I receive a beautiful gift at meeting about new abortion clinic in Preston

Handed to me in Preston

I spoke at a public meeting in Preston this week about a new local abortion clinic. Whilst I was there I received a beautiful gift.

My talk centered on the recent opening of a Marie Stopes International (MSI) abortion unit in the Avenham Health Clinic. In our blurb about the public meeting, delivered door-to-door to local residents, the local SPUC chairman said:

"Marie Stopes will be doing abortions in our local health centre which is meant for families and local residents ... It will be using the abortion pill RU486. The action of this pill kills a baby in the womb and can cause medical problems for the woman".

I am delighted to say that over 60 local people turned up, including a large number of devout Muslims from the nearby mosque and a similar number of students from Preston University. One of the students thought he should be speaking rather than me at various points during my talk (!) - and I'm most grateful to his fellow-students, including those who shared his pro-abortion opinions, who firmly told him to pipe down, let me speak, and to respect my wish that comments and questions be taken at the end.

Many of those present signed up to continue the task of spreading the truth locally about the nature of the business of Marie Stopes International, an organization which demonstrates such lack of compassion for unborn children and their mothers. Also, most of those who attended were shocked to learn of the brutal racist and eugenic ideas of Marie Stopes herself and, like the author of an excellent piece about Marie Stopes in the Daily Telegraph, many attending the meeting seemed to be concerned about "the motivation of an organisation which takes Marie Stopes as its founding heroine".

Half an hour before the meeting started I was standing alone in the massive sports hall in which it was held. A gentleman arrived, around my age, and walked over to me. He handed me an envelope, addressed to me, with "THANK YOU" written in block capitals on the back. He said he wasn't able to attend the meeting that evening, but he wanted to deliver his message personally. He wished me well and left.

I opened the envelope. Inside was a donation and the following words written on to a page from a diary dated 20th February (see photo of the diary page above). It read:

Your first smile ... I will never see
Your first words ... I will never hear
My strong hands will never stretch out
To guide your unsteady steps
No whispered lullabies to a sleepy head

I will never wait at a school yard gate
Or watch with pride a nativity play
No school photographs on my mantelpiece
No first communion dress for me to buy

What would you have been like?
Pretty or plain? ... Clever or slow?
It doesn't matter ... You were mine.

When you died you were not tenderly laid in a snow-white coffin
No family or friends were gathered
To say goodbye
A man in a mask
Was your only companion
A plastic bucket
Was your resting place
Your only headstone
"Clinical Waste"

No-one remembers you
But I do
No-one misses you

But I do.

I don't know anything about the gentleman who honoured me with a brief visit on Wednesday evening at St. Augustine's Leisure Centre Sports Hall in Avenham; and, of course, neither do I know anything about the history of the beautiful, deeply moving poem he gave me.

I simply pray for everyone whose personal history may be reflected in the lines above.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
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