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