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Abortion and condom advertising on TV at any time of day or night? That’s the debate in the UK.

There is a backlash to this idea as expressed in the article. Talk of “blushing” and “squirming.”

Well buck up, England. If you aren’t already blushing and squirming with what is on the television, then that is your first problem. Television is currently filled with all the acts that lead to the abortion clinic–let’s connect the dots, shall we? Say you’re watching Gossip Girl–a show about high school students having sex as far as I can tell–and it gets to the commercial break and there’s an ad for a pregnancy centre and an abortion clinic. Maybe you’d pause to consider what the ideas in hyper-sexualised Hollywood lead to. Sex can and frequently does lead to pregnancy–this is one of the great missing links on most television shows.

We have this quote from a pro-life advocate:

Ms. Aston, of Life, said, “Pro-life charities have no money, and pro-abortion charities have a lot. We will never be able to afford to advertise on television.”

Find the funding–there’s money out there–and create some really great ads. I’m sure it can be done.

I grant you that advertising abortion clinics would repulse me. But sex is advertised everywhere around me. Our society (advertising, the web, malls, TV shows) is well past the point of maintaining decorum and high moral standards everywhere else. So I’m sorry if I fail to get steamed about advertising on TV.

Getting back on track with regards to morals and sexuality will be a long hard road. I believe the UK has hit rock bottom. In that sense, this advertising debate is almost irrelevant.

A valid question

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A question from a not-really-religious pro-lifer in the UK: Why don’t atheists oppose abortion?

Denying the humanity of a 20-week foetus is as unscientific and irrational as denying the beef on your plate is a cow because you can’t hear it moo.

Now many atheists/agnostics do oppose abortion on scientific grounds…but they aren’t very vocal, that’s for sure. Too busy with bus ads, convincing people that there probably is no God? Or perhaps they can’t stomach an alliance with a largely religious crew? Who knows. But worth asking the question.

(cross-posted to The Shotgun)

Going crazy in the UK

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Wow:

LONDON, August 26, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Crisis pregnancy centres, as well as doctors, nurses and midwives, may be subject to prosecution and a two-year jail sentence if they convince a woman to forego an abortion. Under a proposed amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, those groups advertising services to pregnant women who provide “false information” or even information that is “factually correct” that convinces a woman to change her mind about abortion, will have committed an offense.

Tabled by one of David Cameron’s Tory MPs, John Bercow, the amendment says, “It shall be an offence to deliberately mislead through advertising in relation to the termination of pregnancy and alternatives thereto.” Bercow has recently gone on record in support of an effort to bring explicit “sex-education” to six-year-old children in mandatory school curriculums.

The amendment continues, “Any person, association or body corporate shall be guilty of an offence” if they provide “material which … contains false information and is untruthful … or in its overall presentation deceives or is in any way likely to deceive the average person…even if the information is factually correct”. 

An offense will have been committed if the information given “causes or is likely to cause the average pregnant woman to take a decision in relation to the termination of her pregnancy she would not have taken otherwise.”

This can’t be true, can it?

A lesson in prevention

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Evan Harris from the UK, Monday, had this to say to the press.

What, really, the number of abortions tells us is the number of unwanted pregnancies. That’s the fundamental issue. And the best way to tackle that, as other countries have shown, is to have much better sexual relationships education than we have and much better access to … contraception. (emphasis mine)

He seems, like so many other pro-abortionists, to bring up the issue of unwanted pregnancy like it’s a sort of illness to avoid. Usually, government will offer the obvious methods of disease prevention. Don’t want lung cancer? Quit smoking. Don’t want to be obese? Eat sensibly and exercise. Don’t want to be pregnant? Here’s the kicker. The answer should be ‘refrain from sex outside of a committed relationship.’ But this simple solution evades us. Instead, a more complicated answer is offered, and this cleverly disguised as ‘comprehensive sex education.’

It’s a bit like if government were to say, “Well, the people are going to eat poorly anyways, so let’s start endorsing the latest diet craze or weight-loss pill.”

Lowering the bar

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Brigitte posted recently on U.K.’s bid to lower the gestational age limit on abortion from 24 to 20 weeks in light of improved outcomes for extremely premature infants. An accompanying piece to the Telegraph’s article featured a toddler born at 23 weeks gestation and his mother commenting on the proposed revised guidelines.

Now, I want to be very careful in critiquing an effort that would no doubt reduce the number of abortions performed. That being said, my area of specialty in bioethics is neonatal ethics. I’ve seen enough infants born at 23 weeks gestation to last me a lifetime and while I support making every reasonable effort to support them medically while they grow enough lung and brain tissue to make it in the big wide world, I’m not sure I understand why abortion should be prevented with more gusto when it targets a viable fetus. My objection is philosophical: abortion cannot be half-right or half-wrong. Either the fetus is human or it’s not. You have to take the life of a viable fetus just as much as a non-viable one. That being said, I can grasp – if I don’t completely buy it – the moral basis of this partial ban on abortion. Infants who are completely dependant on their mothers for survival can be dispatched by the mother. When they become independently viable they should no longer be considered the property of their mother.

But let’s not fool ourselves here, “viability” when applied to a 23-weeker is a loaded term. Infants that young are not viable without the help of a truck-load of expensive equipment, 1-on-1 nursing care and a team of highly trained pediatricians. In many cases, this is not enough to save very premature infants and in another many cases, life-saving treatments can themselves cause severe impairments.

I think that what makes me so uneasy with this initiative, despite its positive aspects, is its potential to “de-dramatize” the abortion of non-viable fetuses, particularly in the eyes of the silent majority who oppose abortion but abhor judging those who get one even more. It seems that by lowering the gestational limit on abortion, we have found a way to make abortion both right and wrong. By making the buck stop at an arbitrarily set date, we numb ourselves to the reality of abortion with the balm of feeling like we actually did something about it.

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Brigitte feels like quibbling: Point nicely made and taken about the danger of de-dramatizing early abortion. Though in this country it could hardly be less dramatized… The thing about arbitrary limits is that there is a point after which the state will not tolerate so-called lifestyle abortions because these are considered worse by public opinion than those performed at, say, 8 weeks, when the embryo looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Likewise, why is it that sentences are more severe for someone convicted of first-degree murder than they are for any other form of homicide? Because the law, reflecting public opinion, considers first-degree murder worse. It’s far from perfect, as a system. But it has the virtue of being legitimate.

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Andrea adds: I started this group because public opinion must and indeed can change. There is nothing better or worse about an abortion at 23 weeks than at eight weeks–that small person only now looks more like he or she will when born. The law is not effective here and surely the law in the UK is worse than no law at all. Sure, it reflects public opinion and therefore the gruesome dismembering limb from limb of babies at 23 weeks is more repugnant to many than an early term abortion. But not to me, it isn’t.

When I was little, I loved going on frog and toad hunts. There was something amazing to me about these tiny creatures in the woods. There still is. I would (most unfortunately) go to any length to catch one, so I could look at it in my hand. (This changed at least a little when I fell into a stinky swamp.)

If we cared about people in the same manner as we do about small toads in the environment… if we held the developing embryo in awe, as I do these tiny toads–we would all oppose abortion fully at any time after those cells began rapidly multiplying, knowing that all genetic material is in place from conception onwards for a whole new person to live and thrive.

I believe we can make people care about embryos and should strive for nothing less.

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Rebecca adds: I’m not sure I agree that the law in the UK is worse than no law at all. While I don’t see the law as the best way to stop abortion, laws (especially those with popular support) express the collective opinion of the people. I would rather Canadians express the opinion that abortions after 24 weeks, or 20 weeks, are unacceptable, than our current iteration, which is that anything goes if you can find a doctor willing to do it.

I also find it surprising how few Canadians are aware of how extreme our legal position on abortion is – the thoroughly secularized western European states are all much less permissive than we are. Then again, given that there are literally no restrictions on abortion in Canada, that’s not saying much.

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Andrea clarifies: I worry about that portion of the population that looks to the law as a teacher. And then says: If abortion is legal before XX weeks, it is right. But agreed on your point: I too would rather live in a world where we can all agree that late term abortion is wrong. That sentiment already exists in Canada; we see it expressed in polls. I want to cause people to reconsider their views on how/when life begins: A little respect and sympathy for the poor embattled embryo. 

Meanwhile in the UK

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While we have issues in Ottawa with legal entities within other legal entities, over in Britain there seems to be an almost unprecedented level of co-operation among pro-life MPs from all parties to lower the abortion limit to 20 weeks from the current 24. Of particular interest in that news story is this:

John Hayes, a Conservative backbencher, said: “Abstentions will be the key. The public is increasingly intolerant of abortion, particularly late-term, and a number of MPs, including those who are not necessarily religious, are prepared to go to 20 weeks.”

Many MPs are likely to be wary of offending their constituents, so they will want to absent themselves on the day of the debate.

“We are confident that, given the likely number of abstentions, not enough MPs will vote against our amendment to cancel out those who are determined to vote for it.”

My, if true it’s awfully encouraging. For if indeed MPs worry that voting against lowering the limit to 20 weeks will anger their constituents, it means the culture is slowly changing towards a more pro-life stance. Splendid news.

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Tanya adds: Here in Canada, I believe people would grow “increasingly intolerant” of late-term abortion if only they understood its frequency. A great number of so-called “pro-choicers” I’ve spoken with don’t tolerate abortion past either 8, 12 or 16 weeks. That alone is a great sign of change in this country.

Sex is a sacrament and not a commodity?

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Woah. Must be some deeply religious news source—perhaps a newspaper from the Vatican—making this recommendation:

Re-instituting the traditional Christian message on sex – it is a sacrament and not a commodity – would be a good place to start.

Not quite. The same paper reports high teen abortion rates: One in 23 teens in some areas have had an abortion. I must be jaded, because that doesn’t sound that high to me. It’s worth looking into the stats and figuring out very precisely how many women have had abortions. In Canada, 70 per cent of abortions happen before age 29. But how many are repeat abortions, which would change the number of women who have had one, and the rate. This is very important. Why? For accuracy alone, which is a good reason all by itself. The other reason why it’s important is that pro-abortion activists would like to “mainstream” abortion. It’s just so normal, why look! One in three women will have one before the age of 45. I highly doubt this statistic as cited by Planned Parenthood in the U.S. And as with so many of these finer points, it is critical to know the exact and correct number.As for sex education and abortion: I’m not convinced calling sex a sacrament will help (far too many don’t know what a sacrament is). But that it is not a commodity, not to be taken lightly, and to be avoided entirely as a teen: Why, oh why, is this so controversial in the public square? 

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Just stumbled across this: This item suggests some women have repeat abortions. Up to five, in spite of sex education. Interesting.

Why I killed my first child

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A mother explains why she killed her first child here. She refrains from using the standard euphemisms, referring to her baby as a baby throughout. She then explains some of the results of her abortion: a (temporary) split with her husband, guilt, feelings of inadequacy and relief, a lack of desire for more kids.

But above all, the decision was right for her.

The new frontier of the pro-choice movement is to fully acknowledge the unborn child. But then to add that killing that child is a mother’s right.

Aaaah, progress.

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Patricia adds: Andrea, that’s a horrifying article. Maybe I’m naive but I can’t believe that stories like that are going to reconcile people to these kinds of “choices”. At least not in the long run.

There are about a dozen glaringly obvious and really disturbing aspects to this story.

For example, on learning that her child has Down Syndrome, there is not even the briefest consideration of any other possible alternative to abortion:

“Going ahead with the pregnancy wasn’t even up for discussion. Neil [the husband, oh, of course, the concerned husband] stayed strong [strong???!!!] and made all the necessary arrangements.

I saw a consultant the following day [the very next day??!! That Neil really stayed strong and wasted no time] and talked through the abortion procedure.”

There was a lot of “choice” going on there.

The description of the abortion procedure is stomach churning. Women should realize by instinct (and I believe that some part of each woman does) that anything that involves something so horrendous and unnatural has got to be contrary to their fundamental dignity.

No surprise then that the procedure leaves her with “guilt, I realise now, [that] I will have for ever. I pass Down’s children on the street and think, ‘I killed mine.’

… There is no escaping the reality of what I did, or the way I mentally rejected my baby. …

Abortion can never be described as an easy option. I still cry as though mine were yesterday.”

Naturally, I find it particularly horrifying that the justification for all of this is the fact that the child who was killed had Down Syndrome. But I would ask any woman if they would like their story to be that of the woman in that awful awful article or, in contrast and not to leave you on a completely depressing note, that of any one of these women.

This is so, like, revolutionary

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There’s quite a row, as they say over there, in the UK these days over plans to overhaul the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Of particular interest in this debate is whether or not to lower the 24-week limit for abortions, which was set in 1990 and is considered one of the most liberal in Europe. Now new figures show survival rates of very premature babies have increased dramatically over the last decade and a half, giving ammunition to those who would want the limit lowered.

I find this debate fascinating. Especially this bit:

The Government said all these were matters for Parliament to debate and decide on a free vote.

Imagine that. Parliamentarians debating and voting on important issues. How weird.

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