Below are a selection of among the best of Cardinal O'Brien's pro-life/pro-family statements:
"SPUC has worked tirelessly in Scotland and the UK to fight the evil of abortion for almost 40 years but we must recognise that what really can be described as the forces of darkness have distorted the laws and consciences in our nation and that our situation is now worse than ever ... I'm here to strengthen the resolve of SPUC and I hope that they and other pro-life groups will extend their message more and more in the world in which we live." SPUC Scotland conference, 25 October 2008. In spite of his hectic schedule, the cardinal stayed for the entire conference.
"Our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has given the government's support to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. It is difficult to imagine a single piece of legislation which, more comprehensively, attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular bill." (23 March 2008)
"We are facing a crisis in society and we must ask ourselves is human life important to us or is it not?...[The Human Fertilisation and Embryology] Bill is a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life. …MPs must search their hearts and their consciences in this extra time in which they have been given to decide whether or not the value of human life really matters or whether or not it is simply one more commodity to be cast aside in our throw-away society." (July 2008)
"Such behaviour [the procedures proposed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill] was last seen under the Nazis. Following the liberation of the concentration camps in 1945, the full horrors of the Nazi’s atrocities were revealed to a shocked world. The hideous savagery of their experiments convinced the civilized world that such practices must be outlawed forever." [28 October 2008]
"The 2008 abortion statistics confirm the abject failure of the so called 'sexual health strategy' of recent years. They represent a human rights violation, in our midst, on a massive scale. We destroy 53 unborn children each day in Scotland. Were this carnage to take place among children lucky enough to have been born our outrage would be boundless. The victims of this inhuman and degrading violence are firstly the 13,817 Scottish children killed before they have been born and then the thousands of women who agree to their own off-spring being aborted ... [When i]n 2007 I claimed that 'we kill the equivalent of a classroom full of school children every day' many objected to the vehemence of my language. Grotesquely, since then we have seen classroom sizes in Scotland fall and abortion numbers rise. Today we abort over 50 children per day or two classrooms full. These statistics shame and debase us all ..." [26 May 2009]
"The Church's teaching on marriage is unequivocal, it is uniquely, the union of a man and a woman and it is wrong that Governments, politicians or Parliaments should seek to alter or destroy that reality." (22 August 2012)
"The Church opposed the Abortion Act passed in 1967, and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act passed in 1990, even although none of these legislative acts imposed any requirement or burden on the church it opposed them vigorously and completely. Why? Simply because it cares for society and humanity." (2 September 2012)
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