The appointment of Cardinal Nichols to head Vatican dicastery on laity family & life would endanger families worldwide

Voice of the Family noted recently reports from credible sources that Vincent Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, is being considered as a candidate to head a Vatican’s new dicastery, which will be responsible for Laity, Family and Life.

Voice of the Family further notes that:

"Cardinal Nichols’s approach to Catholic teaching on human sexuality has caused the pro-life, pro-family movement grave concern for many years. Serious questions have been raised about his approach to issues as diverse as abortion, contraception, the rights and status of the embryo, sex education, homosexual unions and the reception of Holy Communion for the 'divorced and remarried'."

The appointment of Cardinal Nichols to head a Vatican dicastery on the laity and family and life would endanger families worldwide. I invite visitors to my blog to consider the Voice of the Family's plea:

"Voice of the Family asks all our readers to pray that the Holy Father will appoint a courageous witness to Catholic teaching on life and the family to this new position. The family today is under sustained attack. The victims of this crisis – unborn children, the disabled, the elderly, children at risk from corrupting sex education, parents struggling to bring up their children according to the moral law – need a strong voice to speak on their behalf. This will not be provided by the appointment of a steadfast opponent of orthodox Catholic teaching."

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SPUC Pro-Life Youth Conference is a golden opportunity for young people

We are now exactly 3 weeks away from the first day of the 2016 International SPUC Youth Conference, which will take place in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire (a 40 minute journey from central London) from the 11^th to the 13^th of March. This conference has been vital in educating, uniting and inspiring the pro-life youth of today to go out and be witnesses to the pro-life cause at university, school, at work and within their own families and amongst their friends.

The conference is a golden opportunity not only for young people to learn more about current pro-life issues, but also for them to network and socialise with other like-minded people. In this age, when so many fear vilification for valuing human life and the family, it is more important than ever that young pro-lifers keep in contact with one another and support each other’s work.

This year, we have another exciting line-up of speakers, including Bobby Schindler who is the Executive Director of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network – the organisation dedicated to his sister, who was starved and dehydrated to death despite the valiant efforts of her family. Other speakers include Obianuju Ekeocha, who is making waves in Africa through her pro-life work in defence of Africa’s traditional pro-family and pro-life culture. To read a short biography of each speaker, please visit the SPUC blog: https://www.spuc.org.uk/news/blog

You can book your place through visiting the SPUC website here: https://www.spuc.org.uk/get-involved/events/youth-conference-2016 . If you, or someone you know, would like to attend the conference but cannot afford the price of a place, please contact Rhoslyn Thomas on rhoslynthomas@spuc.org.uk for more information on sponsored places at the conference.

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Brave gender ideology opponent speaking in Westminster

I encourage you to attend the talk which will be given by Gabriele Kuby, hosted by the Westminster Diocese Office for Marriage and Family Life on 11 March, 2016*, entitled: "The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom"

Gabriele Kuby, who has said that her deepest motivation in life is the search for truth, has been the target of abuse for her brave work against ‘gender ideology’. She wasportrayed recently  in a play as a zombie who could only be killed with a bullet to the head. After the play’s premiere, in Kuby’s home country of Germany in a Berlin theatre, one of the other pro-family campaigners portrayed in the play had her car torched.

As pro-lifers, we should be very concerned about the rise in popularity of ‘gender ideology’. As Pope Emeritus Benedict said:

“…if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him”

Gabriele Kuby will also be speaking on the following day at our annual SPUC Youth Conference in Hoddesdon (11-13 March). To book your place at the conference, visit: https://www.spuc.org.uk/get-involved/events/youth-conference-2016

* The meeting takes place at Vaughan House, 46 Francis Street, SW1P 1QN at 6.30 pm on 11 March

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Congratulations John Deighan, SPUC Scotland's CEO, on becoming a Knight of St Gregory

John Deighan, SPUC Scotland's chief executive, my opposite number in Scotland, has been invested as a Knight of St Gregory by Bishop John Keenan, the bishop of Paisley.

Bishop Keenan, commenting on John's richly-deserved honour, referred to:

"his outstanding contribution to Church and society as Scottish Bishops' Parliamentary officer over fifteen years.

"Congratulations", Bishop Deighan said "to his wife Angela and all the Deighans".

Well-done John! Your courageous service of the common good and the Church makes us all proud.

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"Devastating" pro-abortion legislation rejected by Northern Ireland Assembly

Liam Gibson, SPUC Northern
Ireland officer

It's good to share good news this morning with visitors to my blog:

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, the UK’s largest pro-life organisation has welcomed the defeat of moves to liberalise abortion law in Northern Ireland.
The Assembly rejected an attempt to make it lawful to abort children diagnosed with a life limiting condition by 59 votes to 40, and also voted 64 to 30 against an amendment which would have made it lawful to abort those said to have been conceived through criminal sexual activity.

"Effect would have been devastating"
Liam Gibson, SPUC's Northern Ireland development officer said:

"It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of this vote by the Northern Ireland Assembly. Had these proposals become law, their effect would have been devastating.

"Although they were presented as allowing abortion only for a limited number of so-called hard cases, in reality they were an attack on some of the most vulnerable of children and would have led to widespread abortion."

"Children deserve special protection"
Mr Gibson continued: "Experience around the world shows that this kind of proposal is only the thin end of the wedge, and that abortion activists seek to exploit any loophole in the law, to discredit pro-life laws and deny legal protection to all unborn children. Their aim is to erect a false 'right to abortion' in law.

"International law recognises that all members of the human family share the right to life, and that children deserve special protection, including legal protection before as well as after birth.‎ This vote is a clear rejection of the idea that some children are less worthy of the protection of the law."

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Canadian doctor's chilling first encounter with physicians who kill their patients

Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, has published an article describing the chilling moment when Dr Diane Kelsall (right), deputy editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, first encountered (in 1993) fellow health professionals, at a medical conference, attended by Queen Beatrix, in The Hague, who were explaining how to kill patients.

"Numerous attendees filed out of the session in silence, clutching handouts that described euthanasia protocols:

Administer this. If the patient is still breathing, administer that. If the patient’s heart is still beating, do this.

We stood in small groups, hardly able to grasp what we were reading. This was so contrary to everything we had been taught and everything we believed. How could physicians have crossed this line? When did “above all do no harm” turn into an algorithm for death?"

Twenty-plus years later, Dr Kelsall is chilled once again when she receives similar advice from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

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In celebration of Margaret Cuthill, leading UK witness to the harm of abortion

Margaret Cuthill celebrates retirement

Last Friday evening, on the occasion of her retirement, we celebrated Margaret Cuthill's inspirational leadership for a quarter of a century of ARCH, Abortion Recovery Care and Helpline formerly known as British Victims of Abortion funded and administered by the SPUC Education and Research Trust. Margaret's counselling, her unforgettable witness as a post-abortion speaker, has helped to heal countless mothers following an abortion and has saved the babies of countless mothers-to-be.

I was honoured to pay tribute to Margaret's work during our celebration dinner - in these words:

In the heat and in the hurry of SPUC’s educational and political campaigning on behalf of unborn children and their mothers – it’s been deeply comforting to me and to my colleagues in the Society that the work of ARCH – Abortion, Recovery, Care and Helpline, funded and staffed by the SPUC Education and Research Trust for three decades – has been quietly active, reaching out to women suffering after an abortion, and helping mothers in crisis pregnancies to avoid abortion.

Bob Edwards, Chairman of SPUC Education
and Research Trust, talks to Sister Andrea Fraile
of Glasgow-based Sisters of the Gospel of Life. Across
the table is John Deighan, SPUC Scotland director

ARCH has been there, doing this great work, originally under the title British Victims of Abortion, for thirty years. And Margaret, whom we are honouring this evening on the occasion of her retirement, has been absolutely central to this work, leading and inspiring it throughout the UK from the office here in Glasgow, shared with our colleagues in SPUC Scotland, in so many ways, for 25 of those years.

Paul Tully, SPUC’s London-based general secretary, who started work for SPUC 35 years ago, provides a perspective from a distance on the quality and quiet effectiveness of Margaret’s work in these few comments that he sent me today:

"I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to work closely with Margaret apart from referring people to her for help – whether for post-abortion counselling or support during pregnancy - but I do recall her moving contributions to a number of conferences, public witnesses, training sessions, etc, where she spoke of her experience of abortion and the survival of her daughter. Her simple, unostentatious honesty about the situation she found herself in and the harm of abortion were deeply impressive. Her work supporting other post-abortive women has been mostly unseen and unsung of course, but it is surely none-the-less appreciated by the many hundreds of women she has met with or spoken to over the years.”

And Katherine Hampton, who’s worked for the Society for 22 years, said to me today:

“My abiding memory of Margaret will always be the student lecture tour we did together back in 1995 – with speaking engagements from Dundee to Dover. As well as the school and university talks Margaret undertook on this tour, there were also local radio interviews that she did so well. It was her ability to keep telling her own personal story over and over again that particularly impressed me. I think that by the end of the tour I knew her story off by heart!”

Margaret’s courage and self-sacrifice in telling and retelling her powerful personal history and testimony regarding abortions must have saved countless lives, and given new hope and a sense of belief and self-confidence to countless women and men – either to recover and to begin again after an abortion, or to continue with a pregnancy or to give support to a mother-to-be. What Paul calls Margaret’s “deeply impressive unostentatious honesty” has saved lives and, I believe, through Margaret’s work in the media and in other significant public forums, has changed the nature of the abortion debate in Britain.

Anthony Ozimic, SPUC’s communications director, has been telling me about the significant media impact and coverage Margaret has achieved over the years conveying to the public the true nature of abortion and its damaging impact on mothers – for example, in The Independent on Sunday in 1993, on Sky TV in 1996, on the BBC in 2005, in The Scotsman in 2006, in the Sun in 2009, in the Telegraph in 2015 and in The Herald and in 2016 – and on countless other occasions in the print and broadcast media.

Anthony has sent this message to our celebration of Margaret’s work this evening:

“In the abortion debate in the media, there is often a clash of absolutes: between the right to life of the unborn child and the woman's right to choose. While it is good and proper for this clash to take place, it often seems to result in people remaining in entrenched positions. Margaret's compelling testimony and personal insight has the power to move hearts even when heads remain in the sand. No biased interviewer, no aggressive opponent and no irate caller can say credibly to Margaret: 'you were not there when you had the abortion'; 'your pain was not real', 'the women you've cared for don't exist'. Margaret's voice will be greatly missed."

Beneath the simplicity of Margaret’s quiet witness, everyone listening can sense a depth of experience and understanding which changes the listener. In my view, the listener undergoes a kind of conversion experience as Margaret tells us the full truth about abortion and its consequences. And like all great speakers, she knows when to burst into oratory, like at the press relaunch of British Victims of Abortion under its new name of ARCH five years ago. Margaret said that women were "tortured and tormented" by abortion. Quoting Shakespeare's Richard II, she conveyed the sorrow of abortion in these words:

“My grief lies all within, And these external manners of lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul”

Two beautiful sisters, Marion, left, and Margaret Cuthill, right, met in Glasgow 5 years ago to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Margaret's working as a post-abortion counsellor.

I was privileged to pay tribute to Margaret at the Glasgow celebration of her great work. This is what I said then – and I’ve no reason to change a word of it 5 years later:

“For me, Margaret embodies what the pro-life movement is all about. Quite apart from her daily counselling, Margaret has devoted her life to giving a courageous, powerful, personal witness concerning her own abortions. She's the most moving speaker on abortion I've ever heard, with her simple, understated witness. Again and again, over the years, her personal witness has helped to change the nature of the abortion debate in the UK, humanizing it, removing it from the level of confrontation, and introducing people, instead, to the truth. She certainly fulfils Pope John Paul II's prophetic address, in Evangelium Vitae, to women who've had an abortion: “With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life.” (EV, 99)

I love you Margaret, for what you have done for unborn children and their mothers. On behalf of so many people you've helped and inspired, thank you.

In closing this blogpost, on behalf of my fellow trustees on the SPUC Education and Research Trust, I also thank SPUC Scotland whose office has been shared by Margaret and her team this past 25 years. The SPUC Scotland team and its leadership (Linda Porter, followed by Ian Murray, followed by Donna Nicholson and now John Deighan) have given invaluable love and support and critical support and guidance to the ARCH team, critically assisting its vital compassionate outreach, for a quarter of a century. 

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Dutch ethics professor changes his mind on legalised euthanasia

Fr John Fleming and Alison, his wife

The Catholic Medical Quarterly has carried an important article by Theo Boer, a professor of health care ethics at Kampden Theological University. I am grateful to Fr John Fleming PhD, SPUC's bioethics consultant and member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, for the following analysis and review:

In a remarkable volte face, Theo Boer, a former supporter of legalised euthanasia in the Netherlands, has changed his mind about legalised euthanasia.

For years I supported the Dutch law on assisted dying. But as we speak, I have more concerns now than ever before. I am worried that the liberty of some may lead to a loss of freedom of others.(1)

Theo Boer is the Lindeboom Professor of Health Care Ethics at Kampden Theological University.(2) In 2005 he was appointed to one of the five “regional review committees” established by the Dutch government to assess, after the event, whether reported cases of euthanasia were in accordance with the law. If cases meet all legal criteria the “dossier will be closed”. If not the matter is referred to the public prosecutor and the Health inspector general and prosecution may follow.

Why, then, did this prestigious scholar and public servant change his mind about legalised euthanasia or legalised “assisted dying” as they call it in the Netherlands? Professor Boer provides four major concerns that he has about the law as it is practised daily in the Netherlands.

1. The “slippery slope”
Professor Boer originally believed that there did not have to be a slippery slope where euthanasia is concerned. That, at any rate, was the view he still held in 2007. After all euthanasia had been practised under the present law for five years and the level of assisted dying had remained the same. Moreover, he said, there had been significant improvement in the quality of palliative care in that time.

However, the situation has changed dramatically over the last eight years. Since 2007 the number of assisted deaths has increased 15% annually. In 2003 there were under 2,000 cases of euthanasia. By 2014 “the figures were well above the 5,000 line”.(3)

Professor Boer has drawn the conclusion that “what was once considered a last resort, now becomes a default mode of dying for an increasing number of people”. (4) In fact unbearable suffering is now seen less in terms of physical terms but more in terms of ‘meaningless waiting’.

2. Change in categories of patient receiving euthanasia
Over the years in which he has reviewed cases the types of patient receiving euthanasia have changed markedly. In the early years of the law there were, Boer says, “hardly any patients with psychiatric illness or dementia”. However, in the last 500 cases he reviewed 50 had loneliness as a criterion, and others had more age related complaints. Many of these patients, he said, could have lived “for months, others for years or even decades”.(5)

Professor Boer also drew attention to the new situation of “euthanasia for two”. He gives an example where the caregiver now gets cancer and the one he has been caring for chooses to die on the same day. Other new developments included “euthanasia for blindness”, “euthanasia for autism”, and even “assisted dying for a mother of two suffering from tinnitus”.(6)
Boer concludes that assisted dying for one group of patients leads to demands for similar treatment from other groups.

3. Have euthanasia will travel
2012 saw the introduction of a nationwide network of travelling euthanasia teams known as end of Life Clinics. These doctors only do the administration of lethal drugs. There is no patient-doctor relationship. Either the patient gets euthanasia or he is sent home empty handed.

4. Shift in public opinion
The existence and implementation of the euthanasia law has modified public opinion. Increasingly people demand euthanasia as a ‘right’. In fact, Boer says, there is “a law that is now in the making [which] obliges doctors who refuse to actively refer their patients to a ‘willing’ colleague.”(7) Boer refers to a survey of doctors carried out by the Royal Dutch Medical Association which shows that doctors find euthanasia a heavy burden. Fuelled by the advocacy of thirty documentary films on this subject, the public increasingly sees only the positive aspects of euthanasia. Add to that the “unknown, but considerable number of patients” who “consider their suffering too big of a burden for their relatives and ask to die of concern for their wellbeing”.(8) In that sense he is referring to patients feeling they now have a “duty to die”.

From these four concerns Professor Boer draws this conclusion:

Dutch and Belgian laws on assisted dying, instead of being a respectful compromise, much rather function as stepping stones towards more radical changes in the way we organise our deaths.(9)

While the offer of assisted dying may be a relief to some, he says, it is purchased at the expense of signalling others that they should ask for euthanasia out of concern for their loved ones, not themselves. In short it conveys the message that death is a good remedy for suffering, and not just physical suffering, and not just the patient’s suffering.

A society’s signal that it is willing to organize the death for its citizens simply involves too many risks.(10)

Perhaps the only weakness in this important paper is the ethical reasoning proposed by Professor Boer which might justify euthanasia. His argument relies upon an analogy which involves a rather forced and unlikely scenario. A truck has crashed into a wall. The driver, still alive, may soon be engulfed in flames. He notices a bystander carrying a gun and begs the bystander to shoot him before the flames get to him.

This, of course, is the old force majeure argument, the invocation of which at law in the Dutch courts first permitted euthanasia. That is, there is nothing else to be done but put the man out of his misery. In the cases of Postma (1973) and Schoonheid (1984), judges exempted the doctors concerned from punishment on the basis that the euthanasia they carried out had to be done because there was nothing else that could be done to prevent unbearable suffering in the patient. In the case of the truck driver, Boer suggests that the bystander might be excused from punishment if he shot the driver to prevent him being burnt to death. This would mean that killing the innocent may be morally justified in such circumstances. Boer seems to acknowledge the difficulty in which this would place the armed bystander, but nowhere does he really say that such intentional killing violates the inviolable and inalienable right to life of the truck driver even if the driver should beg to be killed.

To get over this, Boer then develops the analogy further. It seems the bystander now has two guns, one to shoot to kill, the other which shoots anaesthetics. Should he use the anaesthetic in the hope that help will arrive just in time to save the driver? People prefer not to be killers, so the second option is the more inviting.

But as an analogy it fails at every point. The patient (the suffering one) is not about to be enveloped by pain. Good palliative care is available. And in the case of a dying patient no cure is in fact going to be available before inevitable death takes hold.

The real issues with euthanasia in Western societies are these: the act of killing an innocent person even with the patient’s consent is never morally licit, good palliative care is available and can be used to make a patient reasonably comfortable as the patient faces death, and that allowing exceptions to the rule prohibiting the killing of the innocent will inevitably give rise to precisely the problems that the Dutch now face where legalised euthanasia is concerned. And legalising euthanasia in the Netherlands, itself preceded by a raft of court judgments based on faulty ethical reasoning, and on the basis of the same faulty ethical reasoning, has produced far more problems than it has solved. And not least among these has been the guilty consciences (what the Royal Dutch Society euphemistically calls a “heavy burden”(11)) of euthanizing doctors who now face the possibility of even heavier burdens as people not only demand a right to their killing services for a wider variety of cases, but also demand that if a doctor doesn’t want to perform euthanasia he will be legally required to refer to a doctor who will, thus forcing all doctors to be morally complicit in these killings.

(1)  Theo Boer, “Dutch Experiences on Regulating Assisted Dying”, Catholic Medical Quarterly, 65(4), November 2015, 25
(2) “The Theological University in Kampen is the theological seminary of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (liberated). It functions as an academic, theological institution that operates from a Reformed faith perspective and in service to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Vid. http://en.tukampen.nl/portal-informatiepagina/welcome

(3) Theo Boer, “Dutch Experiences on Regulating Assisted Dying”, Catholic Medical Quarterly, 65(4), November 2015, 25
(4) Ibid
(5) Ibid
(6) Ibid
(7) Ibid
(8) Ibid
(9) Ibid 26
(10) Ibid
(11) Ibid 25


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Newman College Ireland's President has his priorities right

Young Catholics who want to study Liberal Arts in a faithfully Catholic context should consider applying to Newman College Ireland. Why?

For a start, the President of Newman College (Professor Ciarán Ó Coigligh) has his priorities right.

His self-description on Linkedin the professional social networking site reads:

"Catholic, husband, parent, academic, poet, novelist, playwright, administrator" - in that order ...

... And, as a Catholic, he is unequivocally pro-life - as all true Catholics are.

This fact is illustrated in Professor Ó Coigligh's crystal clear exposition of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae on the transmission of human life, presented in his parish a year or so ago. His presentation concludes with the words:

"Saint John Paul II’s ceaseless promotion of the essence of Humanae Vitae, encapsulated in his wonderful phrase ‘a culture of life’ was a not insignificant factor in my return to the practice of the faith ...".

Professor Ó Coigligh recounts with unflinching honesty his personal history and the story of his intellectual and spiritual formation in a remarkable address delivered recently at a dinner held in his honour at Saint Patrick's College, Drumcondra. The dinner was held to mark his leaving the College because of the abandonment of its Catholic Mission and the destruction of its Catholic ethos. In his address, Professor Ó Coigligh also recounts his family history, caught up in the tragic suffering of the Irish people in the 19th and 20th centuries. It's wonderful to see the faith of our fathers, the faith of his parents, and his intellectual conviction in the truths taught by the Catholic Church (in particular the truth about marriage, the family, and the sanctity of life) emerging despite all the difficulties of his early life and his youthful immersion in political thinking deeply hostile to those truths.

Newman College Ireland, NCI for short, is a four year educational experience designed to give students an unmatched foundation in the liberal arts; one that will give due precedence to the Catholic faith and introduce students to the life of the mind. Through the study of theology, philosophy and the classics of Western civilisation a student will be superbly prepared for the vocation or career he or she might choose. Most importantly they will learn the Catholic faith from faculty who believe it and practice it!

Professor Ciarán Ó Coigligh, the President of Newman College Ireland, was formerly of the Irish Departments in National University of Ireland, Galway, National University of Ireland, Dublin and Saint Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin City University, Ireland.

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New pro-life coalition launched in Scotland

John Deighan, SPUC Scotland CEO

John Deighan, my pro-life colleague and opposite number in Glasgow, SPUC Scotland's chief executive, is in the news this week. He has co-ordinated the establishment of a broad pro-life coalition of all faiths and none to oppose the further liberalisation of abortion in Scotland.

Under the banner "Don't stop a beating heart", a large number of pro-life groups are working together to resist the social acceptance of abortion.

John Deighan says:

“The rights of the unborn child are facing new threats with the impending devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament from Westminster.

“Already, well in advance of the transfer of legislative authority, we are hearing a clamour for further extension of the existing excessively liberal law. This could see abortion legalised from the existing 24-week limit, in most cases, up until the point of birth.

“In response to these deeply disconcerting demands, pro-life supporters from different backgrounds, people of faith and none, in addition to concerned organisations and individuals have decided that we must stand together in the face of this onslaught.”

Paul Tully, SPUC's general secretary, in a statement released yesterday, said:

"Although SPUC is neutral on questions of devolution, we are alarmed by the prospect of the Scottish Parliament voting for laws designed to channel more expectant mothers towards abortion. Already one in five Scottish babies doesn't survive the womb due to abortion.

"The Don't Stop A Beating Heart campaign is sending a crucial message that unborn children in Scotland, England and everywhere are members of the human family and therefore deserve to be protected equally by law. It would be a tragedy if greater recognition of Scottish nationhood led to more Scottish children being killed by abortion."

And new year congratulations are due to John Deighan who has been honoured by the Catholic Church and is now a Knight of St Gregory, a richly deserved award for his many years of courageous Catholic witness.

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Adults’ self-interest trumps children’s best interests every time

New research reported in the Family Education Trust Bulletin indicates that children with increased childcare “subsequently had worse health, lower life satisfaction, and higher crime rates later in life.”

One of the most disturbing aspects of contemporary Western culture is the willingness of a selfish materialistic society to conduct long-term social experiments on the lives of children. These social experiments would almost certainly be banned if they were medical experiments.

We have assumed easy ‘no-fault’ divorce would be better for children. We have assumed that children being brought up by same-sex couples will not be disadvantaged. And when evidence to the contrary emerges in the damaged lives of some of these children, now grown to adulthood, we shrug our shoulders because the best interests of adults (for which read self-interest) will always trump the so-called best interests of the child.

We believe children will not be disadvantaged if they are cared for by strangers in their early pre-school years. And the benefits are there for all to see. Take, for example, the Quebec universal childcare system. It is the biggest such system in North America.

The Family Education Trust (FET) carries a well referenced story on Quebec. The benefits of this system have been documented by the economist Pierre Fortin.

• It has helped expand the provincial economy;
• It has increased employment rates and women’s participation in the work force;
• It has boosted the flow of taxes into the coffers.

What’s not to like? Wins for everyone? Well, yes, for the adults. But apparently not for the children!
You can read the discussion of these less than promising results in the November 2015 edition of the Family Education Trust bulletin.

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One woman defies the world for the sake of her children

Fiorella Nash, a researcher and writer working for SPUC, has sent me her characteristically compelling and candid review of Chiara Corbella Petrillo: A Witness to Joy, published this year.

Before reading this short book about the extraordinary life and death of Chiara Petrillo*, I had already heard her described as a twenty-first century Gianna Beretta Molla.

In worldly terms, her life was a series of disasters: she fell pregnant with a longed-for child shortly after getting married, only to be told that the baby had anencephaly and would die shortly after birth. Chiara refused an abortion and the little girl, Maria, died less than an hour after birth. A second pregnancy followed shortly after, a baby boy this time whom she called Davide, but during a routine scan he was found to have serious disabilities and he too died shortly after birth.

The response of some of those closest to Chiara and her husband was to tell them to forget about having any more children but they went on to have a third child whom they called Francisco. Francisco showed every sign during the pregnancy of being fit and well, but this time it was Chiara’s health that was in danger when a seemingly harmless mouth ulcer turned out to be a carcinoma. Well beyond the call of duty, Chiara chose to delay cancer treatment, even though she knew the dangers involved and she died shortly after her son’s first birthday. Chiara’s story is told in this book, written by two of her closest friends.

At this point, I have to make an embarrassing admission. When I first began reading Chiara’s story, I found it so difficult I very nearly asked for someone else to review it. I am naturally sceptical of anything that feels like hagiography and initially found the constant references to Chiara’s serenity exhausting (could somebody please direct me towards the patron saint of the volatile, the stubborn, the grumpily faithful??) ... However, as I was drawn into Chiara’s story, the nagging scepticism slowly gave way to a sense of awe that one person could endure so much with such quiet fortitude. I defy the coldest of readers to reach the end of the book dry-eyed.

One of the reasons Chiara’s story is so unsettling is that she is such a sign of contradiction in the world. Outwardly, she comes across as placid and unnaturally accepting of the suffering she is given, but it must take an incredibly powerful character to endure the loss of two children and to make a decision that will mean an early death.

Pro-life women are often forced to contemplate their own responses if they found themselves in a crisis situation – what if my baby were terminally ill? What if I became seriously ill during a pregnancy? What if I became pregnant through rape? In Chiara’s case, not one but two of the hard case scenarios campaigners argue about in debating chambers became part of her lived experience. She went much further than morality requires in refusing treatment of her own body that did not target her baby to which she would have been morally entitled. This book should be read, not so much as a biography, but as a testament to the power of one woman to defy the world for the sake of her children.

*Chiara Corbella Petrillo: A Witness to Joy
Simone Troisi and Cristiana Paccini
Sophia Institute, 2015

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Government's anti-extremism strategy threatens freedom to oppose same-sex "marriage"

Last month, the Family Education Trust (FET) published an article by Norman Wells, FET's director, which adds to the concern expressed by SPUC during the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013.

Three years ago, SPUC said that the government's same-sex "marriage" legislation* threatened the freedom of citizens to say that legalising same-sex "marriage" is wrong (or simply impossible). The Society warned:

"There will be compulsory teaching of same-sex marriage, dismissal for teachers with a conscientious objection to teaching about same-sex marriage, and no opt-out for faith schools."

Norman Wells's article on the British government's counter-extremism strategy raises the question: Must we respect a person or a person’s opinion? Is there any difference between saying I respect Christians and I respect Christian beliefs?

Well yes there is and Norman Wells points out the dangers of failing to see the difference. And that failure is to be seen, in a fundamental way, in the recently published government counter-extremism strategy defined by the government as follows:

“Extremism is the vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We also regard calls for the death of members of our armed forces as extremist.” [Emphasis added]

The point/distinction to be made is this. I may respect a communist as a person, but loathe detest and abominate communist beliefs and practices. Why should I respect beliefs with which I disagree?

In his important discussion on this issue, Wells begins with this perceptive remark by Professor John Haldane at the Family Education Trust conference last June:

"The word toleration has been reinterpreted. Toleration is the primary virtue in the context of disagreement or difference. It allows us to live with people with whom we disagree. But in recent years, toleration has shifted to become approbation and approbation has shifted to become celebration. Intolerance is now defined as refusing to celebrate something with which you disagree. It is a corruption of language."

Does this mean that when a teacher in a school, asked about same sex marriage, responds with a defence of traditional natural marriage that that teacher is undermining the value of ‘equality’ and therefore would be regarded as indulging in extremist behaviour?

Normal Wells goes on to discuss all of the anti-democratic and anti-free speech implications of current government strategy which is dangerous because of a failure to make a simple but logical distinction. And Wells concludes with advice to the government about the need to rethink how it expresses it counter-extremism legislation and “to proceed with the utmost caution".

* SPUC opposed the redefinition of marriage in law to include same-sex couples, because it would undermine the true nature of marriage and thus the pro-life benefits of marriage. Marriage offers the most protective environment for both unborn and born children.

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It's a truly tragic day for Northern Ireland's unborn children and their mothers

Liam Gibson

Liam Gibson, SPUC's development officer in Northern Ireland, has just issued the following statement on a truly tragic day for Ireland's unborn children and their mothers:

BELFAST 30 November 2015: The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the UK’s leading pro-life organisation, says that the ruling by the High Court that Northern Ireland’s ban on abortion breaches human rights is “dangerously flawed”.

SPUC is calling on the Attorney General to work with pro-life groups to mount a robust appeal against the judgement.

Earlier this year the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission applied for a judicial review of the law. The Commission claimed that the law, which prohibits abortion, violates the European Convention on Human Rights because it does not make exceptions for children who are disabled or whose mothers had been victims of rape or sexual assault.

Liam Gibson, the Northern Ireland development officer for SPUC, which intervened in the case, said:

“The ruling by Judge Mark Horner is dangerously flawed. The judge misrepresented the protection of children before birth in case law and statute law in Northern Ireland. He also confused the separate legal issues of viability and the capacity to be born alive.”

Liam Gibson continued:

“Not one universal human rights treaty recognises a right to abortion. However, the right to life is shared by all members of the human family. The Declaration on the Rights of the Child (DRC) acknowledges that ‘the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth’. The DRC explicitly states that the need for such special safeguards is ‘recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’.”

The greatest strength of SPUC's campaign in Northern Ireland over the past several decades has been the united opposition to abortion by the overwhelming majority of the community by Catholics and Protestants alike. May that unity, supported by prayer, grow ever stronger as we work to restore the protection of the law for unborn children, the most persecuted group of human beings in world history.

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Ofsted school inspections on sex education must respect parents' role

The values and wishes of parents must be at the heart of the way in which Ofsted rates schools on how they teach sex education, says Antonia Tully of SPUC Safe at School, following a report that government would like sex and relationships education (SRE) higher up the list of Ofsted's scoring system, rather than making it a compulsory school subject.

For the full release check SPUC's website.

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Parents standing firm against sex education in Romania, reports Antonia Tully

Antonia Tully, an expert on the impact
of graphic sex education on children

Antonia Tully, leader of the Safe at School initiative, a project of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, was invited to Romania this month by the Metropolitan Orthodox Church of Moldova and Bukovina and pro-life groups to speak about the impact on children of graphic sex education. Here is her encouraging report about parents' resistance in Romania which she concludes with the words: "If mandatory sex education is stopped at the Romanian border it will deal a much needed blow to the global campaign to sexualise and defile the innocent hearts and minds of the world's children."

The global drive to make school sex education mandatory for the world's children is finding strong and organised resistance in Romania, where the issue currently hangs in the balance. The country's Minister for Health favours pro-abortion/LGBT style sex education while the Minister for Education would like to see Romanian children taught the family values promoted by the pro-life lobby.

The good news is that introducing graphic sex education into Romanian schools will not be a pushover. Having recently returned from a week-long visit to Romania at the invitation of the Metropolitan See of Moldova and Bucovina, I saw parents and the Orthodox church standing shoulder to shoulder determined to protect their children from damaging sex education. The bad news is that the sex education lobby has been given access to the political and civic infrastructure to promote its position and materials.

In 2013, over 2,000 public libraries in Romania became the channel for distributing a graphic sex education programme; "Sex v the Stork". This online resource was written by a Romanian, Adriana Radu, following a year she spent in Germany working with a pro-abortion organisation. Roundly condemned by pro-family groups, "Sex v the Stork" was launched in the Romanian parliament on national "Day of the Library", and made available to any child visiting a library via the internet, avoiding control by parents or schools.

Speaking to packed meetings in five different towns and cities mainly in the north east of Romania, I invited people to look across Europe to Britain. Teaching children as young as five and six years old about their sexual organs, followed by detailed animated presentations of sexual intercourse are fairly standard elements of British classroom sex education. In Britain we are being told that children have a "right" to this education, indeed they "need" it in order to avoid pregnancy and to stay safe from sexual abuse. Nothing was lost in translation when I informed parents, teachers, doctors and priests that there is no evidence that teaching young children about sex protects them from premature pregnancy or sexual abuse. My take home message is: Parents you are the first and best educators of your children. You are the best people to protect your children.

In October 2015, 60 pro-abortion organisations petitioned the ministries of health and education to impose sex education on the country's schools. This was accompanied by typically vulgar demonstrations outside the respective ministries, with young people brandishing condoms, underwear and bearing placards with slogans such as "My vagina- my choice".

82 pro-life groups responded with a joint statement firmly rebuffing the claims of their opponents. Drawing on their recent past, they pointed out that the first political system to significantly separate children from their parents was Communism. They said: "It is not difficult to identify in the proposed approach for sex education an essentially Communist principle: children do not belong to parents they belong to the state". This sinister aspect of secular, state-sponsored sex education is perhaps not so keenly felt in many countries. But it is in Romania, where Christian families suffered so greatly under Communist rule.

Based in the lovely university city of Iasi (pronounced 'yash'), I covered several hundred miles by car travelling around this beautiful country. But it is a country haunted by people who are not there. For every Romanian alive today (approximately 18 million live in Romania, with a further 2 million living abroad), there is one who has been lost to abortion. 20 million unborn babies have been killed by abortion in Romania from 1970 to the present day.

However, I am very hopeful for Romania. During my recent visit I heard a number of priests publicly pledge the support of the church to defeat sex education in schools. The Archbishop of the Diocese of Buzau and Vrancea spoke at the meeting I addressed in the city of Buzau, again positioning the church with ordinary parents in their initiatives to protect their children.

In 2011 the Orthodox archbishopric of Iasi, established the first dedicated, diocesan pro-life department in Romania. The department offers care and support for women in crisis pregnancies, it runs a social project for large families and has produced an accredited pro-life, pro-family teaching resource for schools in Iasi. Archbishop Teofan is clearly loved by his flock, not least for his outstanding pro-life witness.

However grateful my Romanian hosts were in each place I spoke, I am more grateful to them for their commitment to life and the family. Many, many Romanian families are resisting the sex education invasion from the west which would indoctrinate and corrupt their children. If mandatory sex education is stopped at the Romanian border it will deal a much needed blow to the global campaign to sexualise and defile the innocent hearts and minds of the world's children.

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Is the West's ideological commitment to abortion and sexual "rights" robbing our nations of the strength to resist evil terrorist agenda?

This morning, the Guardian newspaper reports:

"Heavy casualties are feared after a bomb blast ripped through packed crowds in Yola, north-east Nigeria, just days after the president, Muhammadu Buhari, visited [pictured] declaring that terrorist organisation Boko Haram was close to defeat."

I mourn for those killed and pray for those injured in the Nigeria blast and pray for the families of all those affected by this tragedy.

Last Friday, in connection with the tragic slaughter in Paris, I recalled Mother Teresa's words linking the lack of peace in the world to abortion.

In connection with yesterday's terrible tragedy in Nigeria, we in the West need also deeply to consider why the story of yesterday's murderous blast in Yola is not making top headlines in our news in the West today.

We are rightly transfixed by the tragic events in Paris, praying for the victims, and calling on politicians to act with prudence and courage to protect European citizens. However, it's apparent that the tragic events in Nigeria are currently being given much less significant attention, for example, on the BBC website where the top story first thing this morning was the friendly football match between England and France. At the time of writing this post, yesterday's terrifying violence in north east Nigeria, was in 8th place in the BBC's list of news stories, with the death of a rugby star being given more prominence.

We should also consider the words of Bishop Emmanuel Badejo of Oyo, Nigeria, who told Alateia last February "that the United States has made clear it will not help Nigeria fight the Boko Haram terror group unless the country modify its laws regarding homosexuality, family planning and birth-control".

A similar observation was made by former U.S. Congressman Steve Stockman, a member of a four-person U.S. Congressional Delegation sent to Nigeria in the months after the horrific kidnapping of over 250 schoolgirls. In an interview with LifeSitenews, he said that the Obama administration was refusing critical intelligence to Nigeria in their fight against Boko Haram because of Nigeria's stance against same-sex "marriage".

Whatever the truth may be regarding Western policy towards Nigeria, I ask the question: Is the West's ideological commitment to killing unborn children and to so-called "sexual rights" robbing our nations of the compassion, the moral clarity and the strength to resist the evil agenda of today's terrorists?


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I pray for Paris victims and reflect on Mother Teresa's prophetic words

I mourn for those killed and pray for those injured in Paris and for their families.

This morning I am also mindful of Mother Teresa's words when she received the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize: "And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between."

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Listen to John Deighan's great defence of unborn children

Congratulations to John Deighan CEO of SPUC Scotland, for his eloquent and compassionate defence of the unborn child on BBC Radio Scotland today. He was being interviewed about the devolution of power of legislating on abortion to Scotland. Check it out at 1 hr 36 minutes at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nrl40

The interview (with John Deighan and Madeleine Glen of Abortion Rights) lasts 6 minutes beginning at 1:40.

Paul Tully, SPUC's General Secretary, says:

"John does a fantastic job of shifting the focus to the unborn child and the injustices of the current law – you can hear by the end how annoyed and flustered Madeleine Glen is getting.  It’s worth a listen!"

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Voice of the Family team leaves Rome inspired by Epistle at Mass today

As our Voice of the Family team leaves Rome today after a month of engaging with the Family Synod, I take this opportunity of thanking so many people for your prayers and encouragement.

One very positive outcome of the Synod has been the development of a dynamic coalition of pro-family and pro-life groups and individuals of all faiths and none who are determined to put their experience and expertise at the service of the truth about life and the family.

Pictured above, left to right, are Georges Buscemi, President of Campagne Quebec-Vie, myself, Matthew McCusker, the author of most of Voice of the Family's publications, Dr Vincent Cernea, Dr Anca-Maria Cernea, whose outstanding intervention as a lay participant in the Synod we blogged on earlier, Maria Madise, Voice of the Family manager, and Pat Buckley, veteran SPUC lobbyist at the UN in New York and Geneva and an indispensable member of the Voice of the Family Team.

Others who formed part of our daily working team came from Australia, France, Italy, the US, whilst the Voice of the Family coalition comprises 26 pro-life and pro-family groups from five continents.

The immensity of the battle ahead is nowhere more clearly reflected than in the tragic decision of 94% of Synod Fathers voting to undermine Catholic teaching on the rights and duties of parents as the primary educators.

The most important target for the pro-abortion lobby is planting the culture of death in the soil of the hearts and minds of young people around the world - as I have spelled out in detail on many previous occasions. They do this chiefly by promoting pornographic, anti-life sex education programmes in schools, (including in Catholic schools in England and Wales and in many other parts of the world, bypassing parents with the cooperation of Catholic authorities).

It is abundantly clear that it's up now to lay people in the Church and all citizens of good will to uphold and to promote Catholic teaching, which is also the natural law, upheld in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on the matter of parents as the primary educators of their children.

Cardinal Burke told us yesterday that he always tells parents to check carefully as to what's being taught in their children's schools.

For SPUC's part, we have our long established Safe at School project which helps parents do just that and to fulfil their rights and duties spelled out in Pope John Paul II's encyclical Familiaris Consortio:

Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centres chosen and controlled by them. In this regard, the Church reaffirms the law of subsidiarity, which the school is bound to observe when it cooperates in sex education, by entering into the same spirit that animates the parents. (FC, 37)

So, following the Family Synod, whilst we must be soberly realistic about the immensity of the task ahead, we must deeply encouraged by emergence of a broad and tough coalition of lay groups and individuals who are determined to work with church leaders around the world to serve the unchangeable truth of Catholic teaching on parents as the primary educators of their children and on a number of other issues.

Today's epistle at Mass, St Paul's letter to the Ephesians (2,19-22), seemed most appropriate in this regard:

Brothers and sisters:
You are no longer strangers and sojourners,
but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones
and members of the household of God,
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.
Through him the whole structure is held together
and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;
in him you also are being built together
into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

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