, vending machines, chemists, supermarkets, almost every place I could care to mention. Contraception is thrown at young people via the classroom, advertising, magazines, youth groups, websites and various other forms of targeted campaigning too numerous to list. Britain also has some 600 abortions every day with no signs anywhere that the abortion rate in our contraceptive culture is likely to plummet any time soon.

Besides the fact that many contraceptive methods are abortifacient, i.e. induce a very early abortion rather than actually preventing conception, the pro-contraception lobby – for all its sound and fury on the subject – has been consistently unable to provide concrete evidence that contraception prevents abortion. On the contrary, the evidence from UK abortion statistics and contraception user rates overwhelmingly suggest that countries where contraception is widely available are likely to have higher not lower abortion rates than countries that do not. It is surely a little disingenuous for a western government to promote contraception as an abortion preventative in developing countries when it has clearly failed to prevent abortion among its own people.

As Humanae Vitae warned 40 years ago, contraception attempts to eliminate the procreative aspect of sexuality, meaning that when pregnancy does occur, it becomes a mistake to be rubbed out – by abortion. Rather than writing endless ‘why oh why’ articles lamenting the attitudes of pro-lifers to contraception, perhaps The Guardian ought to consider allowing a pro-life campaigner to pen an article answering that very question. They can contact me any time.

New Court Battle over Abortion in Ireland

Three Irish women who claim that their human rights were breached by their inability to undergo an abortion in Ireland are to have their case heard at the European Court of Human Rights. The Irish Family Planning Association is supporting the case, hoping the Irish government will be forced to change the law on abortion.

A case such as this highlights all too clearly the tactics the abortion lobby are prepared to resort to in their determination to impose abortion on Ireland. The unborn are protected by Ireland's constitution and should not be endangered by a court that is set up to defend human rights. If it were to be used as an instrument to attack the right to life, the European Court of Human Rights may lose all credibility when it comes to considering genuine human rights cases.

Breaking the Taboo of Post-Natal Depression

Earlier this month, a 41-year-old woman committed suicide four months after the birth of her second child. Kate Chetwynd was a successful woman with a supportive family and, as The Scotsman put it ‘everything to live for’ – she also had post-natal depression. Her tragic death has left a family devastated and two young children without a mother. It also raises uncomfortable questions about the extent to which mothers suffering from post-natal depression are given the care and support they need to overcome this debilitating condition.

Kate Chetwynd had been diagnosed with post-natal depression and her family appear to have done everything possible to help her. For many women, however, post-natal depression is a burden they feel forced to carry alone, afraid to tell even family members for fear of being labelled ‘bad mothers.’

Some women fear that if health professionals such as doctors or health visitors realise they are depressed, their babies will be taken from them. Midwives need to reassure women, both individually and as part of ante-natal classes, that they will receive non-judgemental medical support if they report symptoms of depression after birth.

Mental illness in general carries an unjust social stigma, none more so than post-natal depression, which is sometimes called ‘smiling depression’ as sufferers struggle to conceal the symptoms and live up to the expectations of friends and family. One correspondent who wished to remain anonymous, told me:

“Never in my life have I felt so alone. I was very unwell after a traumatic birth experience and developed childbed fever afterwards, but I was so desperate to be a perfect mother that I wouldn’t even let the doctor call an ambulance when I started fitting with the high temperature. I just didn’t understand what was happening to me. I had this beautiful baby I adored, but for months I felt so depressed there were times when I didn’t think I could go on much longer.

“Instead of trying to help, some of my relatives seemed shocked and angry that I wasn’t coping as well as they had expected. I found myself being excluded, criticised and treated to a steady flow of put-downs and insulting lectures that took me to breaking point. My lowest moment was being asked, as I held my baby in my arms: ‘You don’t regret having a baby, do you?’ I eventually pulled through thanks to the support of my husband, but the experience did lasting harm to my relationship with my extended family and made me realise how important it is to respond compassionately and intelligently to women in such a state.”

The need to respond ‘compassionately and intelligently’ is of utmost importance in reaching out to mothers who are suffering from or at risk of post-natal depression. A booklet on PND produced by MIND makes an interesting observation about the indifference with which mothers are treated in western cultures. It states: “Mothers do not enjoy high status in the West, and there are hardly any rituals to honour them, or celebrate their new role.”

If we value motherhood, we should be prepared to go out of our way to support mothers and to celebrate the fundamentally important role mothers play in our society. It is as vital a part of building a culture of life as lobbying an MP.

Coercive Population Control proposed for Philippines

A major confrontation is developing in the Philippines where the Catholic Bishop’s Commission is opposing anti life legislation currently being pushed through Parliament.

The proposed legislation, “An Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development, and For Other Purposes”, would create a new agency called the Commission on Population that would institutionalize artificial birth control, implement sex education for students as early as the fifth grade and pave the way for legalized abortion. It also recommends that a two child policy should be adopted and obliges all health providers to provide for male and female sterilization regardless of conscientious objection.

The bill requires collective bargaining agreements (CBA’s) between employers and employees to provide reproductive health care services. Where there are no CBAs, employers are compelled to provide the same. It is also a direct attack on parents as the primary educators of minor children

The Bill provides for the use of abortifacient hormonal contraceptives and injectables, intrauterine devices and other allied reproductive health service products and supplies, which will be considered essential medicines and made available for free by all national and local hospitals and other government health units.

The legislation also proposes dismissal, imprisonment and heavy fines for anyone who fails to comply with the measure. This Bill is a direct attack on human life, the family, marriage, the freedom to found a family and to decide on the number and spacing of children, freedom of conscience, and parent’s rights in respect of minor children.

This bill is a completely unacceptable totalitarian measure bordering on the coercive population control methods used in China’s one child policy