JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: BBC due to attack pregnancy support charities

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

BBC due to attack pregnancy support charities

Paul Tully, SPUC's general secretary, has issued a press statement today in defence of pro-life pavement-counsellors, under attack by the BBC:

London, 30 September 2015: BBC journalists have revealed that they are planning to join the attack on pro-life pavement-counsellors who operate peacefully and lawfully outside abortion businesses. The BBC have said that they intend broadcasting this item today (Wed 30 September). Pro-life pavement-counsellors offer pregnant women help to avoid abortions. A campaign to prevent women receiving such help was launched by a major commercial abortion provider earlier this year. Prayer-vigils, which often involve only small numbers of people, are dubbed “protests” by the BBC and pro-abortion campaigners.

At one point the BBC said there had been allegations of women being assaulted, and asked a pregnancy support group: "Would you like to condemn assault?".

Commenting, Paul Tully, general secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) www.spuc.org.uk said: "The unprofessional behaviour of the BBC betrays a clear one-sided agenda. Asking people to disown violence which the pro-life life movement has have never espoused or practised is like the devious lawyer's question: 'Have you stopped beating your wife?' Pavement-counsellors provide help to women facing such problems as abusive partners and homelessness, problems which abortion providers simply don't address.

"The BBC says it has seen a report about pavement-counsellors based on abortion clinic records. Abortion clinics lose an average of about £600 each time a woman chooses to keep her baby, so they are hardly an impartial source of data. This is only one half of the story. Hundreds of women find the help, sympathy and support they need to continue their pregnancies from pro-lifers outside abortion clinics. Despite being offered information about these women, the BBC has refused to report their perspective.

"The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) campaigns for the right to life of the unborn to be upheld in law, and we do not run pavement-counselling activities, but we recognise the great work that groups like Good Counsel Network, 40 Days for Life and the Helpers of God's Precious Infants undertake outside many abortion centres to help women and babies", concluded Mr Tully.

Paul Tully, general secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) www.spuc.org.uk can be contacted on mobile 07939 178719, landline 020 7820 3127, email paultully@spuc.org.uk

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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.