Move by Marie Stopes 'deplorable' says Pro Life Campaign

Commenting on the news that Marie Stopes intends to open an abortion clinic in Belfast, Dr Ruth Cullen of the Pro Life Campaign said:

"It would be deplorable if Marie Stopes were allowed to impose an abortion regime on Northern Ireland in this manner. Clearly the official guidelines in Northern Ireland setting out the distinction between medical treatments in pregnancy and abortion need to be strengthened in light of what is being proposed."

She continued:

"Marie Stopes is in the business of providing abortions and has no regard for the rights of unborn children throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy. They are also in complete denial when it comes to the peer reviewed studies highlighting the negative long term consequences of abortion for some women. I am confident that the elected representatives in Northern Ireland will move fast to stop Marie Stopes from clearing the way for abortion."

English health service regulator finds 14 NHS abortion clinics flouting rules of Abortion Act 1967.

The Care Quality Commission in Britain has found 14 abortion clinics on the National Health Service breaking rules and also found "irregularities" at some clinics.

According to the Care Quality Commission, the 14 clinics were found breaking rules by allowing doctors to pre-sign forms authorising abortions, which does not comply to The Abortion Act 1967. The Abortion Act 1967 requires a form (HSA1) certifying that the requirements for a termination have been met to be signed by two doctors before the procedure takes place. The practice in the 14 abortion clinics meant that in reality only one doctor was making the decision.

The Care Quality Commission was instructed by the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to investigate the practice of pre-signed HSA1 forms. The inspections were unannounced and took place in March 2012. 

The inspections follow private investigations by The Telegraph in February 2012, which also showed doctors to pre-sign HSA1 forms. The Telegraph’s investigation also found abortion clinics were flouting the law by allowing women to terminate their pregnancies on the basis of the unborn child’s gender.

The 14 abortion clinics found to be in breach of the law are now complying with the Abortion Act, the Care Quality Commission says. All have now taken steps including internal audits and staff training to ensure continued compliance. 

Baby boy who survived abortion left to die in Italian Hospital

In ancient Rome, a newborn baby unwanted because of disability or otherwise was legally allowed to be disposed of by exposure as res vacantes, an unwanted thing.

 

Often they were left in the Velabrum, a busy street in the middle of the oil and cheese markets or at the columna lactaria in the Forum Olitorium.

In modern Europe, of course, such things would never happen. Certainly not. Nowadays when we are exposing a child born after an abortion has failed to kill them, they are abandoned exposed in a hospital. Much more civilised.

In southern Italy, last month, an abortion was carried out on a mother, pregnant for the first time, after a prenatal scan suggested he might be disabled. The baby boy, born at 22 weeks, despite the abortion procedure, was left to die by the doctors in the Rossano Calabria Hospital.

He was found 20 hours later by the hospital chaplain still alive wrapped in a sheet, his umbilical cord still attached, still moving and breathing. The priest raised the alarm and the baby was moved to the intensive neonatal care unit in a nearby hospital, but died there the next day.

This is the second case in three years in Italy of a baby aborted at 22 weeks because of suspected disability who survived the abortion living for 3 days.

 

Italy’s abortion 1978 law allows abortion on demand for the first three months of pregnancy but allow it on the grounds of suspected disability in the second three months, but its infanticide law imposes a legal obligation on doctors to attempt to preserve the life of a child who survives abortion. In England, however, there is no time limit at all for abortions where disability is suspected. They can be aborted right up to birth.

Since the purpose of abortion is the deliberate and direct procuring of the destruction of the life of the baby, the doctors expose babies who survive so that they will die.

Since medical ethics require that a patient be informed about the nature of the procedure to which they are to be subjected and consent to it. Are women considering abortion on the grounds of suspected disability informed by their doctor that the abortion involves inducing the birth and that if their baby survives the doctors will be hiding it away and exposing it so that it will die for lack of due care. Are the mothers asked to consent to this protocol of exposure without care where a baby is born alive after an abortion?

The Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health, 2007 commissioned by the UK Government, found that 66 infants survived NHS termination attempts in hospitals in England and Wales during 2005.

Instead of dying during the abortion procedure as intended, they survived, able to breathe unaided. They were exposed without medical care, left to die, some living for half an hour, one for ten hours.

 

The only way to step back from this horror show is to reaffirm the first principle of medical ethics – primum non nocere – first do no harm. Do not deliberately destroy human life in the womb or after birth. Once we step away from that principle of respect for life we find ourselves sliding back down to the columna lactaria in the Forum Olitorium.

Cannes Film Festival to feature pro-life movie

The Cannes Film Festival next month is to premier a new film called 22 Weeks. It tells the true story of Angele, a woman in her 30's who had an abortion in Florida in 2005.

She chose what was called a 'labour and delivery' type of abortion , which was to take two days. She opted for this rather than other forms of abortion, which she felt would be more distressing and harmful for her baby.

The film is significant for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it will show graphically the mindset of the abortionists in action. An abortion is a procedure the entire intention, aim and purpose of which is that the baby does not survive. Sometimes a baby does not die during the procedure but is deliberately left to die after it.

Secondly, it will give us a sense of how profoundly misguided some politicians are on the issue. As a State senator in Illinois, President Obama voted against a Bill to protect babies who survive abortions.

But thirdly and most importantly, it is a testimony to the confused and suddenly traumatic experience of the mother.

Driven by who knows what pressure to opt for abortion, Angele allowed herself to be seduced by the soothing reassurances of the abortionists, which at one level she wanted to believe.

She asked them what would happen if the baby were born alive and they said ‘they would guide a needle into his heart and it would put him to sleep, and he wouldn’t feel anything.’

She took pills to induce labour and by the time she arrived at the abortion clinic she was experiencing painful contractions, but it was not open. The contractions were getting closer. Eventually she got in and delivered her son, apparently on her own.

Then suddenly she sees. She sees her baby for the first time in the flesh. Fighting for his life. And her motherliness awakens and she calls for help. Surely they will look after him.

When a women working in the abortion clinic staff arrived, she refused the give her baby emergency medical care or to call a 911 for medical help for him. Angele called a friend to ring for an ambulance, but the clinic staff turned them away when they arrived and he died.

That terrible journey made at the speed of light from dreamlike denial to full waking, seeing her baby face to face, real at last but too late, is a precious part of women’s experience of abortion.

22 weeks is yet another straw in the wind that shows the cultural consensus on abortion is turning.