JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: retirement of Rev Dr Ian Paisley

Thursday, 6 March 2008

retirement of Rev Dr Ian Paisley

There have been many tributes paid and comments made on the occasion of the announcement of Dr Ian Paisley's retirement as DUP leader and Northern Ireland first minister. Here are my observations:

In February 1984 he co-sponsored a motion (along with Rev Ivan Foster) in the Northern Ireland Assembly rejecting the extension of the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. The motion was approved by 20 votes to 1.
In autumn 1992 he led a rally in Belfast to oppose the opening of a Brook Advisory Centre in the city. Brook refers for abortions and provides girls under the age of consent with abortifacient birth control drugs and devices.
On 20 June 2000 he spoke in the New Northern Ireland Assembly in favour of a motion reiterating the rejection of the Abortion Act saying: "As a public representative, I shall speak for the child today, the child who feels, who can recognise its mother's voice and know pain, who is a member of the human family and who has been given the unique gift of human life. We cannot get away from that."
As a member of the House of Commons and an MEP, Dr Paisley has consistently supported the pro-life cause, working with other elected representatives regardless of religious or political differences.
He is expected to lead his party's opposition to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill.

You can read the rest of Dr Paisley's speech quoted above in this transcript of a Northern Ireland Assembly debate. Scroll down a few screens till you reach it.

SPUC's briefing on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill is here as a PDF.

About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.