the war against the unborn
The womb is meant to be a place of safety and nurturing. It has become a battlefield like no other.
Friday, 27 April 2018, marked 50 years since the 1967 Abortion Act came into force. Abortions began in the UK 6 months after the 1967 Abortion Act received Royal Assent on 27 October 1967. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) was founded in 1967 to fight the Act. SPUC marked the anniversary with the publication of a new book, Abortion Matters. Earlier in the week, SPUC representatives met with pro-life MPs, to give them a copy of the book, and to thank them for their witness. To order this book, follow the link 1.
Antonia Tully, SPUC’s Director of Campaigns, said: “Since the 1967 Abortion Act came into force, nearly 9 million babies have lost their lives to abortion, and countless women have been hurt, both physically and emotionally. “This is a tragic anniversary, but we wanted to take the opportunity to thank those MPs who have bravely defied the proabortion consensus and used their votes and their voices to stand up for unborn babies.”
Ealing Council in London voted on 10 April 2018 to introduce a Public Space Protection Zone (PSPO) to ban pro-life vigils outside the Marie Stopes abortion Centre on Mattock Lane. Councillors voted unanimously to implement the controversial legal mechanism to stop pro-life groups like the Good Counsel Network praying and offering help to women outside the clinic, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) reported. Pro-Life vigils have been taking place without incident in Ealing for 23 years. Both sides of the debate rallied outside Ealing Town Hall ahead of the Council meeting. Mothers who had been helped by the Good Counsel Network2 to keep their babies gave their testimonies as part of the Be Here For Me campaign3 , while the pro-abortionists attempted to drown them out with loud chanting.
Light among the darkness
One of the mothers, Alina Dulgheriu, told of how a pavement counsellor handed her a leaflet offering help as she walked into the Marie Stopes clinic. She “went with her and got all the help I need and thanks to them I have my child”. The 34-year-old said she was offered financial, practical and moral help, as well as accommodation. Speaking of her six-year-old daughter, she said: “She’s my pride, she’s my strength, without her I would not be the person I am today.”Ms Dulgheriu said the “safe” zone would “remove life-saving help when it’s most needed”. “I was given a real choice by the woman at the gate,” she added. SPUC has launched a crucial petition calling for a stop to this attack on peaceful freedom of expression. Please support SPUC’s lifesaving petition and encourage many of your Christian contacts to do likewise. The Link is at the end of the article4.
A safe space? Really?
Following on from the decision by Ealing Council to impose a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) around the abortion centre on Mattock Lane, other councils are reportedly considering taking similar action to ban peaceful pro-life prayer vigils. According to The Times Newspaper, Lambeth Council is considering creating a PSPO around the Marie Stopes and BPAS clinics in Brixton and Streatham. The proposal is likely to go to a council vote in June. Councils including Portsmouth, Manchester and Southwark have passed motions pledging to do “all in their power” to ban pro-life vigils.
n Richmond upon Thames, plans for a PSPO are also under consideration. Ealing Council has also been writing to other councils urging them to follow their lead in implementing buffer zones.
The approaching death of freedom of expression
This is a systematic attack on our freedom of expression and on the lives of pre-born babies. It’s also an attempt to deprive women with crisis pregnancies of lifesaving options.
To help SPUC’s opposition to PSPOs, to campaign against abortion and also support other crucial pro-life work phone SPUC on 020 7091 7091.
Britain’s largest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service5 (BPAS) has written an open letter to the new Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, urging him to act on a review of protests outside abortion clinics launched by Amber Rudd, and ban pro-life vigils outside abortion clinics.
The letter is signed by 35 “women’s advocacy and medical organisations”, including the British Medical Association6, Mumsnet7 , and Women’s Aid8. The text of the letter makes a number of misleading and unproven claims about peaceful pro-life vigils. These claims were also used in the campaign to bring in a Public Space Protection Order around the Marie Stopes Centre in Ealing; and were rebutted in a series of media appearances by Clare McCullough of the Good Counsel Network, as well as SPUC staff. A mother who was helped to keep her child by a pro-life vigil is currently challenging the Ealing decision in the High Court. SPUC has also written to the Home Secretary, asking what recommendations his department plans to make in light of the review, and the heavy-handed actions of Ealing Council.
Culture of Death
When we think about areas where “life is cheap” we usually have an image of a violent country in the Third World. But today life is being steadily cheapened in our own society.
We witnessed some very public examples of this recently with the death of Alfie Evans and last year with the death of Charlie Gard. On 28 April Alfie Evans died, four days after doctors at the Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool ignored his parents’ wishes and removed the toddler from life support. The UK courts and European Court of Human Rights supported Alder Hey’s decision. Alfie suffered from a serious neurodegenerative disorder that remained undiagnosed until the end.
Alfie’s death, with his parents being forcibly deprived of any options to try and save his life is a stark reminder of how Anti-Life and Anti-Family the courts and the “Health” system have become. The State as a whole has been systematically undermining the natural family and steadily chipping away at parental authority. For more information, go to the link listed at the end of this page.9
Charlie Gard was a baby who died in 2017 after doctors removed him from life support against his parents’ wishes. For more information, see the link10. There will be many more of these cases of forced euthanasia of children unless new laws are brought in to protect the rights of parents to make the final decision regarding all their children’s medical treatment.
If a society is willing to allow the killing of millions of pre-born children in the womb, then eventually it will permit the killing of many children outside it.
Another indicator of how the Culture of Death has spread so widely in our nation is the campaign spearheaded by BPAS to completely decriminalise abortion in Britain. If they achieve this then the number of abortions will skyrocket even further. Now there are already on average over 500 abortions in the UK every day.
A fight back …
SPUC launched a petition, calling on the Prime Minister not to give any parliamentary support to moves to decriminalise abortion. SPUC has since handed the petition in but their campaign on this issue continues. Contact SPUC if you’d like to support their lifesaving campaign and other Pro- Life work. SPUC states that three key reasons why we must strongly oppose decriminalising abortion:
1. Decriminalising abortion will strip from unborn children any remaining effective legal protection from abortion. The Abortion Act 1967 is a bad law but keeping abortion within the law offers some safeguards for mothers and their unborn babies.
2. Abortion should remain a criminal offence if performed outside the terms of the 1967 Abortion Act, in order to protect women from Britain’s abortionists.
3. Decriminalising abortion would mean vulnerable pregnant women buying online abortion pills and taking them with no medical supervision. It will mean abortion up to birth for any reason.
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, a paralympian and leading disability rights activist, has warned against plans to introduce assisted suicide or euthanasia on Guernsey. The States of Deliberation, the States of Guernsey’s deliberative assembly, are due to debate proposals on assisted suicide on 16 May. Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson said that removing universal safeguards was dangerous and risked vulnerable and disabled people becoming “collateral damage”. If Guernsey legalises assisted suicide it will become a popular destination for those in the UK who wish to end their lives or who are pressured to do so. This will also give strong momentum to the campaign to legalise assisted suicide in Britain.
Pray against the spread of the Culture of Death and that life will not be cheapened in our nation. Jesus Christ gave us the Gospel of Life and said that He came to bring us abundant life. (John 10:10) Christians ought to actively proclaim the sanctity of Life, challenging the numerous Pro-Death initiatives that are increasingly being inflicted on the UK.
1 https://tinyurl.com/yabc7or8
2 http://www.goodcounselnet.co.uk/
4 https://tinyurl.com/yay3acwv
8 https://www.womensaid.org.uk/