Monday 4 February 2008

Tony Blair "bid" to be president of EU council

“I’ll be president of Europe if you’ll give me the power – Blair” ran the headline in The Guardian on Saturday, and it certainly caught my eye.

I wrote to Tony Blair early last month following reports that he had been received into the Catholic church.

I asked him if he now repudiates:
  • voting in 1990 for abortion up to birth three times during Parliamentary debates on what became the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990;
  • personally endorsing his government’s policy of supplying abortion and birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent;
  • his government introducing legislation which has led to a law which allows, and in certain circumstances requires, doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients;
  • his government’s commitment to the promotion of abortion on demand as a universal fundamental human right;
  • personally championing destructive experiments on human embryos.
I have no wish for Tony Blair to don sackcloth and ashes. I’ll do that for my own sins before I judge anyone else.

However, Tony Blair’s position on abortion, abortifacient birth control, IVF and euthanasia by neglect is a matter of public record. As prime minister he was in the forefront of championing the culture of death not only in Britain but also, on abortion, around the world through the UK’s foreign policy.

Particularly while there’s a possibility of Tony Blair running for public office in any part of the world, citizens have a right and a duty to challenge him on his political record on pro-life matters. As a Catholic myself, I do not believe that politicians can be protected from public scrutiny simply by being received into the Catholic church.

If Tony Blair does repudiate these positions, I will be the first to shout it from the rooftops.