URGENT call to lobby today to stop infanticide in Brazil

Firstly, many heartfelt thanks to all those who lobbied members of the House of Lords against assisted suicide, resulting in last night's victory for the right to life and for the vulnerable.

Secondly, pro-life leaders active in Latin America urgently request pro-life supporters worldwide to lobby in support of a bill (the Muwaji Law) to stop the practice of infanticide among indigenous people in Brazil. This bill will be considered today (8 July). Please email a brief message to the representatives of Brazil's Human Rights Commission listed below, urging them to support the Muwaji Law. You might like to draw upon and add to the following points:

• Infanticide, in common with every intentional killing of an innocent human being, is contrary both to ethics and to international human rights law.
• This norm is legally binding, and applicable regardless of race, nation, class, sex or religion.
• If certain cultural traditions threaten life - a basic right for every human being, regardless of race - then culture must yield.
• Muwaji's Law does not threaten native cultures; it simply promotes the idea of educating the tribes about options for the family other than infanticide.
• This is an effort called for and supported by hundreds of indigenous families all over Brazil.
• Permission for infanticide would mark a regression in society to the low ethical standards of the ancient world, in which human life was regarded as disposable and the weak treated with contempt.
• Allowing infanticide in one case will result in intolerable pressure for it to be allowed in other cases, possibly extending to the euthanasia of older children and disabled adults.

Please email:

Mr. Dom Dimas Lara Barbosa
President of CNBB
secgeral@cnbb.org.br

Congressman Luiz Couto
President of the Human Rights Commission
dep.luizcouto@camara.gov.br

Congressman Chico Alencar
Representative from Rio de Janeiro
dep.chicoalencar@camara.gov.br

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

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Assisted suicide amendment defeat welcome

The House of Lords this evening rejected Lord Falconer’s pro-assisted suicide amendment to the government's Coroners and Justice bill. The vote was 194 to 141, a majority of 53.

Paul Tully, SPUC general secretary, has this evening told the media that:

“This was a significant victory for the right to life. Time and again Parliament has blocked attempts to undermine the protective ban on assisted suicide. It’s time for the Voluntary Euthanasia Society – now repackaged as Dignity in Dying – to drop its parliamentary campaign, a campaign which is offensive to very many people who live with, or care for those with, disability or terminal illness.”

Paul and Anthony Ozimic, SPUC communications manager, have filed the following report about this evening's debate:

The Falconer amendment was opposed powerfully by Baroness Campbell, the disability rights advocate who has spinal muscular atrophy. In a moving speech, she argued that the amendment would send a signal of despair to the disabled and the terminally-ill. She said that the Falconer amendment would change the “traffic-signal” from red to green for ending the lives of disabled people. This would be a major change in the way our culture regards people who are disabled. She noted that no major disability organisation supported the amendment – only a minority of vocal disabled individuals supported the measure.

Baroness Finlay, a palliative care specialist, pointed to the inadequacies of the amendment’s medical provisions. The second doctor’s signature requirement was ineffective in protecting the patients of the serial-killer Dr Harold Shipman. Several hundred of their falsified death certificates were signed by other doctors without raising any serious questions.

Lord Carlile QC, in a passionate demolition of the detail of Falconer suicide amendment, argued that the amendment would create a slippery slope. Lord Joffe claimed there was no slippery slope in Oregon, where assisted suicide is allowed. (Pro-life experts have shown that official information about assisted suicide deaths in Oregon is massively and sinisterly deficient.)

Lord Neill of Bladen said that, if Lord Falconer’s amendment was passed, it would be "inevitable that people will be pressured to signing up for death".

Baroness Kennedy QC, contrary to expectation, opposed the amendment. Although generally favouring personal choice, she argued that in the situation of offering assisted suicide to the terminally ill, the offer of choice would result in an erosion of choice.

The Bishop of Exeter, who has an adult daughter with Down’s Syndrome, pointed out that the “compassionate liberalism” advocated by the proponents of the Falconer amendment might be empowering for people like the articulate and self-assured members of the House of Lords. But for people who were less able to assert themselves – and many who are disabled are sometimes heavily dependent on others for assistance in making decisions – such empowerment is illusory or worse. Disabled people may internalise the notion that others know best, leaving them severely disadvantaged by such so-called choices.

Lord Walton of Detchant, an eminent physician, described Ludwig Minelli, the director of Dignitas Swiss suicide centre, as "something of a fanatic" He added that palliative care in The Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, was in decline.

Lord (William) Waldegrave said allowing assisted suicide could lead to discriminatory healthcare rationing.

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Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy.

BREAKING NEWS Lords vote against assisted suicide amendment 194 to 141

This evening (7 July) the House of Lords voted against Lord Falconer's very damaging amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill. More soon.

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

URGENT Contact Lords immediately, assisted suicide debate today

This afternoon or this evening, Lord Falconer's very damaging amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill is expected to come up for debate (see SPUC's previous campaign alert for in-detail information about the amendment). Please contact peers NOW and ask them to oppose Lord Falconer's proposal.

Some excellent resources, which can be forwarded as weblinks to Lords, are:

• Lord McColl's article in The Telegraph
• Baroness Jane Campbell in The Guardian
• Dominic Lawson in The Independent
• Joint letter from disability rights leaders

This blog also has many posts about assisted suicide and the Falconer amendment.

If you have been in correspondence with any Lords over the C&J bill, please consider forwarding one of these links to them, perhaps quoting whatever snippets of the articles are most telling. If you haven't been corresponding with Lords, please contact one or more of them now: you could simply select a Lord or Lords to write to who has the same initial as your surname: Lords are listed in alphabetical order on SPUC's website campaign page http://www.spuc.org.uk/campaigns (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Many thanks for your help.

(For information - please note that other threatening amendments tabled by Lord Alderdice and Lord Joffe have been withdrawn in the past day or so.)

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

How Henry Kissinger ruined my Wimbledon final

Seeing Henry Kissinger at Wimbledon for the tennis (pictured) last Sunday prompted reflections which quite put me off the final.

Richard Ehrman, director of Policy Exchange, a non-party-political think-tank, had written in The Times last Saturday about how shifts in the world population give a military advantage to "underdeveloped" countries. The problem, he said, is that “even for a power as mighty and sophisticated as the US, occupying a Third World country with a fast-growing population means putting an uncomfortably large number of boots on the ground”.

Curbing the growing population of third world countries was very much on the mind of Henry Kissinger back in 1974, the man of whom we caught a glimpse on TV last Sunday as he sat in the crowd at centre court to watch the Wimbledon final. As I mentioned in my post on abortion and racism two weeks ago Henry Kissinger, Nixon's Secretary of State, was the author of the infamous NSSM 200 (National Security Study Memorandum 200), which recommended that the United States should promote population control in the developing world in order to secure American interests.

Kissinger’s study set the stage for the Chinese to adopt a strict population control policy in co-operation with UN agencies in 1979. The belief that population growth, at home and/or or abroad, is bad for a country's economic and security interests rapidly became official dogma in America, China, the UK and many other countries.

How disturbing, then, to read in The Times on Sunday that Dr Baige Zhao, head of the national population and family planning commission of China, spoke at a conference in London last week about how 400 million fewer births in China saved 1.6 billion tones of carbon emissions. He argued: “The same principles of population management that have been applied in China can be applied in the UK. The UK could learn from the Chinese experience.”

This is the China where only two months ago, Zhang Minan, a law professor at Guangzhou's Sun Yat-sen University and an expert on the the government’s population policy, told Reuters: "'They (the authorities) do have the right (to force abortions) ... " The same report interviewed a young Chinese woman, pregnant with four-month-old twins, who last February had been dragged into a maternity ward and had her belly injected with a needle in forced abortion. This is the China whose forced abortion policy was backed by Barack Obama in one of his first actions as President by restoring funding to UNFPA (and other organisations promoting abortion overseas), whose involvement in the forced abortion regime in China and elsewhere is all too well documented.

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Lord Lester's particularly weak article promoting assisted suicide

Lord Lester QC (pictured), the Liberal Democrat peer, has written a particularly weak article in favour of assisted suicide in today's Independent newspaper. I comment below in square brackets on a few of Lord Lester's points. You may like to draw upon my comments when you contact members of the House of Lords about amendments to undermine the law against assisted suicide. Time is running out, as the Lords will debate the amendments tomorrow, Tuesday, 7 July. Please read and respond to SPUC's action alert.

Lord Lester wrote:

"We all hope that, as our lives come to an end, we will be well cared for and will die peacefully and with dignity. We all hope – but many know of others who have had "bad deaths" and fear a similar fate for themselves." [JS: Lord Lester does not define a "bad death". There is a false presumption here that the possibility or probability of a "bad death" justifies an intentionally premature one i.e. assisted suicide/euthanasia.]

"We should celebrate life [JS: That's a bit rich coming from a supporter of abortion and embryo destruction!], and when death comes we should help the dying to end their lives as they wish [JS: But the very point of making assisted suicide legal is to allow the killing of people who are not dying i.e. not yet in the last hours, days or fortnight of life. There is a confusion here between dying and terminal illness, which is a disease likely to cause death within six to 12 months. Also, a patient's wish to be killed does not justify killing them.], and with respect for their dignity. [JS: But assisted suicide undermines people's dignity by sending the message that some people are better off dead.]

"The wonders of modern science have greatly prolonged the normal span of human life, but modern medicine has also created difficult ethical problems about how to balance the right to life and the patient's right to choose to accept or refuse medical treatment when life has become unbearable and death is imminent." [JS: But there is no difficulty here: it is ethical, and has always been lawful, for a patient to refuse to accept treatment where death is imminent. Lord Lester speaks of when 'life has become unbearable', yet what should weighed is not whether life is unbearable but whether the patient's treatment is unbearable.]

"[N]ot everyone wants to die in a hospice and not everyone wants doctors and nurses to strive to keep them alive." [JS: But no one is forced to die in a hospice. Palliative care can be delivered at home or in other settings, and hospice patients sometimes leave hospice to die at home. Treatment which is futile, burdensome disproportionate to benefit or where the patient's death is imminent may ethically and legally be withdrawn. There is no justification for assisted suicide or euthanasia.]

"Like many others, I believe that we need a legal framework which would allow doctors and nurses to be able lawfully to treat terminally ill patients to relieve their suffering as well as pain, even though it would be a virtual certainty that the treatment would shorten their lives." [JS: In fact, correct medical treatment, such as correct doses of painkillers, actually lengthens rather than shortens life. Doctors and nurses treat to relieve suffering every day. Poisoning a patient to death with an overdose is not medical treatment but intentional killing.]

"The Coroners and Justice Bill currently before the House of Lords modernises the language of the Suicide Act 1961, but the Bill does not address the current failure of the law to distinguish between those who maliciously encourage suicide and those who compassionately assist the death of a terminally ill, mentally competent adult." [JS: But assisted suicide is in itself malicious. The intentional killing of an innocent human being is recognised in international human rights law as intrinsically -and therefore always - wrong, and as the worst of crimes.]

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

A rebuke to society's double-standards around ability and disability

Anthony Ozimic, SPUC's communications manager, has this evening sent me his reflection after watching today's marathon Wimbledon men's final:

"Today and for the last fortnight millions around the world have been watching the Wimbledon tennis tournament. All the players have, of course, above-average physical powers, and many are regarded as attractive enough to be fashion models.

"Yet, in its wonder at the players' powers and beauty, is not our society in danger of ignoring the daily victories of countless unknown people over the challenges of disability? Many people rejoice at the endurance involved in a five-set Grand Slam final, a round-the-world yacht race or the conquering of Everest. Yet the same people recoil when it is suggested a disabled child should be allowed to be born, or an injured rugby player stopped from an assisted suicide, or an elderly stroke victim given continued treatment and care.

"A rebuke to society's double-standards around ability and disability is the inspiring story of Nick Vujicic. Nick was born without limbs, except for one foot attached to his left thigh. He is now a motivational speaker, preacher and sportsman. Do visit Nick's website Life Without Limbs. As a child, Nick overcame suicidal thoughts when he realised the courage of disabled people was an inspiration to others. Assisted suicide, in contrast, is a counsel of despair to the disabled."

Please use this blog-post when you contact members of the House of Lords about amendments to undermine the law against assisted suicide. Time is running out, as the Lords will debate the amendments as early as this Tuesday, 7 July. Please read and respond to SPUC's action alert.

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

Elderly will be even less safe from abuse if assisted suicide ban removed

An elderly lady was dehydrated to death in a private care home in London, her daughter has claimed. The Daily Mail reports that Jeanne Matthews, 80, suffered extreme dehydration, being given as little as a thimbleful of water a day.

Apart from the frequent reports of neglect of the elderly, we shouldn't forget that euthanasia by neglect is now enshrined in English law, by the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The Act builds upon court rulings which have condemned mentally incapacitated patients to death by dehydration and starvation. If assisted suicide also becomes part of English law, an additional means of lethal abuse will be opened, for the malicious, the uncaring and the irresponsible to use against the vulnerable.

The facts of Jeanne Matthews' death seem to be obscure and disputed, which is not uncommon in end-of-life cases. We cannot rely upon the medical authorities to report fully and honestly the facts in countries or states where assisted suicide and euthanasia are permitted. It is therefore imperative for the protection of elderly and other vulnerable patients that assisted suicide is banned in English law. Time is running out, as the House of Lords will debate amendments on assisted suicide as early as this Tuesday, 7 July. Please read and respond to SPUC's action alert.

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

Wise words from doctors' leader on assisted suicide

Following the BMA's vote against assisted suicide on Wednesday, Dr Brian Keighley, deputy chairman of the BMA in Scotland, said:

"It is clear that doctors do not wish to play a role in assisting a patient's death. Assisting patients to die prematurely is not part of the moral ethos or the primary goal of medicine. If the legislation were to be changed, it would have serious negative consequences on the relationship between doctors and their patients. It remains vital that access to the best quality palliative care is available in order to ensure that terminal suffering is properly managed."

Wise words. Please forward them to members of the House of Lords today, because they are likely to debate amendments on assisted suicide on Tuesday - see SPUC's action alert for more information.

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

National petition day against school abortion push

Tomorrow (4 July), hundreds of pro-life campaigners throughout the UK will be seeking signatures from the general public and church-goers for SPUC's petition against the promotion of abortion in schools.

Tony Mullett, the national co-ordinator of the petition day, said:

"The aim of the petition is stop schools being turned into abortion referral centres. Abortions are being arranged for children in schools behind their parents backs and one out of three secondary schools already has a school-based clinic where sex advice can be offered and abortions can be arranged without parents knowing. Successive governments have targeted young people with sex education telling them where to get contraception and abortion advice. But sexual diseases and abortions continue to increase among the young. The policy has failed, and now they are arranging secret abortions, destroying unborn children and leaving young teenage mothers to deal with the aftermath of abortion. It is profoundly evil."

SPUC's goal is to reverse the government's approach and end the promotion of secret abortions through schools.

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

Senior legal figures oppose assisted suicide amendments

Five senior legal figures have signed a letter to The Times to oppose amendments to the government's Coroners and Justice bill, amendments which would undermine the law against assisted suicide. The five figures are:

• Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who was Lord Chancellor under Margaret Thatcher
• Baroness Butler-Sloss, the former president of the Family Division
• Lord Brennan QC, a deputy High Court judge
• Lord Carlile QC, the government's independent reviewer of anti-terrorism laws; and
• Lord Elystan-Morgan, a former solicitor.

The pro-euthanasia lobby cannot claim that this ad hoc group is simply a representation of the pro-life movement. Although Lord Brennan, former president of the Catholic Union, is a prominent defender of pro-life principles, in contrast Lord Mackay is a strong supporter of destructive embryo experimentation, and Baroness Butler-Sloss issued court rulings which allowed the euthanasia of mentally-incapacitated patients.

Their letter reads (in part):

"The State has a fundamental duty to protect the lives of its citizens ... What is now being suggested — a regime for exonerating assistance with suicide in advance of the act and removal of the CPS’s right to investigate after the event — would disturb this balance in favour of persons who might be inclined to encourage and assist others with suicide for other than altruistic reasons."

The coming together of these senior legal figures with such disparate views reflects the widespread opposition to the proposed amendments. Please tell members of the House of Lords about this letter when you contact them about the amendments - please see SPUC's action alert of 6 June.

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

Bishop of Winchester writes against assisted suicide amendments

Michael Scott-Joynt (pictured), the Anglican bishop of Winchester, has written a strong article for the Church of England newspaper against amendments which would undermine the law against assisted suicide. His article is fitting counter-part to Monday's joint letter by religious leaders on the same theme. I provide some key points below, though do read the full article here. Please tell members of the House of Lords about the Bishop of Winchester's article when you contact them about the amendments - please see SPUC's action alert of 6 June. The bishop wrote:

• "[T]o legalise assistance [in suicide] is surely to encourage it.
• "Those pressing for a change in the law mainly have in mind a small minority of highly resolute people who argue not just for their own but for everyone’s 'autonomy' over themselves and their own lives. But even these people, let alone the rest of us, are not in reality 'autonomous'; everyone’s life is bound up with, depends upon and influences the lives of others...
• "Parliament has a particular duty to care for the very many who in illness, pain, fear and loss of their faculties may be more vulnerable, than the resolute and articulate few, to the influence and persuasion of others or indeed to the persuasion of their own care and anxiety for their families...
• "Parliament also has a duty to defend the integrity and trustworthiness of the medical and nursing professions – again with an eye especially on the need of the most vulnerable to be able to trust those professionally engaged in their care.
• "[V]ery seriously ill, and dying, people very often continue to be an inspiration and an encouragement, a blessing and a gift, to those around them, especially when they are surrounded by good medical care and by sheer human love and compassion."

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BMA vote against assisted suicide welcome

I've just heard that the British Medical Association (BMA), at its annual representative meeting (ARM) today, has voted against assisted suicide. The delegates voted on the motion:

"That this Meeting would support a change in legislation to:

(i) ensure that those accompanying the patient at an assisted death, but not actively participating, will not be subject to criminal prosecution;

(ii) allow the choice of an assisted death by patients who are terminally ill and who have mental capacity."

Clause (i) was defeated by 52% to 44% (with some abstentions), and clause (ii) lost by a large majority on show of hands.

SPUC is a core member of the Care Not Killing Alliance (CNK) which campaigns against euthanasia. In a press release about the BMA vote, Dr Peter Saunders of CNK said:

"By rejecting this motion today the BMA has affirmed its longstanding opposition to a change in the law and has chosen to stand with the RCP [Royal College of Physicians], the RCGP [Royal College of General Practitioners], the RCN [Royal College of Nursing] and the two thirds of doctors who consistently say in all opinion polls that they do not wish the law to change."

The BMA's vote is of course great news for the cause of life and the defence of the vulnerable, particularly in the light of the amendments proposed to the government's Coroners and Justice bill due to be debated next week (probably on Tuesday, 7 July). Please tell members of the House of Lords about the BMA vote when you write to them to oppose Lord Falconer's amendment - see SPUC's action alert of 6 June.

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

Pro-abortion lobbyist admits that a woman's choice does not justify an abortion

Pat Buckley - European Life Network reports that Frances Kissling (pictured), founder of the pro-abortion group Catholics (sic) for a Free Choice, has been roundly condemned by the rest of the pro-abortion lobby for concluding that sometimes a woman shouldn't be allowed to have an abortion. As Pat points out, Ms Kissling's admission undermines the major justification given for so-called abortion rights, namely choice. And as Pat also says,

[Kissling] touches upon a much concealed point about the abortion lobby. It is extreme, its ideological obsession with choice at the expense of any other rights including the right to life renders it so extreme that it would be called fanatical or fundamentalist if it were a religious organisation.

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Judicial review of Northern Ireland abortion guidance granted

The High Court in Belfast has granted an application to SPUC for a judicial review of the Northern Ireland health department's guidance on abortion.

Speaking to me from outside the court, Liam Gibson of SPUC Northern Ireland said:

"We are very grateful to have the opportunity to present the issues that were not properly examined during the consultation, particularly the recommendations of the Stormont health committee. We hope that the department will now be reasonable and redraft the guidance which were fundamentally flawed and need radical revision."

Mr Justice Weatherup allowed the application on the grounds that:

- the department has erred in law in its view of the law on abortion in Northern Ireland, as summarised in the guidance.

- the guidance is misleading and/or does not accurately portray the law on abortion in Northern Ireland.

- in publishing the guidance in its present form the Department was mistaken in:

• failing to acknowledge properly the presumptive illegality of abortion in Northern Ireland.
• failing to recognise properly the rights of the unborn child.
• failing to provide guidance on, or require investigation into, whether a child which may be aborted is capable of being born alive; and failing to provide instructions for circumstances where a child is capable of being born alive or is aborted alive.
• providing for "non-directive" counselling which is incompatible with the presumptively criminal nature of abortion in Northern Ireland.

There were also other grounds.

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Northern Ireland abortion case decision due tomorrow

The High Court in Belfast has heard submissions on SPUC's application for leave to apply for a judicial review of the Northern Ireland Department of Health's guidance on abortion. Having listened to the grounds on which SPUC believes the guidance requires revision, counsel for the health department denied the guidance was improper. The Family Planning Association (FPA) was also represented at the hearing. Mr Justice Weatherup reserved his decision on the application until 10am tomorrow (Tues 30 June).

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Religious leaders' joint letter against assisted suicide

Dr Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury (Anglican), Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster (Catholic) and Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, have written a joint letter published in today's Telegraph, opposing parliamentary moves to undermine the law against assisted suicide. Among other things, the letter states that Lord Falconer's amendment to government's Coroners and Justice bill, due to debated by the House of Lords

"would surely put vulnerable people at serious risk, especially sick people who are anxious about the burden their illness may be placing on others. Moreover, our hospice movement, an almost unique gift of this country to wider humankind, is the profound and tangible sign of another and better way to cope with the challenges faced by those who are terminally ill."

The fact that the leaders of three of Britain's main religions, representing millions of followers, have come together to sign this letter demonstrates the profound concern that exists in British society about threats to the sanctity of human life. There is widespread disquiet about a growing culture of death in Britain, with euthanasia already allowed in law in some circumstances through the Mental Capacity Act passed in 2005. The amendments proposed by Lord Falconer, Lord Joffe, Lord Alderdice and other peers will serve to threaten the vulnerable with lethal abandonment. Please forward the religious leaders' letter to members of the House of Lords when you write to them to oppose Lord Falconer's amendment - see SPUC's action alert of 6 June.

As an independent human rights organisation, SPUC supports the right of religious leaders to speak out on ethical principles. If an action, especially a public one, is incompatible with religious belief, then religious leaders must be free to point this out. Those who call this interference fail to recognise that the moral law cannot be confined only to certain spheres of activity. Morality has a universal jurisdiction.

As George Pitcher, an Anglican clergyman with a column in The Telegraph, welcoming the religious leaders' letter, points out, contrary to

"the euthanasia lobby [who] would like nothing better than to characterise the issue as a simple choice between religion and secularism"

that

"[m]any a secular humanist will argue that human life is uniquely to be revered and that the best answer to the terminally ill clogging up our health service isn't necessarily to help them to kill themselves."

Dignity in Dying (DID), i.e. the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (VES), has declared that "assisting non-terminally ill adults to die is wrong", yet Debbie Purdy - whose case DID/VES is supporting - told yesterday's Independent that

"I personally would argue for a law that provided assistance to the incurable/chronically ill who suffer unbearably and have reached the end of their tether."

Mrs Purdy goes on to say that:

"'Assisted suicide' suggests someone giving up. It is always heartbreaking when a person loses faith in her/himself, and family and friends are consumed with regret at not having done 'something'. What we are talking about is 'assisted dying', when someone facing the certainty of death or pain they cannot bear chooses to take control."

Note that Mrs Purdy defines "assisted dying" as not just when

"someones [is] facing the certainty of death"

but also

"when someone [is] facing the certainty of...pain they cannot bear"

So there we have it, de facto admissions that the term "assisted dying" is just a euphemism to replace the negative connotations suggested by the term "assisted suicide", and that non-dying people will be killed if so-called assisted dying is allowed in law.

So congratulations to the three religous leaders for standing up to euthanasia lobby's campaign of caricature and euphemism, a campaign which threatens the vulnerable with lethal abandonment.

So again, please forward the religious leaders' letter to members of the House of Lords when you write to them to oppose Lord Falconer's amendment - see SPUC's action alert of 6 June.

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

British doctors fight for the right to pray for patients

The BBC reports that at the British Medical Association this week: "Doctors are demanding that NHS staff be given a right to discuss spiritual issues with patients as well as being allowed to offer to pray for them".

Earlier this year, an NHS Trust suspended a nurse for offering to pray for a patient. She was later re-instated. By way of contrast, under the British Government's Mental Capacity Act, doctors who refuse to kill their patients, in certain circumstances, may face litigation and possibly criminal conviction; and anti-life politicians such as Evan Harris MP and Baroness Warnock are exploiting the current legal regime - in Mr Harris's case, to justify lethal dose assisted suicide and, in Baroness Warnock's case, to argue that people with disabling conditions have a duty to die prematurely. As she put it last year: "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives – your family's lives – and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service."

British visitors to my blog who are concerned that their friends and relatives may be at risk of euthanasia by neglect should contact Patients First Network (logo, right) which seeks to enable ordinary people to mount a bedside resistance to a premature and distressing death for their loved ones.

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

SPUC in high court in Belfast on Monday

SPUC is seeking leave on Monday (29 June) for a judicial review of the Northern Ireland government's guidance on abortion. The high court in Belfast may make its decision known on the same day.

We argue that the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety's guidance distorts the law and threatens unborn children.

Please pray for a good outcome.

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Stunning speech on Obama "the Abortion President"

Chris Smith, the pro-life American congressman, delivered a stunning speech at the National Right to Life annual convention held last week. Do read his important address in full, but below are some key extracts.

• "[Pro-life work is] a selfless expression of love for the disenfranchised and powerless, absolutely based on the core principles of nonviolence and malice towards none—even for those who actually dismember or chemically poison children to death and euphemistically call it choice.
• "[The pro-life cause is] the greatest human rights struggle on earth.
• "The bravest of all in [the pro-life] movement are the post-abortive women who are 'silent no more'. Their voice and message of hope must be heard everywhere and especially by post-abortive girls and women who suffer depression and deep emotional scaring.
• "Mr. Obama has earned the dubious title of the Abortion President. He talks inclusion, but practices exclusion ... [I]n record time has made the White House the wholly owned subsidiary of the abortion lobby ... [H]is administration is aggressively seeking to reverse virtually every modest pro-life law ever enacted or policy promulgated since Roe v. Wade.
• "The Abortion President is the master of the art of misdirection. From his speeches we hear soothing, pretty, mesmerizing words loftily summoning us to common ground—common burial ground that is. Obama’s talk of common ground is a trap—a snare—for the gullible and for the nominally pro-life who have emerged as the newest enablers ... pushing a few non-controversial pro-life positions like the adoption option all the while seeking to nullify authentic abortion reducing policies—the real common ground—including public funding bans, women’s right to know laws and parental notice statutes. Both the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute and pro-life advocates actually agree that prohibitions on taxpayer funding for abortion significantly reduce the number of abortions ... Clinton tried to sell common ground. Gore used it as well. And now our Abortion President is presenting it to the nation as if he invented it. It’s a trap.
• "As a result of Obama's new policy, pro-abortion organizations are now flush with cash and will continue to get hundreds of millions of dollars annually to push abortion around the world, all of it decoupled from pro-life safeguards ... With little fanfare, the Abortion President has stuffed and is in the process of stuffing the federal bureaucracy from top to bottom with some of the most extreme pro-abortionists on the planet.
• "[A] new, dark chapter in the Global push for unfettered abortion has commenced ... In light of his coordinated attack overseas, we must do a better job of warning nations in Africa and Latin America in Asia and even Europe that the Global War on Abortion is at their doorstep. Then there is the Obama abandonment of women in China ... Despite the fact that the UN Population Fund has actively supported, co-managed, and white-washed the most pervasive crimes against women in human history, President Obama donated $50 million to the UNFPA ... [T]here are the missing girls—about 100 million—victims of sex selection abortions. This gendercide is a direct result of the one child policy ... Population control blames children for bad governance and the misuse and misallocation of resources. If you want to know where that worldview takes us, just look at China.
• "[The] Abortion President reversed President Bush’s ban on taxpayer-funded embryo-destroying stem cell research ... embryonic stem cells that kill the donor, are highly unstable, have a propensity to morph into tumors and are likely to be rejected by the patient unless strong anti-rejection medicines are administered...
• "[Y]ou and I have no other option but to fight. We must be disciplined and alert and wise. And we need to redouble our efforts and recruit new activists here and around the world especially among the young. This is no time for quitters or the faint of heart."

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

Powerful resistance by doctors' leader to assisted suicide push

Professor Steve Field (pictured), chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), has offered powerful resistance to the push for assisted suicide. In an article in The Guardian, he writes:

"I do not believe that assisted suicide has a place in the UK. My argument is not based on a religious belief in the sanctity of life but on a strong belief in the ethical basis of medicine, which is my vocation ...

"If we doctors take on the additional role of taking life, while at the same time treating the patient and protecting their life, it would undermine our credibility, undermine the trust between the patient and doctor and adversely affect the doctor-patient relationship ...

"[A]ssisted suicide is not the answer to the ills of our health system.

"My concern is that the NHS could have an incentive to deny treatment to people who may be deemed too costly."

It is refreshing to read Prof. Field's article, as so often the leaders of the medical profession go along with the anti-life tenor in parliament and the media. It's also refreshing to hear that the Swiss government is considering banning or restricting organised suicide assistance, such as Dignitas. Please forward these two stories to members of the House of Lords, who are due (though delayed) to consider amendments on assisted suicide to the government's Coroners and Justice bill - see SPUC's action alert of 6 June.

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

Nixon comments highlight abortion-racism connection

According to recently transcribed audio recordings, Richard Nixon, the late former American president, said that abortion was justified if the unborn child had one black and one white parent. The general public is unaware that racist population control was actually the policy of the Nixon administration. Henry Kissinger, Nixon's Secretary of State, was the author of the infamous NSSM 200 (National Security Study Memorandum 200), which recommended that the United States should promote population control in the developing world in order to secure American interests.

Racism has always been connected with support for abortion. In a letter in December 1939, Margaret Sanger, the founder of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), said:

"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."

Lothrop Stoddard, one of Sanger's deputies, was a famous white supremacist. Marie Stopes, the founder of the birth control movement, said that if she had the power she "would legislate compulsory sterilization ... of half-castes."

Racism is present today in the activities of the abortion industry. The higher abortion rate among black Americans may have eugenic implications. I'm therefore delighted that the Reverend Arnold M Culbreath will be speaking at this year's SPUC national conference in September. Rev Culbreath, a Baptist, who is urban outreach director of Life Issues Institute, runs Protecting Black Life, which takes the pro-life message to the black community.

Richard Nixon's comments highlight the connection between abortion and racism. Of all people, President Obama, son of a black father and a white mother, should take the publication of Richard Nixon's comments as an opportunity to reflect upon his support for the killing of the unborn.

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

The euphemisms of euthanasia

I am grateful to Anthony Ozimic, SPUC's communications manager, for his reflections on the news that the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (VES), rebranding itself Dignity in Dying, now claims that does not campaign for euthanasia or suicide. Anthony writes:

Sarah Wootton (pictured), the VES' chief executive, writing in yesterday's Guardian, claims that:

"[W]e campaign for the choice of assisted dying for the terminally ill within strict safeguards. Not euthanasia. Not suicide ... but the choice of assistance to die for those who are suffering, competent to make the decision and are already dying."

In recent years, the VES' strategy has been to narrow its campaigning targets and soft-soap its public face, in order to allay opposition and thereby get some movement towards the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia. That is the real reason why the VES now calls itself Dignity in Dying, not because it no longer supports euthanasia. The VES' name-change mirrors the name-change of the Hemlock Society in America to "Compassion and Choices".

The duplicity of the VES campaign is further seen in their support of Debbie Purdy's legal challenge. Mrs Purdy's stated aim is to find out how likely it is that her husband will be prosecuted if he assists her to travel to Dignitas in Switzerland. The VES claims that she "would like the option of an assisted death should her suffering become unbearable". Mrs Purdy herself is more explicit:

"Since the 1961 Suicide Act was introduced we have legalised homosexuality and abortion without making them compulsory. We need to look at the law on assisted suicide again and think about how that could be legalised too with proper safeguards in place." [AO: my emphasis]

And Mrs Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, is not dying, as multiple sclerosis is not a terminal illness. So why is the VES - which has declared that "assisting non-terminally ill adults to die is wrong" - supporting her case? The immediate reason is that the VES is using the case as a lever for the legalisation in the UK of assisted suicide and euthanasia, for both terminally-ill and non-terminally ill persons. The truth of this immediate reason is confirmed by the VES' boast that that it was "involved in drafting the Mental Capacity Act 2005", which enshrined in English law euthanasia by neglect of non-dying, non-competent and non-consenting adults.

The deeper reason for the VES's support for Mrs Purdy's case (and for euthanasia generally) is only hinted at by Mrs Purdy's analogy with legal abortion, but made more explicit in the words and person of Sarah Wootton herself. In her Guardian piece Ms Wootton has described the opposition to so-called assisted dying as "the anti-choice lobby". Dig a bit deeper elsewhere and one discovers that, before coming to the VES, Ms Wootton worked for the pro-abortion Family Planning Association (FPA) and was a founding trustee of Abortion Rights.

So now we know exactly where we are - in the dark world of anti-life euphemism, the hall of smoke and mirrors where unborn babies are re-labelled "products of conception" and killing them is called "terminating an unwanted pregnancy".

So I have no hesitation in awarding Ms Wootton our George Orwell prize.

“Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." George Orwell

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

Pro-lifers hold sponsored vigil against TV abortion ads

SPUC members held a vigil outside the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in London on Friday to show their concern at proposals to advertise abortion on television. Sponsorship for the vigil will go towards SPUC's campaign against the ASA's proposal. Participants were led by Anne Fearon of Crosby, Merseyside, who said:

"SPUC members from all over the country are anxious to have their voice heard. We do not want adverts for abortion services on TV and radio. This would only lead to more abortions, and there are already around 200,000 every year. Women deserve better than abortion. Whilst abortion providers would have plenty of money to pay for advertising, the pro-life groups would not be able to afford to advertise the alternatives to abortion."

Anne was joined by Peter, her husband, and James and Catherine, their twin son and daughter aged 16. SPUC supporters from London and Oxfordshire also took part, as well as members of SPUC staff, including myself.

A full report by Anne of the vigil, as well as photographs, can been seen on the SPUC website here.

During the vigil, Paul Tully, SPUC general secretary, presented SPUC's submission to the authority's consultation on advertising abortion.

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

Catholic organisations should not invite Cherie Blair

Last Thursday the Apostleship of the Sea (AOS), a Catholic charity for seafarers, invited Cherie Blair (pictured) to launch its annual appeal. The AOS' invitation to Mrs Blair is to be lamented, considering that, in the very same week as Mrs Blair launched the AoS appeal, she continued her campaign against Catholic teaching on the culture of life. In an interview in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph, Mrs Blair said:

"[T]hough I like to think of myself as a good Catholic, I couldn't have had the career I had without contraception. The fact is, even in Spain, France and Italy there must be a lot of Catholics who bend the rules."

And in today's Independent newspaper, Mrs Blair endorses ActionAid, a charity which calls for access to abortion.

I will be writing to AoS about their invitation to Mrs Blair to launch their appeal. You may wish to join to me. Please write to: Captain Paul Quinn, O.B.E, National Director, Apostleship of the Sea, by email paulquinn@apostleshipofthesea.org.uk or by post to Herald House, 15 Lambs Passage, Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8LE.

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

The right and duty of parents to protect their children's morality

An excellent letter has been published in this weekend's Catholic Herald, from Edmund Adamus, director of pastoral affairs of the archdiocese of Westminster. The substance of the letter reads:

"[The] legal right [of parents] to withdraw their children from sex education classes where content [i]s at odds with their moral convictions ... is protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and defended vigorously in Church teaching.

The similarities are striking between the stealthy undermining of parental authority by the state today (particularly the authority of Christian parents) and the aggressive subversion of the same in National Socialist Germany in the 1930s. In paragraph 39 of the encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge ("With Burning Sorrow") - which left Hitler so beside himself that for three days he did not want to see anyone - Pius XI [JS: pictured] reminds German Catholic parents that "their rights and duties as educators, conferred on them by God, are at present the stake of a campaign pregnant with consequences."

Those rights include what John Paul II called "an unrenounceable duty" of parents to protect their children's morality. In jurisprudence this is a fiduciary principle, which means one must exercise this duty beyond the bare minimum.

Mr Adamus's letter articulates for me why I and other parents are right to object to the cooperation of Catholic Education Service (CES) with the government's plan for compulsory sex education.

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

So-called human rights experts out of touch with human values

Among the many things discussed at last week's session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, was the Yogyakarta principles, something which I've blogged on 29 April this year and 22 November last year. The Yogyakarta principles, amongst other things, call on States to "ensure that all sexual and reproductive health, education, prevention, care and treatment programmes and services respect the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities, and are equally available to all without discrimination"; according to the World Health Organisation's definition "sexual and reproductive health" services includes the provision of abortion on demand.

As usual, British politicians are already implementing such radical re-engineering of human relations. The government is, through its Equality bill and its Coroners and Justice bill, are seeking to suppress any dissent from its anti-life agenda. The Conservative party, Britain's main opposition party, are also working against family values, with David Cameron, the party leader, due to join this year's annual Gay Pride march, and with the Conservative party annual conference due to host its first-ever "gay pride" social event.

Earlier this month I blogged about how these political leaders have misunderstood human sexuality, and the impossibility of protecting unborn children effectively where such a misunderstanding is present. I also think that the so-called human rights experts who advise those political leaders are deeply out of touch with human values. Pat Buckley, representing SPUC at Geneva, reports that one of the so-called expert speaker, Neha Sood of the Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights

"told the meeting that she assumed everyone present were feminists, otherwise they could not claim to support human rights. She also told the meeting that the real problem in society is Patriarchy and it was responsible for making women second class citizens and creating the discriminatory institution of marriage an institution."

That such outdated Marxist dialectics are being allowed to be promoted at UN meetings suggests that it is the pro-life movement, and not these anti-life ideologues, which actually upholds authentic human goods - life, love and children.

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

Amnesty Int'l reveals an Achilles' heel of the anti-life lobby

Amnesty International, the human rights group, has criticised the Dominican Republic for moves to ban abortion. The country's congress is considering a new constitutional provision to guarantee the right to life from conception to natural death. Amnesty claims that banning abortion "could lead to violations of women's human rights", even though it admitted that "international human rights law...already protects prenatal life".

That admission is very revealing, because other pro-abortion groups won't admit such an unpalatable (to them) truth. It is an Achilles' heel in the anti-life lobby's campaign to get the United Nations to declare abortion to be a human right. That is why SPUC is developing the Amnesty for Babies campaign, so that legislators will declare that international law in fact protects the unborn from intentional killing from conception onwards.

Amnesty's 2009 report on the state of the world's human rights also contains attacks on other Latin American countries for restricting abortion. Amnesty's main concern would seem to be the provision of abortion for rape victims. That contradicts one of Amnesty's core principles: that the innocent should not be killed or punished. In what way does any unborn child, a member of the human family, deserve death? Amnesty should remind itself of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), article 6(5), which forbids the death penalty to be carried out on a pregnant woman. The covenant's travaux préparatoires (preparatory works) state that the express intention of this article was inspired by humanitarian considerations, and by consideration of the interests of the unborn child. Indeed, the innocent ought not to die with the guilty.

Amnesty must return to its core principles and reject the injustice of abortion.