Every third baby is killed by legal surgical abortion worldwide


"Abortion is about a woman's right to choose."

Any civilised society restricts the individual's freedom to choose whenever that choice will harm an innocent person. Some choices - such as 'choosing' to carry out child abuse, homicide or other violent crime - are always wrong.   Similarly, the right to life is universal and is not a matter of choice[i]. Obscuring abortion as 'choice' does not alter its reality - without the right to life, all other rights are meaningless. No individual should have the power of life or death over another.

"A foetus is just a blob of cells - it isn't really a person."

In a purely biological sense, we are all 'just blobs of cells'. Zygote, embryo, foetus, baby, toddler, child, teenager and adult are just words

we use to describe different stages of the continuous process that is human development, starting at fertilisation (see www.justthefacts.org). This is not the first time in history that personhood has been denied to vulnerable groups in society by its more powerful members. Slave traders convinced themselves and others that their slaves were subhuman in order to justify their exploitation[ii]. Apartheid rested on the belief that blacks were "less developed" than whites and therefore inferior.

"'Life begins at conception' is just a religious belief."

Untrue. Virtually every major medical authority defines fertilisation unequivocally as the beginning of human life[iii]. Many of the world's

major religions do indeed hold this belief, but this is as much a tenet of modern scientific research and medical knowledge as religious doctrine. Accusing pro-lifers of imposing their beliefs on others amounts to hypocrisy: who is it that 'imposes their morality' on the 180,000 British babies killed every year?[iv]



"Before it was made legal, thousands of women died in backstreet abortions."

Dr Bernard Nathanson, joint founder of NARAL in the US (National Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws) initially claimed that 'backstreet abortion' was killing over 10,000 American women every year[v]. However, Dr Nathanson later changed his mind on the abortion issue and admitted in his autobiography that this statistic had been a complete fabrication; the true figure was about 200[vi]. In the UK before the 1967 Abortion Act there were no more than 30 deaths a year from illegal abortion (Legalised Abortion: Report by the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists, BMJ 2/4/66). What is more, deaths were falling rapidly long before the Abortion Act was introduced (ibid).



"What about abortion in the case of rape?"

"My biological father is a rapist. But I am still a human being and I still have a value. My life isn't worth any less than yours because of the way I was conceived. And I did not deserve the death penalty because of the crime of my father. Someday I hope to meet my birth mother. She loved me enough to give me my life, and then she loved me enough to give me the next most special gift I was given and that's my family." Pam Stenzel, speaker and counsellor.[vii] (N.B. Rape accounts for less than 1% of all abortions performed[viii].)

"What about abortion to save the mother's life?"

'Abortion to save the life of the mother' is not abortion - the definition of which is the deliberate killing of a preborn child[ix]. There are a
very few medical treatments, such as for an ectopic pregnancy, which may result in death of the preborn child, but the intention is to save the mother's life, not to kill her unborn baby.

"A woman should be able to abort if she doesn't feel she can offer the child a reasonable existence."

Adoption provides an alternative that is in the better interests of the child than is abortion. In Britain, the number of potential parents


waiting to adopt far exceeds the number of babies up for adoption.

"'Post-abortion syndrome' is a myth put about by scare-mongering pro-lifers."

PAS, a variant of post-traumatic stress disorder, is a recognised disease, with over half a million women affected in the US alone. In fact,

Planned Parenthood estimates that 91% of all women suffer some degree of trauma after an abortion[x]. Last December the American Senate passed, uncontested, an amendment officially recognising the existence of PAS and imploring the National Institute of Health to expand research into the area[xi]. For further information visit the Elliot Institute website www.afterabortion.org.

"If we didn't have abortion, the world would be overpopulated."

The 'overpopulation' idea is not new - Plato worried about it in the fourth century BC![xii] Poverty and overcrowding are caused by


economic destitution, war, or oppressive regimes - not by having too many people. Global growth rates have actually been in decline since the early 1960s - long before abortion was common in most countries[xiii]. The overpopulation myth originated from the eugenics movement[xiv], which continues today in the form of UN funding of forced abortions and sterilisations in China's infamous 'One Child Policy' and other human rights abuses in developing countries[xv]. See the Population Research Institute website www.pop.org.



"Every mother a willing mother, every child a wanted child."

A child is not a unit of currency: an individual's right to life should not be dependent upon how much she or he is 'wanted'. Killing the child is not a solution to child abuse, cases of which have increased significantly since abortion was legalised and not disappeared as was predicted[xvi]. In reality, what the slogan is suggesting is that every unwanted child should be a dead child.



"Pro-lifers are violent extremists who fire bomb clinics and harass women."

Every civil rights movement has an unrepresentative extremist fringe. A small minority of Suffragettes were prepared to use violence to further their cause, just as other civil rights activists in South Africa and North America resorted to terrorism in the fight for racial equality. Like the pro-life movement, these movements themselves were predominantly peaceful and their aims justified. The majority of pro-lifers in the UK are women and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, the oldest pro-life group in the world, was founded and run for over 30 years by a woman.



"Pro-life counselling is directional and tries to force women into not having abortions."

Much supposedly 'non-directional' counselling is undertaken by abortion industry leaders such as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and Marie Stopes, who charge typically between £300 and £700 per abortion (depending on foetal age) - every mother who chooses to keep her baby therefore represents a lost sale[xvii]. In contrast, most pro-life counsellors are volunteers and so by definition have no financial interest in the outcome of a mother's decision.

"Where offers nationwide non-directional pregnancy help and abortion counselling?"

LIFE's National Hotline takes over 7,000 calls each year and is staffed by experienced and trained counsellors who are there to listen to

your problems. Our counsellors can deal with your problems over the phone, or we may direct you to one of our 120 Care Centres situated throughout the UK where you can have a free pregnancy test and speak face-to-face with a qualified counsellor. All LIFE counsellors are mature women who undergo professional training. They offer free, confidential pregnancy tests, non-judgemental counselling for 'crisis pregnancies' and also post-abortion counselling, guidance on adoption, DSS grants and benefits, and will offer continued support to all women regardless of their decision. The national 24 hour helpline is 01926 311511. Further details about LIFE can be found on www.preghelp.org.uk.

 
 


REFERENCES:

[i] "Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law..." European Convention on Human Rights, Article 2; "Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally..." UK Human Rights Act Article 2 para.1 (1998)

[ii] See for example Richard H. Colfax: Evidence Against the Views of the Abolitionists, Consisting of Physical and Moral Proofs, of the Natural Inferiority of the Negroes. (New York, 1833).

[iii] "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence." - 'Father of Modern Genetics' Prof. Jerome Lejeune, who discovered the cause of Down's Syndrome

[iv] UK National Office for Statistics, datum from 1998 (most recent available)

[v] Many NARAL press releases, 1970-72

[vi] Bernard N. Nathanson, Aborting America New York 1979

[vii] Straight talk from Pam Stenzel (1998) Vision Video Inc. PO Box 540, Worcester, Pennsylvania, 19490, USA.

[viii] Alan Guttmarcher Institute, 1998 The Alan Guttmarcher Institute is a member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

[ix] "the procuring of premature delivery so as to destroy offspring" OED

[x] "A number of . . . studies and surveys (including the Reardon/WIC Study and the Grant Survey) have shown that the incidence of post- procedural trauma for abortion clients may be as high as 91 percent of all cases." Department of Education 3-Year Plan and Long Range Program Goals 1990 - 1993 Planned Parenthood Federation of America

[xi] Amendment by Sen. Bob Smith (R., N.H.) 11/11/01

[xii] 'Fear of poverty and war will make them keep their family within their means', Republic Book II, pp. 372-3

[xiii] Growth culminated in 1964 at 2.167% for the Earth as a whole and 2.624% for the developing world (US Bureau of the Census 2000)

[xiv] "All children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room is made for them by the deaths of grown persons. We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavouring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality". Malthus An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798

[xv] UNICEF - Guilty as Charged Winifred Prestwich, 1996

[xvi] For US figures see Trends in the Well-being of America's Children and Youth, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

[xvii] See www.bpas.org

Published by The Cambridge University Pro-Life Society - student-run since 1975.