Even without a change in the law the abortion rate could fall dramatically if enough minds and hearts were changed.We know this to be true from the example of Poland where the abortion rate fell dramatically after the fall of communist government without any change in the law. The lesson is vital for us in the UK.
The controversial statement in the letter is towards the end. The Cardinals list a number of ways to bring about change, the last of which is:
By pressing for achievable change in the law in the light of advances in medical developments, even if Parliament will not abolish the law. Whilst upholding the principle of the sacredness of human life, it is both licit and important for those in public life who oppose abortion on principle to work and vote for achievable incremental improvement to what is an unjust law.Most people will understand this to refer to proposals for an amendment or bill lowering the "time limit" for abortion. Support for this approach is usually claimed from Evangelium Vitae n.73 where Pope John Paul wrote:
[...] when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality.The hope in many quarters is that the Human Tissue and Embryology Bill might be a golden opportunity for such a change to the law and that pro-life lobby should be united in pressing for such a change. The idea that EV n.73 can be used in support of "time limit" measures is the subject of considerable debate on the grounds that such measures are unjust discrimination and therefore do not "limit the harm" done by the abortion law. (Cf. Colin Harte's book)
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) have opposed this approach. Last week, the Health Minister, Dawn Primarolo, told the House of Commons Science and Technology select committee that the Abortion Act 1967 "doesn't require further amendment at the present time." SPUC expressed relief at this, saying:
Any amendments to the Abortion Act at this time are likely to result in an increase in the numbers of abortions. SPUC calls upon parliamentarians to resist calls, from whatever quarter, to table amendments to the Abortion Act and instead to focus upon the many practical ways of reducing the numbers of abortions, in particular by addressing the pressures upon expectant mothers which lead them to consider abortion.A number of considerations convince me that this is sound.
First of all, let us remember that we are dealing with the Human Tissue and Embryology Bill. This is a Bill which will provide greater scope for embryos to be produced for research, allow more embryos to be destroyed in the process of IVF, and legalise the creation of cybrids, hybrids and chimeras. The Bill will even allow sperm or eggs to be extracted from children or the unconscious in some circumstances without their consent. Our first duty in response to this Bill is to oppose it vociferously and call upon MPs to vote against it.
Given the massive anti-life majority in the present Parliament, such calls are likely to fall on deaf ears. Nevertheless, it is important that our unequivocal opposition is clearly stated. The danger of attempting to amend such an appallingly anti-life Bill with pro-life amendments is obvious enough. It is not simply that such amendments are likely to fail but that the anti-life majority will use the opportunity to make the law even worse.
We can already see the lines along which pro-abortionists are marshalling their forces. David Steel has made it clear that he is opposed to lowering the present 24 week limit. Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) have voted for the removal of the requirement that two doctors should consent to an abortion and have said that women should be able to exercise "patient autonomy" and take the decision for themselves. At the same time, BMA members voted against lowering the "time limit". Not surprisingly, Abortion Rights have applauded the BMA statement. The BMA statement is entirely in line with the Marie Stopes Voice for Choice campaign. In a recent article (Plans to relax law on early abortion), The Times reports on active support for these campaigns among MPs.
The plan of the pro-abortionists is to relax the law on early abortions without any change to the 24 week "time limit". This is the most likely result if there is any opportunity for MPs to tamper with the current abortion law. We should not forget the outcome of the last attempt to "improve" the Abortion Law. It was hijacked with the result that the law was changed so that there is actually there is no "time limit" for babies with a disability. In the UK they can be aborted any time up to birth.
It is always difficult for Catholics to know what to do when faced with an unjust Government that is instrumental in the killing of millions of our fellow human beings. I can understand the desire of many pro-lifers in the face of the terrible onslaught against human life in our country today to "do something". At the same time, I fear greatly that a misguided attempt to do something by trying to amend the already appalling Human Tissue and Embryology Bill will inevitably result in easier abortion and more lives lost.
We should keep in our minds the words of the Cardinals:
Even without a change in the law the abortion rate could fall dramatically if enough minds and hearts were changed.That must surely be our priority.
25 comments:
These are very good explanations Father. I am glad you and Fr. Boyle can see through the pitfalls of lowering the abortion limits. Perhaps you wouldn't mind having this as a column in the Catholic Herald? People need to hear this.
I think your first point is very important. It is necessary to remember that the legislative context for any proposed changes to the abortion law is the Human Tissue and Embryology Bill, which will allow some DISASTROUS things in itself.
There is a real danger that if pro-lifers think (wrongly, imo) that there is a chance of restricting abortion that they will overlook the fact that the vehicle for this change will in itself allow the most appalling evils. Instead of opposing the bill outright it is likely that they will 'go soft' on the bill itself in the hope that somehow there can be something positive on abortion emerging from it.
It is also important to remember that a GOVERNMENT bill (like this one) will go the way the GOVERNMENT wants! Whatever chance there may be to get a law passed with Private Members' Bills (when maybe only half the MPs will be present), there is a much larger turn-out for Government Bills. Apart from the constraints to toe the party line, in any case the labour party and government are deeply anti-life.
Pro-lifers campaigned for a vote on abortion time limits in the bill on Human Fertilisation and Embryology in 1990. They got their way with having a vote. Unfortutely, the vote backfired and we got abortion up to birth. Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Thank you for being a voice of reason and wisdom.
As I mentioned in a previous comment, it is good that the Cardinal is trying to take a lead. But the lead is he taking is so worrying, just as the Church's 'lead' on the Mental Capacity Bill was so worrying - and ended up being disastrous.
Surely someone must be advising the Cardinal on such matters. In which case, who can it be? It doesn't seem that he is receiving (or at least taking) advice from you and the Association of Priests for the Gospel of Life, or from SPUC. So whose advice is he taking? Surely he hasn't just decided this in a vacuum, without consulting groups like SPUC who have had a particular expertise on such matters?
The time limit will be pulled back anyway because doctors are refusing in larger numbers to do late term abortions. Furthermore, doctors are now a different subgroup than in the past. They are more likely to be doctors because of a desire to heal rather than being in pursuit of financial gain. Therefore we can be fairly certain that the time limit will be restricted anyway.
We must not allow ourselves to be trapped in a situation where an inevitable drawback is presented as a capitulation to the Pro-Life lobby and a further liberalization of abortion in the early stages being promoted as a reasonable "compromise" on all sides.
Also, Catholic Faith and morals are benchmarks for the world. The further we move towards the world the world will respond by moving away. This appears to be the case throughout history. We need to steer a clear and sure course in public life so that the Truth can be known by all. Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.
We must promote the sanctity of Life without compromise.
I have a problem with my MP: he simply ignores me when it's not a local issue, i.e. he ignored my letters on Trident, the SORs and the Bill previously. I don't know how else to lobby our lawmakers.
An additional concern is that attempts to table amendments within the bill istead of completely opposingit it will then lead the abortionists to argue that there should no longer be a conscientious opt out.
We table amendments, lose them and are then seen as supporting the bill.
The problem with what Father Tim has said is that the Pro-Abortion lobby intends to use the bill as a vehicle for its own agenda anyway. They aren't guided by the activities of Pro-Life groups. In other words, Pro-Lifers have a fight on their hands whatever happens. We have no choice but to try to go for a time limit cut.
And who on earth thinks that there can be any successful opposition to a government bill anyway? All that can be done is try to amend it. Or are we supposed to allow it an unhindered passage because we have no hope of achieving all our demands?
Prolifer says that SPUC has a particular expertise in these matters. I don't know where s/he gets that idea from because its not true, I'm afraid.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the principle (of voting for a lower limit) is sound, but that the circumstances (which you so clearly set out) mean that, at present, it would be unlikely to achieve the result we all want? If we DO manage to change hearts and minds, then I can envisage circumstances in which it would be possible to lower the limit and reduce the number of abortions.
Red Maria - The bill is a thoroughly anti-life bill in itself, not some neutral proposal that the pro-abortion lobby "intends to use".
Nobody imagines that opposition will cause the bill the fail. The trouble is that too many people imagine that pro-life amendments will be a good substitute for public and vociferous opposition.
Prolifer probably gets her idea from the fact that SPUC have learnt from the mistakes of the past whereas many others seem determined to repeat them.
auricularius - Harte's book cogently challenges the soundness of voting for a lower time limit.
Yes - changing peoples hearts and minds is the only way forward. How do we do that? By publishing the awful horrific TRUTH in full technicolour. How about our Catholic papers take a lead on this? It is time that all the pathetic euphemisms for 'baby killing' bandered around by the pro-choice lobby for decades were knocked into a cocked-hat. In my opinion it is that constant verbal engineering that constitutes the single greatest block to getting abortion banned. Decades of argument over this term or that and meanwhile the killing of millions of innocents goes on unabated.
That old adage 'a picture is worth a thousand words' is what I'm getting at, and that is why the pro-choice movement have fought hard to prevent the publication of actual pictures of aborted babies - BECAUSE AT A STROKE THAT WILL CHANGE PEOPLE'S HEARTS AND MINDS. I believe that 99% of people have no idea what the abortionist actually does and what the net product of the abortion actually is - a torn twisted bloody mess of a tiny human being! Publish the photos, Catholic papers should take the lead, then maybe The Mail, The Telegraph and some others who are teetering on the fence will follow suit! In this way the dead babies will 'speak up' for themselves. Who can fail to be moved when they see the bloody carnage in a bucket - I know from experience how this can change a person's mind. But to change a whole Country it must be done on a grand scale - time the 'goodies' in the media did their bit. Yes, there will be an outcry from the enemy, vicious cries of 'oh how can you make us look at this stuff', 'it's against our human rights to have to see this', 'yada-yada-yada-yada', litigation and legal gobble-de-gook thrown like eggs all over the place - well it's time to stand up to this false garbage and be counted. The innocents who are being slaughtered can't do it themselves, they need us!
As the Advent season approaches let's think about Our Blessed Lady, no doubt shunned by many as an unmarried mother-to-be, think about the character and strength of St Joseph in supporting his young bride-to-be and wondering about who this new-born baby, Jesus, the Son of God was all about. There's a major pro-life lesson there. Think about the mystery and wonder of life which alone is God's to give and to take away.
That the bill in question is a thoroughly anti-life bill (which, I agree with you, it is) is all the more reason to use legitimate parliamentary tactics to attempt to amend its most egregious aspects. With good planning and a half decent press campaign this could conceivably be achieved.
SPUC's position, however, the same that it adopted over the Mental Capacity Bill, is one of such political ineptitude that it is eye-poppingly irresponsible - kill the bill, or vote against it at the first opportunity.
The result of such foolish tactics would be to allow the bill - a government bill which there is no hope of voting down - a totally free run through parliament in its entirety.
This isn't SPUC learing from its mistakes but repeating them and wilfully ignoring the advice of people with vastly more political expertise than them. As such it beggars belief.
Being political amateurs, the people at SPUC don't realise that pro-abortion MPs were going to use the bill as a vehicle for their own purposes anyway, so Pro-Life parliamentarians have no choice but to oppose them with every means at their disposal.
The notion that abortion trends can be significantly altered by a change in hearts and minds is a statement of the obvious but devoid of any useful materialist or empirical analysis of *how* and *why* such a happy situation would come about. As an excuse for leaving abortion legislation intact it would please the most ardent anti-natalist, since it seems to confirm everything they say.
As a professional lobbyist I thought I'd offer my two cents:
"First of all, let us remember that we are dealing with the Human Tissue and Embryology Bill. This is a Bill which will provide greater scope for embryos to be produced for research, allow more embryos to be destroyed in the process of IVF, and legalise the creation of cybrids, hybrids and chimeras. The Bill will even allow sperm or eggs to be extracted from children or the unconscious in some circumstances without their consent. Our first duty in response to this Bill is to oppose it vociferously and call upon MPs to vote against it."
I disagree. Of course MPs should vote against it but measures can be taken individually. It is more important, therefore, to lobby for amendments *and then* get people to vote against the bill in its entirety anyway. Only twice since the second world war has a Government Bill been defeated on the floor of the House of Commons.
"It is not simply that such amendments are likely to fail but that the anti-life majority will use the opportunity to make the law even worse."
This does not make sense. The Bill covers abortion in its remit. Therefore the pro-choice side will be lobbying for amendments irrespective of what the pro-life side does because any amendments will be within the remit of the Bill (following the precedent set in 1990). By not supporting amendments you're effectively leaving an open goal for the pro-choice movement.
"The plan of the pro-abortionists is to relax the law on early abortions without any change to the 24 week "time limit". This is the most likely result if there is any opportunity for MPs to tamper with the current abortion law."
This does not make sense either. Pro-abortionists will be lobbying regardless. On the one hand you're implying everything lies in the hands of the pro-lifers, but on the other hand you're saying the pro-aborts have an overwhelming majority etc.
"At the same time, I fear greatly that a misguided attempt to do something by trying to amend the already appalling Human Tissue and Embryology Bill will inevitably result in easier abortion and more lives lost."
If nothing is done then there will be even worse consequences. If groups like Alive and Kicking had not campaigned for a lower time limit and lobbied MPs, I dare say we would also be seeing moves to increase the time limit as well.
"We should keep in our minds the words of the Cardinals:
Even without a change in the law the abortion rate could fall dramatically if enough minds and hearts were changed.
That must surely be our priority."
I don't want to sound overly harsh because the pro-life movement has many dedicated people who work hard. But they are already trying to change hearts and minds and with abortion rates sky-rocketing it suggests this is not enough or has been ineffective. A change in the law is also needed.
The Bill falls within the remit of abortion; there will be a vote regardless of what pro-lifers do. By not lobbying for positive amendments you're just allowing the pro-aborts to put their own amendments forward.
Lobbyist - as a "professional lobbyist", I wonder why you need to remain anonymous here.
Again - nobody thinks that pro-life opposition will defeat this bill. However, if our public position is to lobby for pro-life amendments, that will undermine our public witness against this Bill as indeed happened in the case of the Mental Capacity Bill. The Catholic Church was seen to be negotiating with the Government, and broadly in support of the Bill's "positive aspects" etc.
Campaigning for a "time limit" inevitably gets us into the area of preferring some lives to others; the "slightly disabled" over the "abnormal or "severely disabled" for example. There is also the danger, as with all such lobbying, that there will be a "deal": lower time limit for fewer restrictions on early abortions.
The negotiating position of the pro-abortion lobby is to push for abortion on demand as a human right up to 12 weeks and no time limit. The negotiating position of the pro-life lobbyists seems to be limited to a reduction in the time limit.
The campaign for "hearts and minds" needs to be unambiguous. Professional politicians inevitably focus on what can be achieved in Parliament. The problem is that attempting (unsuccessfully in the case of the MCB) to get minor improvements to a thoroughly anti-life piece of legislation undermines the wider "hearts and minds" campaign.
Interesting points from lobbyist. But by taking a step back let's look at the abortion issue in another way.
Bottom line is that the abortion industry is a business. It's out to make money by providing a service. It actively advertises that service and tries to ensure that by any means possible (promoting contraception, 'safe' sex, sex education, pornography, promiscuity) it will always have a steady stream of customers. This is the Service Provider.
Without customers their business is dead in the ground. Customers are basically you and me in the widest possible sense. We (the population as a whole) are cleverly manipulated by the Providers advertising campaigns, by wide spread misinformation, by the corruption of young minds through the secular media etc... we all know full well how this takes place. Now, if the Provider can be so effective at advertising their services and fooling the general public into believing that abortion is oh so such a nice and easy way to solve my 'pregnancy problem' then surely the way forward is to countermine their advertising with the other side of the story - which rarely IF EVER gets an airing in the media.
If the Customer is 'educated' by seeing the reality of abortion and is brought to understand that there are real alternatives other than killing your baby, then the informed 'heart and mind' will choose life. Of course pro-life and chastity information should also be FULLY provided in our schools to give a balanced alternative to the 'mechanics of safe sex' currently being rammed down the throats of our youngsters. SPUC and others have terrific resources for schools in this field.
By drying up and shrinking the queue-line of Customers the Providers will GO BUST - simple business equation.
Oh yes - the Politics issue. Well, frankly I think it's a red herring. All the politicising and hot-air over forty years or so has got absolutely no-where. It matters not a single hoot how many laws, statutes blah-blah-blah are passed on this and that. The simple fact is no customers, no abortion business!
It's down to action - kick our Catholic media machine up the backside and get them out of their comfort zone. Peaceful witness outside abortuaries, formation of the Catholic faithful on these issues from the pulpit, pro-life education and witness in our schools, colleges and universities.
As for the current state of pro-choice politics and pro-choice government ministers - let them get on with enshrining as much depravity and immorality in law as they like. These will have little effect and become meaningless, outdated legislative dinosaurs in dusty old books IF successive generations of politicians, scientists, legal professionals, general population etc... are well formed and informed. Our efforts must be focused on our children and young people.
The real 'battlefields' are our schools and colleges - why else do you think the pro-choice brigade are so intense in their depraved sex-education and homosex education campaigns to corrupt the minds of your and my children.
I agree with Fr and George. Let’s not be naïve or over-politicised. This is about moral Truth. It's distasteful that lobbying has to be done at all - as if life - or different conceptions of life - should be bargained over as if in the souk. Forget about "pro-choice" - it's theologically and morally unsustainable as proper-thinking Catholics know, and in any event, it was just a ploy to pander to liberal, human rights views, to present a sympathetic face, and to soften up the debate. Shall we be pro-choice about slavery or torture too? “ I personally don’t believe in enslaving others, but I respect other people’s rights to enslave”. Shows the speciousness of the reasoning. In any event, the pro-choice position is becoming academic as the abortionists’ strategy is now to move "the discourse from one of choice" to “one of equality and justice" - i.e., if you deny women access to abortion, you are guilty of patriarchy, denying substantive equality, and denying women access to justice. They are moving the fight from one of “reproductive choice” to one of “reproductive justice”. This was reported from the Marie Stopes global abortion conference in London last week. This advocacy strategy is well-formed: read the Tysiac case in the European Court of Human Rights, which was taken on by abortion advocates in Poland; it’s a good case study of how they try to use simple women in reduced circumstances to fight for substantive rights on issues of procedural law. Poland was held accountable to its own limited exception laws for abortion on therapeutic grounds. (read also the 2x dissenting judgments: Catholic thinking is alive and well in Strasbourg, Deo Gratias).
Also - reportedly - at the conference, abortion was positioned as a service (such as IVF) and therefore should be subject to competition principles. Profit will become a driving force in pushing for greater access to abortion. What do we have: abortion is a service, subject to free competition. But also: the Marxist view of man – man’s commidification: a commodity, just material, no soul, so why should abortion be wrong? Thus, even more we need to stand firm in our absolute position on abortion. There’s no trade-off. Would we have lobbied the Nazi’s for reduced negative treatment of our Jewish brethren?
Apologies, I need to remain anonymous to avoid being picked up by colleagues (a number of large political consultancies now monitor blogs as well).
>>However, if our public position is to lobby for pro-life amendments, that will undermine our public witness against this Bill as indeed happened in the case of the Mental Capacity Bill.<<<
The Mental Capacity Bill was a slightly different case as different theologians and medics took different positions on what was wrong with the Bill and what was right.
I don't really see how it would detract from a public witness, and I don't understand why a public witness is important anyway in this instance. No-one is going to think for a moment that the Church suddenly approves of embryo research.
>>>Campaigning for a "time limit" inevitably gets us into the area of preferring some lives to others; the "slightly disabled" over the "abnormal or "severely disabled" for example.<<<
No because no true pro-lifers would support further amendments which trade off something for something else. And you couldn't propose an amendment which said, for example, let's lower the social limit by 12 weeks but increase x by 4 weeks. An amendment wouldn't work that way because of the precedent set with the HFE Act. The amendments would have to be proposed separately allowing politicians to vote for 1 thing and not the other.
>>>There is also the danger, as with all such lobbying, that there will be a "deal": lower time limit for fewer restrictions on early abortions.<<<
Politicians don't vote on the basis of "deals". And, as you point out, it would be nonsense for a pro-lifer to propose such a "deal" even if it was possible. The only instance when deals are made is when the Government offers whipped MPs something in exchange for their proposals. But all parties have already indicated that they don't intend to whip abortion votes.
>>>The negotiating position of the pro-abortion lobby is to push for abortion on demand as a human right up to 12 weeks and no time limit. The negotiating position of the pro-life lobbyists seems to be limited to a reduction in the time limit.<<<
Pro-abortionists will be pushing for abortion-on-demand irrespective of pro-lifers.
>>>The campaign for "hearts and minds" needs to be unambiguous. Professional politicians inevitably focus on what can be achieved in Parliament. The problem is that attempting (unsuccessfully in the case of the MCB) to get minor improvements to a thoroughly anti-life piece of legislation undermines the wider "hearts and minds" campaign.<<<
How? The public don't take a blind bit of notice of who voted for what etc. If the media report the detail at all, they will likely point out a vocal miniority voted against the bill in its entireity.
If anything doesn't help the hearts-and-minds campaign it's different groups taking different positions. It certainly confuses a number of Catholics and makes it look like pro-life groups are fighting amongst themselves.
>>>The real 'battlefields' are our schools and colleges - why else do you think the pro-choice brigade are so intense in their depraved sex-education and homosex education campaigns to corrupt the minds of your and my children.<<<
Yes but this country is heavily centralised. You also need power *as well as* grassroots action. Sending in education officers for 30 minutes is little use if the Government has ensured that the other 10,000 minutes of the school curriculum encourage a pro-abortion culture.
We have to work top-down, bottom-up, and horizontally. Just like the pro-aborts do.
>>>This is about moral Truth. It's distasteful that lobbying has to be done at all - as if life - or different conceptions of life - should be bargained over as if in the souk.<<<
There's no "bargaining". That's my point.
Let's be clear here. SPUC are the *only* group completely opposed to reducing the time limit. *All* the others (mainstream ones anyway) support it, as do the Bishops in this country.
The Bishops may not be fantastic, but they still should receive our respect. Their statements are very public and are likely to be read in detail by the Vatican.
I don't understand why a public witness is important
Perhaps that is one important difference between us. I do appreciate the importance of your work as a lobbyist. For me as a priest, the parliamentary battle is only a part of the picture.
Pro-abortionists will be pushing for abortion-on-demand irrespective of pro-lifers.
And pro-lifers should be pushing for the rejection of the Bill regardless of pro-abortionists. That message is not coming across because all we are hearing is about the "time limit" proposals - which are looking increasingly fragile in any case.
In the nature of the case, the campaign for a time limit does get us into the area of preferring some lives over others. And sadly, some pro-lifers slip into the language of "minor disability" and "perfectly normal healthy babies".
On thr question of "deals", I sincerely hope you are right.
I think the reason "lobbyist" has to remain anonymous is obvious. Pro-Life blogs *are* monitored by political opponents. If word got out that s/he was a Pro-Lifer it could affect his/her employment prospects. There have been numerous cases of people having been sacked for their politics - the notorious Economic League's nasty activities in the 80s are a case in point. If "lobbyist" has been employed for less than a year, s/he has even more reason to err on the side of caution and use the cloak of anonymity since full employment rights only kick in after a year. That the Public Affairs and PR sector is not known for being a particularly unionised sector is another reason for anonymity.
The notion that lobbying for amendments to an anti-life bill in undermines "public witness" against the bill, or a wider "hearts and minds" campaign is an odd one. It assumes, for a start, that this witness is known of by the general public and that it has some kind of effect on them, a view for which there is no persuasive evidence.
Strangely, the example of the Mental Capacity Bill is cited to illustrate this argument, though if anything it undermines it.
SPUC's "kill the bill" position over the MCB was pointlessly nihilistic. No one noticed their "public witness" against the bill. On the other hand, there's no evidence to suggest that the hierarchy's attempt at constructive engagement with the government undermined their opposition to euthanasia at all.
All Pro-Lifers are abolitionists but some of us are more interested in achieving actual long term goals than gesture politics. Or in a variation on a theme, the best revolutionaries are reformists.
A Fabian approach in no way compromises a wider "hearts and minds" campaign because there is no such campaign around anyway.
Much of the Pro-Life movement is busily engaged in talking to itself. If we are to make any progress at all, we need to undertake some serious internal reform. We have to widen our social base, continuously recruit new members and try and kickstart some fresh thinking about an old problem. Without this there will be no "hearts and minds" campaign that anyone notices.
Catholic lawyer has, by the way, totally misrepresented the Marxist view of man. The Marxist view of man is NOT that man is a commodity but that class society has alienated man from his essential self by forcing him to sell his labour power (see the Theses on Feuerbach).
>>>And pro-lifers should be pushing for the rejection of the Bill regardless of pro-abortionists. That message is not coming across because all we are hearing is about the "time limit" proposals - which are looking increasingly fragile in any case.<<<
Genuinely pro-life politicians will be voting against the Bill in its entireity unless positive outcomes come about. There are some good aspects of the Bill and in theory we could vote out all of the bad aspects - although, this looks unlikely to happen given widespread support for hybrid embryos.
Where your argument Fr, and that of the book you advertised, carries some weight is if politicians are proposing to put forward - for example - amendments which would allow more "moderate" research on hybrid embryos in the hope of derailing more "extreme" research. I'm no moral theologian but, as far as I understand, the case of abortion is different because abortion is already legal - hybrid embryos are not.
Lobbyist talks about "pro-choice" as if to give it some credibility. If you encourage the reduction of time limits, the effect is that you are pro-choice - you’re just drawing the line in the sand a little further away from the encroaching tide. Shall we save some souls to sacrifice others? What about those babies now who will be aborted earlier because they are disabled? You are playing to the abortionists’ strategy. There is no pro-choice - it's a linguistic mechanism, euphemism, nice-warm-feely stuff, to argue for the great secular norm of "Tolerance". If he/she followed the recent global abortion in conference in London, he/she would know that the advocacy of the abortionist campaigners/academics is now moving from a discourse of “choice” and “reproductive rights”, to one of “reproductive justice”. That means: any argument to deny abortion is a denial of access to reproductive justice for women (another argument is a denial of access to "healthcare"). They no longer need to argue for “pro-choice” – that has done its work and been effective. They don’t care about time limits: they are going for broke. If you concede time limits, you are abdicating the moral principle, and your difficulties become apparent. The strategy failed in the past, and I applaud SPUC for standing firm. How do you reconcile, as pro-life, reduction in the time limits against “Thou shalt not kill?” No deal.
Re Lobbyist's comment on the Bishops: yes, they deserve our support - only when they follow the Pope's line. Some of them do not. Shall we support Cardinal Martini who promotes the use of condoms? This was quoted and used against the Catholic Church recently: “the institutional Church in time will change with more courageous Bishops like Martini”.
Let us be clear about the debate in Parliament and the choice facing MPs. The Hum Tiss and Emb bill places abortion on the Parliamentary table. MPs have the option to defend the status quo, by not amending the legislation, or to vote for pro-life amendments. Talk of voting down the whole Bill is pie in the sky - get real! The options are clear either lobby for amendments on abortion or signal that you are happy with current practice!
And if we have the chance from here on in, to save every child that has a cleft palate, every child with downsyndrome and every child with a club foot - shouldn't we take it.
The point is that successful pro-life amendments are also "pie in the sky". That's why they should not be allowed to distract the pro-life movement from opposing the bill. (Yet again - nobody imagines that it can be voted down in Parliament.) But the key focus of pro-lifers needs to be on a public campaign against the HTE bill.
Not sure that Downs syndrome is counted as a minor disability by the pro-abortionists. Over 90% of such children are killed before birth. And you don't mention spina bifida; are we leaving those children behind?
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