JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: What counts as abortion

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

What counts as abortion

Pro-lifers must be prepared to answer the most challenging questions facing doctors - and facing all men and women - on the matter of abortion.

In the current edition of the Catholic Medical Quarterly, Anthony McCarthy of SPUC argues that the induction of pre-viable unborn babies in order to save the mother’s life cannot be seen as morally acceptable. Either it involves an invasion of the baby’s bodily integrity of an impermissibly harmful kind or - at very least - it constitutes an expulsion of the baby from a place where it has a fundamental right to be.

This is a piece pro-lifers really need to read if they are to grasp the correct scope of the term abortion.

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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.