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Friday 26 October 2012

Human rights, hysteria and media witch-hunts

"Not the Stormont Justice Committee"
Examination of a Witch, by T.H. Matteson 1853. Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum
In a diatribe against everyone who opposes the opening of the Marie Stopes International (MSI) abortion facility in Belfast, columnist, Brian Feeney, (Witchfinder should drop idea of 'clinic inquisition'  Irish News 24 October 2012) seems oblivious to the irony of condemning the use of "inflammatory language" whilst speaking himself in almost hysterical terms about witch-trials, inquisitions and "policing women's bodies." 

He calls Northern Ireland's Minister of Health, Edwin Poots, a flat-earther, but if such labels are to be used in the abortion debate they would more accurately apply to those who deny the scientific fact that life begins at fertilisation and that the child in the womb is fully human with a unique genetic code. Such a child is not part of a woman's body and not the property of his or her parents to be discarded. The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises 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 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that all members of the human family must be recognised as persons before the law, regardless of birth or any other status. Northern Ireland’s laws attempt to defend these rights.


Irish News columnist
(and contestant on the
BBC's Round Britain Quiz)
Mr Feeney (pictured) is also mistaken in his belief that the publication of DHSSPS guidelines on abortion has anything to do with the legality of the MSI centre. Abortion in Northern Ireland is not "regulated" as he suggests, it remains a criminal offence. 

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children has twice taken legal action to have misleading and illegal guidance withdrawn before Mr Poots took office. Since then he has ordered a review of abortion figures and proposals for auditing data on abortions. Far from dodging the issue as Mr Feeney claims, the current health minister has done more to try to shed light on abortions in Northern Ireland than any of his predecessors. However, this is beside the point. Guidelines are merely guidelines and do not change the law. And it is the law not health service guidance which MSI has challenged by its offer of routinely providing abortions for money. 

Abortion kills children and hurts women. While Mr Feeney may welcome the arrival of a multi-national abortion business, the legislative and legal authorities in Northern Ireland have a duty to act when the law is challenged.

It is almost redundant to point this out but for the sake of those who aren't aware of the on-going media attacks on John Larkin since he suggested the Justice Committee look into the legality of the MSI abortion centre... if anyone can complain about a witch-hunt it is the Attorney General himself. Presumably, advocates of abortion in the media see Mr Larkin as a real threat to the continued presence of MSI in Northern Ireland.

Thursday 25 October 2012

Maries Stopes International, One week on

Outside the MSI abortion facility,  Great Victoria Street, Belfast.
Thursday 18 October 2012
One week ago, Thursday 18 October, the pro-life movement welcomed the news that the Justice Committee in Northern Ireland's devolved government was to launch an investigation into the operations of the Marie Stopes International (MSI) abortion facility which opened amid protests (pictured). The arrival of MSI has caused such widespread public concern that our laws protecting children before birth will be overturned that the Northern Ireland Assembly had no choice but to act against this direct challenge to the law.

If anything good could result from MSI parachuting in from London it is that in his letter to the chairman of the Justice Committee, John Larkin QC, the Attorney General, has spelt out the law in a clear, concise and easily understood summary.

Mr Larkin states: "As you know, abortion in Northern Ireland is a matter regulated by the criminal law primarily by two statutes; the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, and the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1945. The subject falls squarely within the jurisdiction of the [Justice] Committee. Abortion in Northern Ireland is a criminal offence which is punishable by a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. 

"An abortion carried out in Northern Ireland may [emphasis added] not result in a criminal liability if, on a trial for that offence, a jury considers that the person who procured it was a suitably qualified person1 who believed, and had reasonable grounds for believing2, that the continuation of the pregnancy would have created a risk to the life of the mother or would have probably caused serious and long-term harm to her physical or mental health. 

"It must be stressed that termination of a pregnancy based solely on the abnormality of an unborn child is always unlawful."3 

Abortion is not health care and in Northern Ireland it is a criminal offence. The Parliament of Northern Ireland rejected the British Abortion Act in 1967 and for the last 45 years the majority of the people and politicians have continued to oppose the liberalisation of our abortion laws. Through the long years of direct rule from London only the force of public opinion stopped successive British governments from imposing the Abortion Act on the Province. The last attempt to introduce it, in 2008 came only months before criminal justice powers were returned to local politicians. It failed because of the pressure brought to bear on the Prime Minister in London. 
It is vitally important that everyone in Northern Ireland lobbies their elected representatives to urge them to take all the necessary steps to ensure that Marie Stopes is unable to maintain its abortion centre in Belfast. 

Public opinion must demand action to shut this centre down. There is too much evidence of Marie Stopes's involvement in illegal abortions in other countries for claims that the Belfast centre will operate inside the law to hold any credibility.

This is probably the greatest threat against the right to life of Northern Ireland's unborn children. We need everyone to raise this issue with their politicians, in their churches and among their families and friends. The financial resources available to MSI are enormous; but the pro-life people of Northern Ireland have fought long against the threat of liberal abortion. They have worked too hard for the return of accountable democracy to see our laws and our devolved institutions swept aside by the abortion industry. I believe Marie Stopes have underestimated the level of opposition it faces from the people of Northern Ireland.

1 It appears therefore that, where the potential long term harm relied upon consists of harm to the mother’s mental health the opinion of a qualified specialist in psychiatry would be required to have been obtained and considered. 
2 In the case of R v Bourne (1939) 1KB 687, McNaughton J said, “If the doctor is of the opinion, on reasonable and with adequate knowledge, that the probable consequence of the continuation of the pregnancy will be to make the woman a physical or mental wreck, the jury are quite entitled to take the view that the doctor, who under those circumstances and in that honest belief, operates, is operating for the purpose of saving thelife of the 
mother.” 
3 See judgement of Sheil J at paragraph (9) and Nicholson LJ at paragraph (73) in the Family Planning Association v The Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (2004) NICA and (2004) NICA 39

Friday 12 October 2012

Marie Stopes International moves in for the kill

The thought that a giant of the global abortion industry is intending to open a centre in Belfast to perform abortion will alarm many people. Especially as businesses like Marie Stopes International (MSI) have in the past shown as much contempt for laws protecting unborn children as they have for the children themselves.

If MSI is serious about the offering abortion as a service, it is difficult to imagine how this can be done without breaking the law. Despite the claims of abortion advocates, the law in the North is perfectly clear. Abortion is not healthcare, it is not a service, it is a criminal offence. Even helping to procure an abortion by making a referral to a centre in England is unlawful. Only when a woman’s life is seriously threatened can it even be considered. The idea that MSI can simply open a centre, get  doctors willing to approve abortions and can then start performing them, has no foundation in law. Unlike Britain doctors here cannot simply rubberstamp approval for an abortion. The decision must be based on a genuine clinical need and with modern medicine such cases are extremely rare. If challenged by legal authorities a doctors must be able to demonstrate that an abortion was necessary, that is, that the unborn child had to die and could not be saved. If this cannot be shown in Court then the doctor and all those who helped procure the abortion could face jail.

Abortionists may be used to breaking the law in Britain by performing sex-selection abortions on baby girls and falsifying paperwork but this is Northern Ireland. The pro-life people of the North will not standby and allow abortionists to change our law by breaking it. They need to know that the law will be enforced.

Sunday 7 October 2012

A Day for Life

The Catholic Bishops of Ireland have designated Sunday 7 October 2012 as the annual Day for Life. The theme for this year is “Choose Life” and while I think it’s a bad idea for the pro-life movement to adopt the buzz-words of the abortion industry, the printed material distributed to Catholic churches across Ireland and the resources available on the website are pretty good. 

South of the border, pro-lifers are of course fighting to prevent the overthrow of the Constitutional protection of the Republic’s unborn children. This has undoubtedly helped to focus the thoughts of those behind the Day for Life this year. Previous themes have taken such a general approach that they have provided little, if anything, of value. The Olympic theme of the 2012 Day for Life in England & Wales is a good example of this. Anyone looking at the material produced for that campaign could be forgiven for thinking that 189,931abortions hadn’t actually taken place in the previous 12 months.

Naturally, distributing flyers to churches doesn’t guarantee that anyone will read them. The effectiveness of the campaign relies heavily on individual priests. At one church I attended over the weekend the Day for Life received only a glancing reference. This was a pity since a pro-abortion former politician was attending the Mass. Who can say what a forthright defence of the right to life may have achieved? If even abortion doctors can be converted to the pro-life cause then there must surely be hope for politicians. At a different parish, a different priest did an outstanding job in setting the absolute nature of the right to life, no apologies, no exceptions. 
Belfast pro-choice rally, 6 October 2012-
Thousands chose not to support it.

By an uncanny coincidence Saturday was the day for choice in Belfast. A rally began at 4 pm at the City Hall. By 4.35 pm when this photograph was taken, it was, in the words of one pro-choice demonstrator “just about over.” The turn out he told me was “pretty much what you see now.” He agreed that it was less than 100.

Rally for Life, Custom House Square, Belfast 7 July 2012.
A number of the protesters, (probably those with the drums) appear to have flown in from London for the event. 
It presented a stark contrast with the Rally for Life (pictured below) which Belfast hosted in July. With such a tiny turn-out for the pro-choice event, is it any wonder abortion advocates in Northern Ireland are always so bad tempered.

Thursday 4 October 2012

Marriage: A pro-life issue

On Monday 1 October the Assembly debated a motion calling for the legalisation of marriage between people of the same sex. The Democratic Unionist Party had invoked a Petition of Concern so the motion required a majority of both Nationalists and Unionist, counted separately, before it could be adopted. In the end it was defeated by 50 votes to 45. 
The debate revealed the extent to which radical notions of equality have become dominant in political thought. Even to the point that the opinions of the electorate no longer count. It also made clear that many politicians have only a superficial understanding that the family based on marriage is the fundamental unit of society. 
Speaker after speaker claimed the proposal would end discrimination and grant equal rights to homosexual couples. When asked to specify exactly which rights marriage provided that civil partnership did not, Stephen Agnew (Green Party) could only mention the right to adopt children.  
Earlier in the debate Roy Beggs (Ulster Unionist Party, pictured) reminded the Assembly that the  conflict between religious liberty and the homosexual agenda resulted in the closure of the Catholic adoption services in England & Wales. That would undoubtedly happen in Northern Ireland if homosexual marriage was legalised. It was, therefore, extraordinary that not one Catholic member of the Assembly spoke against the motion.   
In English law discrimination is not considered illegal unless it is unjust. Nor does true equality mean treating everyone and everything as the same. These principles have been upheld by  the European Court of Human Rights which has ruled that is not unjust discrimination to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. 
The role of marriage in society
The family, based on marriage, is the basic unit of society and is recognised as such in international law* and is entitled to protection.
Social science has shown that children do better when raised by their biological parents in a permanent marriage than in any other type of home life.  Marriage (that is real marriage) demands particular support from the State because it is both the natural unit on which society is founded, and the institution in which children do best. The redefinition of marriage therefore puts the interests of some adults before the right of children to be raised by a father and mother. 
It would also break the natural link between marriage and parenthood and reduce children the status of an optional extra rather than central to marriage. While not all marriages can generate children, all children are conceived by a father and mother. 
As has been repeatedly pointed out, the issue of same-sex unions is not really about equality since civil partnerships already grant virtually all the benefits and rights of marriage. It is about changing the way people think about marriage. If marriage is redefined it will effect how all marriages are treated, in government bureaucracy, in teaching in schools and threatens to fundamentally change the idea of marriage in society. The legalisation of same-sex marriage has led in some jurisdictions to unions involving more than two people. 
The evidence that marriage is the safest relationship in which children can be conceived and born is overwhelming. While children conceived outside marriage have the same human rights they are much more likely to have their lives ended by abortion. 
In our society marriage is already seriously undermined by a damaging culture of birth control, promiscuity, co-habitation and divorce. It this culture which is antithetical to family life which has made abortion the norm across much of the globe. We cannot, therefore, afford to stand by while the very nature of marriage is redefined. That is why SPUC has prepared a paper setting out the its position on this issue. It is available at the Society’s website together with a detail briefing demonstrating how the defence of marriage is fundamentally a pro-life concern.

*Article 16. (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.... (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

The Many Dangers of Assisted Suicide

This evening's Belfast Telegraph ran the story of Jenny Grainger who claims to have helped her mother, Barbara, commit suicide by starving herself to death. The paper doesn't go in to great detail so it is difficult to judge whether Ms Grainger's actions (or rather inaction) amount to a criminal offence. What is clear, however, is that stories like this are intended to promote the legalisation of assisted suicide.  

Many families can identify with the suffering experienced by Barbara and Jenny Grainger. They none-the-less find the legalisation of assisted suicide a chilling prospect since this would downgrade the value the State places on the lives of many vulnerable groups. It would affect not only the terminally ill but also the disabled, those with long-term conditions and accident victims with a brain or spinal injury. 

The assisted suicide debate usually focuses on the terminally ill who want to die, but where it has been legalised, in Switzerland for example, it has quickly moved on to take the lives of the chronically ill and even the depressed. In the Netherlands the Groningen protocol permits the routine killing of newborn babies with spina bifida. None of these children, and many of the adult victims of the Dutch euthanasia law, ever expressed the wish to die, doctors simply thought they would be better off dead. 

Many in the ‘right to die’ campaign already call for various groups to be helped to die. In Australia campaigners encourage troubled teenagers to take their own lives. In Britain some argue that Alzheimer’s patients no longer have the right to life. Their minds have gone, we are told, they are merely vegetables. When human beings are called vegetables or compared to dogs we ought to be worried. We only need to look at where such thinking has led in the past.  Under  the German euthanasia programme disabled children were called “useless bread gobblers.” Doctors argued that the money saved by killing them would be better spent elsewhere. 

Some people are motivated by the desire to end the suffering of someone they love. But bureaucracies and health systems don’t share this motivation because all problems are seen in terms of a cost/benefit analysis. Can anyone doubt that given the opportunity, some sections of the NHS wouldn’t try to save money spent on patients they refer to as “coffin dodgers”?

Soon the right to die would become the duty to die. The elderly and dependant would be made to feel a burden on their family and the State. And while the potential for abuse by greedy or uncaring relatives is obvious, the safeguards proposed by campaigners have not been worth the paper they’ve been printed on.

And not everyone who talks about suicide really wants to die. It is often a cry for help. The vulnerable and the sick need support and reassurance that they will not suffer alone.  It is sometimes difficult for families to give this support so there is a duty on society to provide it. The compassionate response to suffering is not to encourage suicide but to offer the palliative care and psychological support the sick need to help them live with dignity.