LifeZine No. 689: 10th Jun 09
Remember to Sign our Petition – and Tell your Friends
The Committee of Advertising Practice (Broadcast), BCAP, is engaging in a public consultation as part of its review of the Advertising Standards Codes. In its consultation document, BCAP recommends that pro-abortion centres should be permitted to advertise on TV and Radio.
We need YOU to help stop the broadcasting of abortion ads into living rooms throughout Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland.
Please Sign Our Petition CLICK TO READ MORE..... to Protect Pregnant Women and their Unborn Children, and ask your friends to sign it too.
Stats Confirm Drop in Irish Abortions Despite Pro-Aborts’ Denial
As we mentioned in LifeZine No. 684, figures from the UK’s Department of Health show a decline in the number of Irish women travelling to Britain for abortions. In 2008, the figures suggest 4,600 went to England for abortions, compared to 4,686 the previous year. This is the seventh straight year that Irish abortions in Britain have fallen, after more than a decade of rising rates. Pro-abortionists say the decline is due not to the growing pro-life culture in Ireland, but to more Irish women going to European countries other than Britain for abortions. But Dr Berry Kiely of the Pro-Life Campaign replies that no official data back up the pro-abortionists’ assertion: “The suggestion is made that perhaps more Irish women are travelling to Holland for abortions. However, the Dutch statistics in recent years show little or no change in the number of abortions involving people from outside its jurisdiction”. Britain’s health department figures also show that last year saw the first recorded fall in the number of women seeking abortions in England and Wales since 2003. In 2008, the number of legal abortions was 195,296, down from 198,499 in 2007, a fall of 1.6 percent. More than 1,000 abortions were recorded among under-15s, of which 166 were on girls under 14. Abortions among women who had previously had an abortion numbered 64,715. The statistics also show that the fertility rate in England and Wales reached its highest level since 1973. In 2008, women were having on average 1.95 children each, compared with 1.92 in 2007. But the UK still has an aging population, and until the fertility rate reaches 2.1 children per women, it will not exceed the mortality rate. The Irish Catholic. May 28. DOH/Abortion Statistics, 2008. F&L. June 5.
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Cardinal O’Brien: State Must Support, Protect Family So Society Can Prosper
In a homily at St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh on Pentecost Sunday, Cardinal Keith O’Brien said that before any society can prosper and endure it must support and encourage the institution of marriage and the place of the family: “As a society, we have failed utterly to do this, and have instead in recent years acted again and again to undermine marriage and weaken the family: in abolishing tax benefits for married couples; creating tax credits which favour couples who are not married; giving legal status to cohabitees; speeding up divorce and creating same-sex marriages. In these and other ways we have attacked and damaged the foundation stone of our society, the foundation on which any stable society is built”. He continued, “I think of the tuition and support available to young people as they prepare to sit their driving test. Our government knows that a stringent test and structured tuition at the start will pay dividends later in better driving standards and fewer accidents. I would hope that we will now try to see marriage preparation in the same light; and encourage those who are living together outside marriage to consider preparing for that great Sacrament”. The Cardinal added that “what we require is nothing less than a nationwide programme of marriage preparation courses and ongoing reconciliation services to help couples that inevitably face difficulties and strains in their relationship. This must all be funded at public expense as a far-sighted investment in future stability and will offset the multi-billion-pound cost of family fracture, divorce, breakdown, depression and social collapse we currently pay for. I see this as not a competition between morality and money, but rather a recognition that embracing morality can potentially save us vast amounts of money”. Just a few weeks ago in Nazareth, the town of the Annunciation and of the Holy Family, Pope Benedict XVI pointed out that “In the family each person, whether the smallest child or the oldest relative, is valued for himself or herself, and not seen simply as a means to some other end”. “Here we begin to glimpse something of the essential role of the family as the first building block of a well-ordered and welcoming society”, the Cardinal noted. We also come to appreciate, he added, within the wider community, “the duty of the State to support families in their mission of education, to protect the institution of the family and its inherent rights, and to ensure that all families can live and flourish in conditions of dignity”. SCMO/ICN. June 1.
UK Government Tries to Hide Figures for Eugenic Abortions
Britain’s Department of Health has asserted that vulnerable women could be in danger if details about late abortions are made public. It was responding to criticism over its attempt to keep secret the number of late-term babies aborted for conditions such as clubfoot and cleft palate. The ProLife Alliance has mounted a legal challenge to force the publication of full data about late abortions. The Government told a London information tribunal that the rarity of abortions for such conditions means that releasing data about them could cause “mental distress or harm” should a woman realise she was the only one in the UK to have such a procedure. Government Ministers decided not to publish details of the eligible conditions after a 2003 investigation into the abortion of a baby with a cleft palate. Church of England curate Joanna Jepson challenged the legality of that abortion, though the Crown Prosecution Service decided in 2005 not to bring charges against the consultant involved. Miss Jepson was herself born with a jaw deformity which she has had corrected by surgery. Abortion statistics where fewer than ten cases related to a particular condition have not been published since 2002. Last July, the Information Commissioner ruled in favour of the ProLife Alliance’s attempt to reverse the secrecy ruling under Freedom of Information laws. After the Department of Health appealed, the case went to the Information Tribunal. A ruling will come in four to six weeks. Daily Mail. May 28.
Don’t Force Doctors to Commit Abortions, Cardinal Warns
Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela of Madrid warned the government of Spain this week that it cannot force doctors to commit abortions or distribute the “morning-after pill”. During the closing of a course on ethics and the future of democracy at the University of San Pablo, the prelate said the case of doctors and pharmacists is “very clear”: Catholic politicians “cannot be active subjects in the drafting of a law” such as the proposed abortion law. As regional elections approached, he called on voters to cast their ballots prudently. “No party completely represents the Gospel”, the Cardinal pointed out. He added that today’s society is undergoing “a moral crisis” that’s affecting mainly the right to life and marriage, and that some laws question and even destroy the individual’s conscience. The State has no right to make itself “the creator and shaper” of the family, he warned. CNA. June 5.
US Bishops Denounce Abortionist’s Slaying
Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-life Activities, has condemned the killing of abortionist George Tiller. Tiller, 67, owned and operated “Women’s Health Care Services” in Wichita, Kansas, where he aborted babies after 21 weeks of pregnancy. He was shot on Sunday 31st May inside his church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “Our bishops’ conference and all its members have repeatedly and publicly denounced all forms of violence in our society, including abortion, as well as the misguided resort to violence by anyone opposed to abortion”, Cardinal Rigali noted. “Such killing is the opposite of everything we stand for, and everything we want our culture to stand for: respect for the life of each and every human being from its beginning to its natural end. We pray for Dr. Tiller and his family”. A funeral service for Tiller took place at College Hill United Methodist Church in Wichita. Zenit. June 2.