Women around the world respond to Melinda Gates' controversial plans

Last week Melinda Gates held a family planning summit, the focus of which was the promotion of contraceptive devices to women in poor countries. So far an estimated US$4.6 billion dollars has been raised by this summit to promote contraceptives in the developing world.

In this short video, produced by Human Life International, women around the world respond to Melinda Gates' controversial plans for them, and her supposed charitable assistance. Although the women in the video are addressing Melinda Gates, the same points they make could just as appropriately be made to David Cameron, who addressed the summit and whose government is spending huge amounts of money promoting contraception and abortion in the developing world.



See previous SPUC releases and blog posts on this issue.

Archbishop condemns plan to advertise abortion on TV

When I was going into church for a Good Friday service earlier today, a delighted fellow-parishioner told me about a statement by the archbishop-elect of Westminster on proposals to advertise abortion and birth control on television. I've told the media that SPUC warmly welcomes Most Rev Vincent Nichols' initiative. I'm sure many Catholics and non-Catholics will respond to his call to oppose ads for abortion and condoms on TV.

Bishop prepared to sacrifice his life to end abortion

Bishop Robert Hermann of St Louis, Missouri, drew applause from his brother-bishops when he stated at a recent meeting: “I think any bishop here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow to bring about an end to abortion."

Explaining his comments to a journalist afterwards, he added: “Very simply: If American youth are willing to go to war and lay their life down to defend our freedoms, then every bishop should be willing to give up his life, if it meant putting an end to abortion.

"And if we're willing to do that, then we should be totally fearless of promoting this cause without being concerned about political correctness, without trying to build coalitions with pro-choice people."

I applaud this courageous stand - spoken like a true man of God and expressed in terms which merit careful attention. We should all be prepared to lay down our lives for the sake of the most innocent rather than do deals which hand over the innocent for destruction.

The Times and blatant bias on life issues

The Times was once regarded as the UK's newspaper of record, a serious publication with high standards of journalism ... but those standards, in recent years, have slipped .

As a daily reader I could give many examples, but the newspaper's blatant bias on life issues is one of the most flagrant.

Yesterday, a full-page, public-opinion-forming, spread of reportage and commentary, headlined "Abortion does not harm mental health, says study" presented an American Psychological Association review as significant, authoritative research into the effects of abortion. The fact that this study has been shown (see my post yesterday), on the basis of good evidence, to be fundamentally flawed, is completely ignored. To add insult to injury, Nigel Hawkes writes dismissively in a short commentary piece : "Anti-abortionists would like us to believe that women who have abortions suffer lifelong regrets ... The bulk of the best available evidence suggests that a single abortion does not carry psychological hazards greater than does a single pregnancy ... " - again completely ignoring evidence to the contrary.

The Times report makes great play of the fact that there are impending votes in Parliament on abortion and that the American Psychological Association review [and their spin on it!] will influence "uncommitted" MPs.

Pro-life lobbyists and readers of this blog may recall that there was a similar situation back in June . Evan Harris MP had tabled extremely damaging amendments to the Abortion Act via the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill - to de-restrict abortions up to 24 weeks, and to empower midwives and nurses to perform abortion. Everyone expected the debate on these amendments to take place in July - until the government suddenly postponed the report stage of the Bill.

Lo and behold: The Times, on Friday, 20th June and Saturday, 21st June, carried no less than six stories on abortion, all of them clearly presenting a pro-abortion position with little or no comment from anyone who disagreed.

They included 'Rise in teen abortions prompts calls for reform of sex education' a story about the latest abortion statistics which completely ignored evidence that the government's style of sex education has completely failed, as Professor David Paton has shown.

Then there was "The ones I worry about are those who have the baby", featuring an interview with abortionist John Parsons, a director of BPAS. Not only does the story present abortion as an inviolable moral right which has no consequences worth mentioning, but Mr Parsons says, completely unchallenged: "It is not in the interests of any child to have a 16-year-old mother." (This is another way of saying that it is better to be dead than have a teenage mother, something which feminist author Germaine Greer, amongst many others, disagree with.)

Another article called secret abortions 'common sense'.

Then there was a particularly callous article from Caitlin Moran who showed no concern for the future mental health of the mother, let alone the unborn child. Whilst acknowledging that abortion causes problems that are, "emotional, social and [a] risk to future reproductive health", she says this "has an impact solely on the women having these abortions". What kind of editorial policy at The Times allows this kind of assertion to go unchallenged when there is so much important research to the contrary?

For my part, I acknowledge that in today's Times there's a sincere piece by their columnist Melanie McDonagh who makes a plea for women to be told that their baby is human and about the risks of abortion to their mental health. But, sadly, her column has far less impact than yesterday's full-page news reportage - because of its relative size, its positioning on a page headlined "Opinion", compared with yesterday's story which is written by the newspaper's science editor, and finally, because Melanie McDonagh suggests that objective research on the effects of abortion does not exist - which is saying to Times readers ... "This is my opinion - pure and simple - but it's by no means authoritative" - which is definitely not the message sent to the readers by the writers of yesterday's report on the American Psychological Association's review.

The abortion president would gravely damage America's reputation worldwide

Senator Barack Obama, de facto Democrat candidate for US president, has said he will reinstate American funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Such spending is presently prevented by the 1985 Kemp-Kasten Amendment which, according to the Population Research Institute "forbids U.S. funds from going to any organization or country that participates in a program of forced abortion or sterilization." Earlier this month, President Bush's government withheld some $40 million from UNFPA, making a total of $235 million withheld over seven years.

Reinstating funding for UNFPA will gravely damage America's reputation worldwide. Under the current president, the US has done a lot of good work to protect the unborn overseas and an Obama victory would throw all that away. He will also do immense damage in his own country. Mr Obama has said that, if elected, he will immediately sign the Freedom of Choice Act which would enshrine abortion in US law and overturn all state-based restrictions. No wonder the Christian Defense Coalition has called him the abortion president.

While SPUC never endorses candidates, least of all those in other countries, an Obama presidency would have bad effects throughout the world, so it is a legitimate concern for us and our pro-life colleagues elsewhere to know that a new administration would fund UNFPA. Obama's neo-colonialist abortion policies will kill unborn children, destroy the lives of women and families overseas, and gravely damage the good name of the US.

On a related note, the Democratic and Republican parties have yet to choose their candidates for US vice-president. The choice is an important one, because vice-presidents sometimes succeed the incumbent (e.g. Lyndon Johnson succeeded JFK; Gerald Ford succeeded Nixon) or can become influential, either while vice-president (e.g. Dick Cheney) or in later life (e.g. Al Gore). It stands to reason that Mr Obama's running mate will probably share his anti-life positions. John McCain, Mr Obama's Republican rival, said recently that his running mate should share his "values, principles, and priorities." Among those speculated as a possible running mate for Mr McCain is Condoleezza Rice, the current Secretary of State (equivalent to the British Foreign Secretary). It would seem that Miss Rice does not share what is reported to be Mr McCain's position on abortion.

A tale of two judges

The European Court of Human Rights is going to decide whether Ireland's restrictive law on abortion is unfair to women. Three anonymous women claim that Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion violated their human rights because it discriminates against women, and because it subjected them to inhuman and degrading treatment by forcing them to travel to obtain an abortion. The Irish judge on the court, which sits in Strasbourg, France, has withdrawn from the case. It may be that Dr Ann Power SC has done so because she represented the Irish Catholic bishops at a parliamentary hearing on abortion. It is quite understandable that a judge might be disqualified because of previous involvement as an advocate in a related case.

Meanwhile, the United Nations general assembly has unanimously approved the secretary general's nomination of Ms Navanethem Pillay of South Africa as the UN's new human rights commissioner. The United States began by resisting her appointment and, under President Bush, America has pursued some enlightened pro-life policies such as refusing to fund agencies involved in performing abortions overseas or to finance bodies, like the UNFPA, which are involved in forced abortion and forced sterilisation in China.

According to one source, Ms Pillay was interviewed in 1994 and spoke about how the South African constitution mentions unborn children's rights. She reportedly said: "I wondered why the right to life was stated so explicitly. It is going to open up huge debates on the right of the fetus and so on. … that is the one clause [the pro-life lobby] are going to latch on to for their cause ..."

It would appear that Ms Pillay has a view on the rights of the unborn and it's not a very sympathetic one. However, the United Nations' 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child says: "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." If Ms Pillay still has problems with unborn babies' rights, she's in no position to defend them – in accordance with a UN resolution – as human rights commissioner.

Diane Abbott MP misleads British public about "backstreet" abortion in Northern Ireland

Addressing the House of Lords last November, Baroness Paisley, wife of the former First Minister of Northern Ireland (pictured together), said: “Northern Ireland will not be bullied by political activists whose ideas and actions have brought about the massacre of more than seven million innocent unborn children in the years that this [Abortion] Act has been in operation...”

Such sentiments, however, don't stop Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, believing that she can impose the Abortion Act on Northern Ireland despite the fact that, in addition to Baroness Paisley, Northern Ireland's devolved Assembly, 90% of its elected representatives and all four main Churches in the Province, have told Ms Abbott and her colleagues that they don't want Britain’s abortion law.

“No-one in Northern Ireland voted for Diane Abbott, Evan Harris or any of the other pro-abortion extremists in Parliament and yet these MPs seem to think they are our colonial masters and that we must do as they say,” Liam Gibson, SPUC’s Northern Ireland organizer, said to me.

Ms Abbott claims that she wants equality for women in Northern Ireland but she adds insult to injury to the long-suffering people there when she tells the media that women in the Province are “facing conditions more reminiscent of the 19th century,” and that “[m]ost working-class women must take their chances with the backstreet abortionist.”

In reality, the maternal mortality rate in Northern Ireland is the lowest in the UK.

Is it possible that Ms Abbott actually believes her own propaganda? Interestingly, she did not make these claims to the media within Northern Ireland where she could easily be challenged. If anyone in the English press asked her to prove what she said about backstreet abortions in Northern Ireland she would be unable to find any evidence to justify her claims.

“Diane Abbott knows nothing about the women in Northern Ireland and it’s also clear that she doesn’t give proper attention to the standards of healthcare for women in her own part of the UK,” Liam Gibson said to me. “If she did, she would notice that the abortion law in Northern Ireland not only provides more protection for unborn children, but also helps to safeguard the health of women.”

People in England, Scotland and Wales should write to their MPs to tell them the truth about Northern Ireland and call on them to stop Diane Abbott and her colleagues from imposing their anti-life values on the people of Northern Ireland.

World fast day of prayer for the unborn

Ian Walker is a fellow parishioner of mine. We belong to the Catholic parish of St. Joseph's, Wealdstone, in north London.

Ian is a devout man and, in his prayers, he felt called to organize a world day of fasting for the unborn on Thursday, 14th August.

With the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill
making progress through parliament, with all its terrible provisions including the creation of human-animal hybrids for destructive research, I readily gave him my support. There's also the real danger of pro-abortion MPs using the report stage of the bill to widen, in a major way, the Abortion Act, virtually stripping the unborn child of any vestige of protection.

The postponed report stage and third reading of the bill in the autumn will arrive before we know it. I believe that activities to defeat this bill and to stop parliament from agreeing to further liberalisation of the abortion law must intensify and grow in number as never before over the summer. We must work on this as though everything depended on us.

However, I believe in God and I believe in prayer and I think those who believe in prayer should pray as though everything depends on God.

It's a world fast day of prayer because the goverment of virtually every nation under the sun promotes abortion - by funding the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN body which supports and participates in the management of China's population control programme, the one-child policy implemented by forced abortion. 180 countries make financial contributions to UNFPA. (President Bush's administration does not do so, on account of UNFPA's activities in China.)

I therefore invite believers to join Ian Walker in a world fast day of prayer for the unborn. In our parish, Fr Michael Doherty (pictured above) is organizing the world fast day of prayer in accordance with Catholic traditions. On 14th August, evening Mass will be preceded by recitation of the Rosary and followed by Eucharistic adoration until 10 p.m.. Others may choose other ways of celebrating the day - either privately or in accordance with other Christian traditions.

Is the Government calling a pro-abortion tune for Progressio to dance with its partners?

I've blogged recently (4 July and 10 July) about Progressio, formerly the Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR), and its pro-abortion partner organisation in El Salvador, Las Dignas. Progressio describes its work in El Salvador as including "Strengthening the women's movement on response to the needs of women's organisations". The question needs to be asked: has Progressio helped Las Dignas's work promoting abortion?

Further research into Progressio has revealed that at least two of its partner-organisations support a campaign to strip the Holy See, the government of the Catholic Church, of its permanent observer status at the United Nations. (The See Change campaign is run by the pro-abortion and falsely named Catholics For Choice [CFC] and is motivated by, among things, the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion.)

One of the two Progressio partners supporting See Change, COMUS (Colectiva Mujer y Salud) (Woman and Health Collective) in the Dominican Republic, is described by Progressio as: "a non-profit-making organisation which has been working since 1984 to defend the sexual and reproductive rights of Dominican women in rural and urban areas. The collective offers services of integral care and health (physical, mental and emotional), training, produces information materials and promotes public debate on gender issues."

"Sexual and reproductive rights" is a term commonly used to denote the right of access to abortion on demand. It would be interesting to know whether the Collective's "services of integral care and health" include abortion. The Collective lobbied its country's legislature to decriminalise abortion and condemned the government's decision to declare 25 March, the feast of the Annunciation, as the Day of the Unborn Child.

Among Progressio's areas of work in the Dominican Republic are "supporting women's organisations", "lobbying and advocacy skills training" and "training in social and political rights". The question needs to be asked: has Progressio helped the Collective to lobby for the legalisation of abortion?

Progressio describes its other partner supporting See Change, Fundacion Puntos de Encuentro (Meeting Points Foundation) in Nicaragua, as "a platform from which to take on and debate different themes from a perspective of diversity with equity and non-discrimination. Among others, it deals with the themes of health and sexual and reproductive rights". The Foundation is also a partner of the Guttmacher Institute, the worldwide pro-abortion lobby's leading research body. The Foundation campaigned against the closing of a loophole in Nicaraguan law which allowed abortion.

Progressio says that "the current focus of Progressio's work [in Nicaragua is, among other things] "to promote women's rights" and that "Progressio's development workers have strengthened advocacy by partner organisations working with networks of women". The question needs to be asked: has Progressio helped the Foundation to lobby for abortion?

A parliamentary answer yesterday showed that, in the decade since the Labour government came to power, Progressio has received over £28 million from the British government's Department for International Development (DFID), and will receive over £3 million in the coming financial year. The Labour government's policy is to promote abortion on demand worldwide as a fundamental, universal human right. Progressio itself presents a case study of DFID funding an English woman to prepare programmes for Progressio's pro-abortion partner in Nicaragua, the Meeting Points Foundation mentioned above.

Does the old adage "He who pays the piper calls the tune" apply here?

As a Catholic myself I think its wrong that Progressio is listed as a Catholic organization in the Catholic directory and that its publications can be found in Catholic churches.

Abortion without borders

The latest edition of the The Tablet (which describes itself as "the international Catholic weekly") contains a glossy full-colour insert advertising Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), sometimes known by its English name Doctors Without Borders (DWB). The insert's front page has a modern paraphrase of the Hippocratic Oath, "I will tread with care in matters of life and death". Yet inside, an MSF nurse working in the Democratic Republic of Congo recounts how her team "trained local nurses to provide emergency contraception", i.e. the morning-after pill, which may cause an early abortion.

The reference in the Tablet insert is by no means an isolated incident of MSF complicity in the culture of death. In November 2001, an MSF spokesman admitted that MSF doctors perform abortions, saying: "In some countries abortion is an important part of family planning policy."

MSF's own website has many references to MSF's provision of abortion and abortifacient birth control, and its programmes of "reproductive healthcare" and "family planning" (both euphemisms for abortion). For example, in December 2005 an MSF article said:

"The obligation to give resources - even when operating in dangerous situations - is above all the obligation to provide care and to ensure its quality. In cases of sexual violence, it could be a matter of giving antibiotic treatment to combat a sexually transmitted infection, giving prophylaxis treatment to prevent HIV infection, providing medicine to avoid pregnancy, performing an abortion or reconstructive surgery, or, of course, addressing psychosocial issues."

"Providing medicine to avoid pregnancy" refers to the morning-after pill - MSF deny that life begins at conception. ("Prophylaxis treatment" is a reference to condoms and possibly early drug treatment.)

Last year, the president of the International Federation of Associations of Catholic Doctors, Jose Maria Simon, claimed that an MSF internal protocol advises MSF doctors how to get away with performing illegal abortions.

Catholic publications should not promote Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). It is particularly to be regretted that this insert appeared in a publication sold at the back of Westminster Cathedral and other prominent Catholic places.

I will be writing to relevant Catholic authorities about this. In the meantime, anyone wanting more information about MSF's complicity in the culture of death can email me at johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk

Happy Population Day!

The United Nations has declared today to be World Population Day. An organisation which respected the gift of human life and the dignity of the family would celebrate such a day by welcoming the report that Britain's birth rate is at its highest (1.91 children per woman of child-bearing age) since 1973. But the United Nations, in particular the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has created World Population Day as an opportunity to promote abortion and contraception as a means of population control. The organisers of World Population Day should have the honesty to re-name today World Anti-Population Day!

Steve Mosher, an expert colleague of SPUC and the president of the Population Research Institute (PRI), has written a very information piece about World Population Day here. PRI has also written:

"Some will find population decline a cause for celebration. But keep this in mind: The world's population will age rapidly in that time, due to the few births. Most of the world, including its poor nations, will develop the same massive social security and health care problems that increasingly plague fast-aging First World nations in Western Europe and North America as well as Japan. The UNDP [United Nations Development Program] projects the median age of the world will go from 28 today to 38 by 2050. The proportion of the population over 65 will go from 7.4% to 16.1%, the oldest old - those over 80, who cannot work and usually require daily if not constant care from others - will more than triple from 1.3% to 4.3%. That's a big bill for any society. At the same time, the proportion of the population of productive working age, defined as between ages 15 and 64, will go from 64.5% to 63.7%, while the next generation - those under 4 - will go from 9.5% to a crippling 6.7%."

But it's not all doom-and-gloom. Naturally, pro-lifers have, and continue to have, more children than anti-lifers, passing on their message to the next generation. So, population controllers, in the end we will outsmart you by outbreeding you.

Embryo bill postponement gives more time to lobby

Harriet Harman (pictured), the (pro-abortion) Leader of the House of Commons, announced this morning that the report stage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill will now be postponed until after the summer recess. Speculation about the delay has featured in reports in the Guardian, the Telegraph and in the BBC news.

This delay gives us more time to lobby MPs on the pro-abortion amendments which have been tabled.

The effects of these amendments would include:

• reducing medical scrutiny of abortion from two doctors to one;


• abolishing the need for any legal grounds for abortion up to 24 weeks;


• allowing nurses and midwives to carry out an abortion;


• extending locations where abortion can take place to include doctors’ surgeries, local health centres, school sick rooms etc.;


• up to a 2 year prison sentence for any pro-life counselling group which “misled” expectant mothers by its adverts.

Over the summer months SPUC intends to initiate widespread action highlighting the plight of unborn children and their mothers. We will continue to build our campaign against the bill and against the pro-abortion amendments to the bill. SPUC will be urging its supporters and local clergy to contact prospective parliamentary candidates in their constituencies to ask them how they would vote on the pro-abortion amendments if they were in Parliament.

Such amendments, if approved by Parliament, will greatly increase the numbers of abortions, increase the growing number of women harmed by abortion, and place even greater pressure on women to submit to abortion – often under pressure from boyfriends or other parties motivated by self-interest. It is important to make this Bill, and the proposed pro-abortion amendments, an issue for parliamentary candidates at the next general election.

Contact me at johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk for further information on how to participate in SPUC's vital summer campaign against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill. This legislation will have catastrophic consequences in Britain and, without doubt, in other parts of the English-speaking, common-law world.

Catholic MPs avoiding their responsibilities to the unborn

Sometimes it's right and necessary for constituents to remind MPs, not least Catholic MPs, of their responsibilities to the unborn. That's exactly what Mrs Pat MacDonald, a SPUC supporter in Crosby, Liverpool, did recently when she wrote to her MP, Claire Curtis-Thomas (pictured), a Catholic. Mrs MacDonald wrote:

"Dear Claire Curtis-Thomas,

I again urge you to vote against the pro-abortion amendments that are expected to be placed before Parliament on Monday, 14th July. Your comments on May, 20th expressed during the debate are not acceptable for any member, and particularly not for the Vice-Chair Person of the "All Parliamentary Pro-Life Group" - "I am not opposed to abortion. ... I would be happier with 12 weeks - and that's where I stand, let women have the choice". The unborn child has no voice except ours. It is therefore imperative that you vote against any amendments which will make abortion easier to obtain.

The right to life is not for you or I to decide. It is a God-given right that only He can give and take.

Your comments and continued support and membership of "Emily's List" are a major cause of concern. They are a contradiction of the position you hold. If you do not oppose any pro-abortion amendments then you will be culpable and held responsible for your actions, or lack of them.

Yours sincerely, P.E. MacDonald - Mrs"

Mrs Curtis-Thomas replied:

"Thank you for your very rude E Mail. As the vice chair of the Parliamentary Pro Life group I take my responsibilities very seriously! Regards, Claire Curtis-Thomas MP"

Mrs MacDonald has commented to SPUC HQ: "I do not see why Claire Curtis-Thomas considers the truth rude; she persistently refuses to respond to my queries re 'Emily's List'.".

Mrs Curtis-Thomas received a grant from "Emily's List", which helps elect female Labour candidates to Parliament, but only if they are pro-choice i.e. pro-abortion.

If Mrs Curtis-Thomas really took her responsibilities as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group seriously, she would not have taken offence at Mrs MacDonald's points.

Similarly, another north-west Catholic MP, cabinet minister Ruth Kelly (pictured), is avoiding her responsibility to the unborn, by reportedly arranging with the Prime Minister to be absent on Monday when Parliament again votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill.

Mrs Curtis-Thomas and Mrs Kelly should be reminded that the Catholic Church teaches that:

• the late Pope "John Paul II, continuing the constant teaching of the Church,...reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a "grave and clear obligation to oppose" any law that attacks human life." (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Doctrinal note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life", 2002)

• "Those who formulate law therefore have an obligation in conscience to work toward correcting morally defective laws, lest they be guilty of cooperating in evil and in sinning against the common good." (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Catholics in Political Life", 2004)

What is it about "obligation" and "any law" that Mrs Curtis-Thomas & Mrs Kelly don't understand?

Mrs Curtis-Thomas should resign as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, and not rejoin the group until she is prepared to take her responsibilities to the unborn seriously, by stating a total opposition to access to legal abortion at any point of pregnancy. Also, Mrs Kelly should resign from the government and campaign against the HFE bill (as well as the government's stem cell research policy, which she endorsed in 2005). The unborn deserve no less. Indeed they are entitled to a lot better.

Child abandonment: legal analysis of pro-abortion agenda behind Council of Europe motion

As I blogged recently, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will debate tomorrow a draft resolution on the subject of child abandonment. The draft resolution contains a clear promotion of abortion. Please contact your country's representatives in the Assembly immediately - see my 20 June blog for more information. The UK members of the Assembly can all be emailed via one email address coepa.del@parliament.uk Simply send a separate, individually-addressed email for each UK member.

The European Center for Law and Justice (ECLJ) has published a comprehensive legal analysis of the pro-abortion agenda which has been inserted into the draft resolution. The ECLJ has condemned the draft resolution's:

"utilitarian calculus promoting abortion over life as a result of being born into inadequate social and financial circumstances. As social and financial circumstances are changeable and the termination of pregnancy irreparable, it is institutionally unacceptable for the Parliamentary Assembly to promote such a worldview with its underlying shadow of social eugenics."

Margaret's plea to Romanian authorities: Don't abort the reported raped girl of 11

A harrowing story of a young Romanian girl raped, it is said, by her uncle was reported by AFP on Friday. A medical ethics panely has, reportedly, examined her and decided that "abortion should not be imposed" for certain legal reasons.

This young girl is only 11 years of age. It's said she did not know that she was pregnant and that her parents only found out by accident when she was given a medical after suffering stomach pains. Rape by an uncle is, it's reported, suspected but not proven. Margaret Cuthill of BVA, an experienced Post Abortion Trauma Counsellor of 20 years, said “If indeed the young girl has been raped, then performing an abortion on her would be akin to a further assault on her young body. It seems she has not had any say in what has been happening to her at all, and that the adults in her life are making all the decisions for her. In my experience those who have had late abortions in their teenage years are the most psychologically damaged.”

This is borne out by The Elliot Institute in America who recently published the following statistics relating to teenage abortion:-

• Teenagers are 6 times more likely to attempt suicide if they have had an abortion in the last six months than are teens who have not had an abortion.


• Teens who abort are up to 4 times more likely to commit suicide than adults who abort, and a history of abortion is likely to be associated with adolescent suicidal thinking.


• Teens who abort are more likely to develop psychological problems, and are nearly three times more likely to be admitted to mental health hospitals than teens in general.


• About 40% of teen abortions take place with no parental involvement, leaving parents in the dark about subsequent emotional or physical problems.


• Teens are times more likely to seek subsequent help for psychological and emotional problems compared to their peers who carry “unwanted pregnancies” to term.


• Teens are 3 times more likely to report subsequent trouble sleeping, and nine times more likely to report subsequent marijuana use after abortion.


• Among studies comparing abortion vs. carrying to term, worse outcomes are associated with abortion, even when the pregnancy is unplanned.

For these reasons and others I will be joining Margaret in appealing to the relevant authorities in Romania to stick to their decision and not to "impose abortion" on this young girl.