Irish lessons

I know we should no longer be surprised when it comes to politicians displaying a capacity to lie to and deceive the general public, but the behaviour of two Irish Labour TDs, Aodhan O’Riordain and Anne Ferris really takes the cake.

Today’s Irish Sunday Independent (colloquially known as the Sindo) has run an exclusive splash, revealing that last June, four months before the death of Savita Halappanavar, these two politicians were caught on tape, explicitly outlining their intentions to use the X Case, (where suicide is deemed to be a life-threatening condition and thus a reason to abort) as a ‘starting point’ to introduce liberal abortion laws into the country.

Regardless of whether one takes a pro-life or pro-choice stance, this disingenuous approach is to be condemned. Politicians are elected on the basis that they represent those who vote for them. Aodhan O’Riordian stated that the X Case was a ‘starting point’, however if he were to be asked that question on the radio, his approach would be to lie about it, denying that it was a starting point and stating that ‘it is what it is’.

“It is a starting point. Once you get that . . . then you can move . . . and of course if I’m on the radio and somebody says to me, ‘It’s a starting point for abortion on demand’, I’m gonna say, ‘No, of course it isn’t – it is what it is.'”

Anne Ferris said

We will legislate certainly for what the European Court has told us to and then we can go further than that . . . we get the first part done and then we will go on to the next bit… I would say then next term it will happen.”

The transcript of the conversation also shows Ferris promising to drink a bottle of champagne after this measure is passed. This matters, not simply because of the subject matter, but also because it is a case of blaring political hypocrisy, whereby elected politicians are once again making monkeys of the electorate, lying about their stated intent and who will no doubt later agonise over the general public’s disillusionment with politicians and voter apathy.

Lying is never acceptable, but one’s intentions with regards to abortion, (or reproductive rights if you’re on the other side of the debate) is far too important an issue to lie about to the public. The attitude on display here is nothing short of contemptuous.

When it comes to thinking about the X Case and whether abortion ought to be a remedy for those who may be suicidal, it’s worth remembering that in the case of a person who may be suicidal, this is almost always due to a perfect storm of contributing factors, of which a setback such as a crisis pregnancy provides the tipping point. People who are suicidal or who suffer from severe mental health issues are deemed to be (albeit temporarily) incapable of informed consent in law, wills and other legal contracts are deemed to be invalid, so why, all of a sudden is a threatened suicide deemed to be a valid reason to abort one’s unborn child?

There is no evidence to suggest that abortion is an effective therapy for a psychiatric problem, which needs to be solved by psychiatric means, but there is an substantial body of research suggesting that abortion has a negative impact upon mental health. Suicidal tendencies in themselves should not be confused with a medically life-threatening condition. Whilst suicide is of course life threatening, the desire to end one’s life, is not indicative that a person will necessarily follow through on their thoughts, though they do of course, require urgent help. Abortion circumnavigates the issue, confirms the woman in her despair and is not indicative of the most compassionate and caring approach. What if the woman caught up in the vortex of depression, aborts her baby and later bitterly regrets her decision, realising that her fears about her pregnancy or ability to mother her child were unfounded?

David Fergusson, a pro-choice doctor, who believes that abortion should be available on social or economic grounds, has published a peer-reviewed study in this month’s Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, in which he reviewed the research to ascertain whether or not there were any mental health benefits to abortion. His findings were clear, as Breda O’Brien, is at pains to point out in the Irish Times:

“at the present time there is no credible scientific evidence demonstrating that abortion has mental health benefits.

The evidence will

“resurrect politically uncomfortable and socially divisive debates”. “However, it is our view that the growing evidence suggesting that abortion does not have therapeutic benefits cannot be ignored indefinitely, and it is unacceptable for clinicians to authorise large numbers of abortions on grounds for which there is, currently, no scientific evidence.”

With blatant disregard for scientific evidence as well as the views of the Irish electorate as a whole, a sizeable majority of whom wish to keep Ireland’s current laws protecting the unborn, the Irish Labour party are wishing to push and impose their ideological agenda on an unwilling public. It’s also interesting to note that 66% of voters are concerned about the EU’s potential to intervene in Irish pro-life laws.

As things currently stand, the Irish Supreme Court would be unable to accept any laws or proposals that go further than legislation on the X case, this being against the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution which reads as follows:

The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.

Any legislation beyond X (and that’s accepting that suicidal people should be able to kill their unborn children to make them feel better) would require a repeal of the Eighth Amendment and a rejection of personhood.

All of which could spell trouble for Ireland’s coalition government led by Enda Kenny, leader of Fine Gael, with Labour’s Eamon Gilmore occupying the Deputy Prime Minister position. Fine Gael explicitly promised voters in 2011 that they would not legislate for abortion and over 40,000 voters have signed a pledge never again to vote for the party if they introduce abortion measures. Worryingly for Enda Kenny, John Bruton, a former Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach is one of those also publicly opposing the coalition’s abortion proposals as are several members of the Fine Gael party. What is telling is that if Ms Ferris is to be believed, the tail is very much wagging the dog, when it comes to Ireland’s coalition government, with Eamon Gilmour, apparently ordering Enda Kenny to whip Fine Gael TDs into line on the issue of abortion. Extraordinary stuff, it’s a bit like Nick Clegg trying to tell David Cameron to whip Tory MPs into line with Lib Dem thinking.

This weekend in the UK has seen the forty-fifth anniversary of the passing of the 1967 Abortion Act, which was sold to the British public on the grounds of compassion and helping women from dying in desperate circumstances. We now see over 200,000 abortions a year, more than 1 in 4 pregnancies are aborted and the numbers of those aborting under grounds F or G (to save the life of the pregnant women or to prevent grave permanent injury) are, in the words of the Department of Health, ‘exceptionally rare’. Grounds A and B that pertain to the risk of death or permanent injury of the pregnant woman account for a tenth of 1% of all abortions.

And yet, Ireland’s politicians perpetuate the myth that this is a necessary piece of legislation in order to further their own totalitarian ideology when it comes to the rights of the unborn. It’s a baffling state of affairs and one in which pro-lifers must do their best to support Ireland, whether that be via prayers or practical action. Ireland is a model of maternal care. It is the gold standard and a torch bearer for Western democracies everywhere. Ireland’s pro-life movement is cohesive, cross-party and pan-theistic, able to mobile huge numbers of people onto the streets to vocalise their support for the unborn. There are many lessons there for the UK, but equally Ireland must look to the UK as an example of how not to do things.

These revelations could be a crucial pivot in Ireland’s battle for life. What an own goal for Irish Labour and those advocating for Action on X.

Savita verdict – medical misadventure

Before going any further, we should all remember Savita’s husband Parveen Halappanavar in our thoughts and prayers. Today, the date that the inquest returned its verdict of medical misadventure following the death of his wife, they should have been celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary together with their newborn baby girl due to be be named Prasa. May they rest in peace.

There are already many disingenuous headlines in the press, stating that the inquest has ruled medical mismanagement, following the denial of an abortion to Savita, as if the two events are linked.

First of all, Savita was not denied an abortion, rather a termination of pregnancy. Though it may seem semantic, this is an important distinction. Though medically they both refer to the same end result, the term abortion is widely understood in the context of a woman who does not wish to have a baby. With women such as Savita, a termination of pregnancy is the more correct phrase, because the pregnancy and baby were accepted and welcomed. Savita wished for her pregnancy to be terminated swiftly when it became clear that she was miscarrying. She didn’t want to abort her unborn child, she wanted her miscarriage to be brought to a quick conclusion.

Savita’s request for her pregnancy to be terminated must be seen in the context of her miscarriage. The explanation given at the inquest, that this was not carried out because of the law, is an unsatisfactory one. The implication being that though there was a good medical reason to terminate the pregnancy, the law disallowed this.

Dr Katherine Astbury testified that on the Monday and the Tuesday, Savita did not appear to be unwell, though she was emotionally distressed. In these circumstances, Dr Astbury is quite correct, Irish law would not allow for a termination to take place, because there appeared to be no risk to Savita’s life. This is actually fairly reasonable. Poor prognosis for the foetus would not allow for a termination, because Ireland rightly places equal value on all life, born and unborn alike. That someone has a poor prognosis is not grounds to kill them. Patients who are given a diagnosis of a terminal or incurable disease are not then killed because the outlook looks bleak and neither are the elderly, much as people might agitate for euthanasia. Whilst there is life, there is always hope and when we take into account the fact that Savita’s pregnancy was a wanted one, so long as a life is not deemed to be at risk, then it is not morally acceptable to kill an unborn baby on the grounds that he or she is as likely going to die soon anyway.

The request to terminate the pregnancy from Savita, should not have determined what was in her best medical interests. All other things being equal, normal medical protocols dictate a conservative management (i.e. wait and see) approach. On a personal note, I can well imagine her distress and her physical pain. I was readmitted into hospital a week after my eldest child was born, suffering from retained infected placenta. When I apologised to the registrar in A&E for crying because I was in so much pain, his response was ‘madam, you have a uterine infection, it is going to hurt a lot’. In my case, despite my entreaties, they didn’t take me in for surgery for 4 days (it was Easter bank holiday weekend) preferring instead to administer IV antibiotics to cure the infection first and to see if the product would pass. Nine years on, I can still remember the pain vividly, but at least I was given the correct antibiotic treatment, though my desire to have a D&C and be back home was ignored. I can’t begin to imagine what Savita went through, especially when she had the ultrasound and could hear the heartbeat of her baby, whom she knew was shortly to die. It must have been awful for her and her husband, let’s not forget that.

But this question of abortion or termination is nonetheless the source of much misinformation. Speaking at the inquest Dr Astbury stated that had she known about Savita’s blood results on Monday or Tuesday, then she would have taken a different decision and terminated Savita’s pregnancy forthwith. Which begs the obvious question, why didn’t she? We know from the inquest that the blood test results taken from Savita at 6.33pm on the Sunday evening were immediately processed and were available on the hospital’s computer system at 6.37pm. They were not accessed until 5.24pm the next day, by an unidentified member of staff and Dr Astbury herself did not look at them until 11.24pm on the Wednesday morning, by which time Savita’s condition had severely deteriorated.

It is this delay that proved fatal for Savita. If a termination had been required, then Irish law allowed for this, the medical guidelines state that delivery of an unviable foetus may be expedited where there is real and substantial risk to the life of the woman. Sepsis would count as such a risk. Savita’s bloodcount was 16.9 (normal range 4.3 – 10.8) which should have rang alarm bells. She was definitely exhibiting signs of an infection which merited urgent further investigation which would have thrown up the presence of E.Coli. Real and substantial risk, are often confused with immediate. A woman does not have be in her death throes or dying for a real and substantial risk to be identified, simply that if a termination is not performed, there is a real and substantial risk that she will die.

With hindsight, this perhaps was the case with Savita, as she was at risk of chorioamnionitis (inflammation of the foetal membranes), once the membranes had broken on Sunday. Once this has happened there is a 30 – 40% risk of infection, which is why she was prescribed general oral antibiotics on the Monday evening. Had Dr Astbury thought Savita was at risk of this, or was exhibiting signs, then why were no further diagnostic tests peformed, in this case an amniocentesis would have confirmed whether or not chorioamnionitis was present. Regular monitoring to identify trends in the white blood cells count is also crucial.

What has confused the issue further is that Dr Peter Boylan, a doctor with a publicly stated position opposing abortion restrictions, testified as an expert witness stating that had Savita been allowed a termination earlier, it would have saved her life. It’s very difficult to know that with any certainty without recourse to a time machine. In any event the post mortem showed that it was the E.Coli bacteria that led to septic shock. The baby was not poisoning Savita’s bloodstream, though chorioamnionitis if diagnosed, requires delivery. If the baby had died then the placenta needed to be removed in order to halt the rapid of spread of infection spread via its dead blood cells. Bacterial chorio-amnionitis is exceedingly rare.

What we do know though, is that in 40 years there have been 5 cases of septic abortions, no patients have died and Savita’s case was very rare. Every year in Ireland there are sadly 14,000 miscarriages, many of them carrying an infection risk, and no maternal deaths on record where the obstetrician felt that the law was inhibiting them. Dr Sam Coulter Smith, master of the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, says that he has terminated a pregnancy in four instances where women had been diagnosed with sepsis and in all of them the baby did not survive. It’s difficult to see then, how Irish law can be said to be putting women at risk.

The failure of Dr Astbury to discuss abortion outside of legal terms is what has proved troubling in this case. A surgical abortion would have carried with it real risks of further infection which could have proved fatal, and had Savita been given the drug misoprostel to induce delivery, this would not necessarily have made delivery any swifter or negated the need for surgical intervention. Faced with a fully dilated cervix and ruptured membranes, the medics could thought that delivery was imminent and there was therefore no need for further medical intervention at this point. They were therefore wholly wrong not to discuss this in medical terms with Savita and her her husband. Anyone would be cross if their request for a certain type of medical treatment was refused purely on legal grounds.

What is important is that today’s inquest ruled that there was medical mismanagement in the death of Savita Halappanavar. The jury had the option to deliver an a narrative verdict which would not have attributed a cause. Despite the verdict which implies failures in medical care, the judge, Dr McLoughlin, has thrown further confusion into the mix by stating the verdict did not mean that deficiencies or systems failures in University Hospital Galway contributed to Ms Halappanavar’s death; these were just findings in relation to the management of her care.

That seems to imply that there was nothing wrong with the general systems in place at University Hospital Galway, simply that the management of Savita’s individual care was unsatisfactory as we can see. One cannot help but wonder whether or not this is about offloading any legal liability that the hospital may incur in terms of compensation that might be due? After all, it was a galloping sepsis that killed Savita, stemming from the E.coli, ESBL bacteria that entered her bloodstream from the urinary tract and one that is antibiotic resistant. No-one can say with any certainty whether, even had the care been perfect, she would have survived this. Perhaps that is what the coroner is trying to convey, medical misadventure was a factor in relation to her care, but not necessarily in her death. It’s no wonder Parveen is still in the dark.

What urgently needs to be addressed is the factors behind the poor care. Did the law really make Dr Astbury too afraid to check blood results, which needed further analysis or carry out further diagnostic tests? Was the law behind the lack of regular observations, the lack of communication and the failure to realise that paracetamol administered as a painkiller could mask other symptoms? Did the law cause staff to forget that infection requires a low burden of proof? Or was it the effects of austerity measures on an already overstretched hospital struggling with lack of resources? What caused the glaring omissions and can any law be expected to cover every single permutation that might arise in the management of pregnancy or childbirth, or is this simply that medical guidelines need to be more precise and explicit?

Here is the list of the coroner’s recommendations which the jury all unanimously and strongly endorsed

* The Medical Council should say exactly when a doctor can intervene to save the life of a mother, which will remove doubt or fear from the doctor and also reassure the public;

* Blood samples are properly followed up;

* Protocol in the management of sepsis and guidelines introduced for all medical personal;

* Proper communication between staff with dedicated handover set aside on change of shift;

* Protocol for dealing with sepsis to be written by microbiology departments;

* Modified early warning score charts to be adopted by all staff;

* Early and effective communication with patients and their relatives when they are being cared for in hospital to ensure treatment plan is understood;

* Medical notes and nursing notes to be kept separately;

* No additions or amendments to be made to the medical notes of the dead person who is the subject of an inquiry.

Savita’s request for a termination to have been accepted and acted upon, simply by dint of her wishes. would have required Ireland to have legislation which is much more liberal than even that in the UK, which in practice, allows abortion on demand.

It’s no wonder that the clamours for a repeal of the Eight Amendment of the Irish Constitution, (which defends the right to life of the unborn) have already started. None of which addresses the reasons behind the catastrophic failures in care.

Savita’s treatment timeline can be accessed here.

Postscript

One thing that should be emphasised is how rare it is to have a miscarriage at 17 weeks. 0.5% of single pregnancies in women with no history of recurrent miscarriages end in spontaneous second trimester foetal loss. Sepsis is still thankfully rare. Whilst it should be on the radar as a possibility, most maternity staff will not be panicking about the possibility of sepsis when a pregnant woman presents with a UTI. In the incidence of a UTI, blood samples are tested and antibiotics administered. A normal reaction to a UTI would not be to terminate the pregnancy as a precautionary measure. UTIs are serious if left untreated but no medical protocols would consider them as a real and substantial risk to life. Even with a suspected UTI there was no reason (in the absence of blood results) for medical staff to believe that Savita was dying.

I would be seriously concerned if any medic proposed termination of pregnancy as being necessary as a precautionary measure, unless it was in the most serious and grave of circumstances. Nowhere in NICE guidelines is termination mentioned as a treatment for a bacterial infection. Savita’s death should not prompt pregnant women diagnosed with a UTI to seek abortion and neither should they worry about contracting sepsis. One thing that should be remembered is the importance of scrupulous personal hygiene in terms of preventing the spread of bacteria such as E.coli.

Savita: Some more facts (For the hard of understanding)

There’s a fabulous phrase from Blackadder goes Forth, that would make for a very witty inscription on a tombstone and which I employ on frequent occasions when discussing pro-abortion advocates. Uttered by General Melchett (Stephen Fry before he manifested the symptoms of irrepressible smugness) whilst discussing the progress of the Great War, he tragically and comically sums up the attitude of those directing the war, thus:

If all else fails, a total Pig-Headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through

I’m thinking in particular of the continued propagation of the idea that Catholic dogma played its part in the death of Savita Halappanavar, and the insistence that a timely abortion would have saved her life.

I’m going to spell this out very simply for the terminally hard of understanding.

Sunday 21st October 2012.

Savita was admitted to Galway University Hospital. She was suffering from backache and during the day had experienced some distressing blood and fluid loss. The hospital took bloods and examined her. The blood results that would have indicated that she had an infection were never followed up on, and Savita did not manifest obvious signs of infection. Sepsis is a deadly disease with a rapid progression which medical staff need to be hyper-vigilant about when dealing with pregnant women. Its symptoms can easily be masked by other symptoms in pregnancy, such as backache, raised temperature and generally feeling unwell. Savita had a history of back problems and had herself misdiagnosed her pain earlier in the day.

Savita would appear to have been suffering from a Urinary Tract Infection, (UTI) which are very common in pregnancy, need antibiotics to treat them, but are not necessarily life threatening. Let’s add into the mix that University College Hospital Galway, was over-stretched in terms of staffing and resources, this report in 2011 names it as the worst performing hospital in Ireland for the second consecutive month with calls for the Health Minister to intervene. The hospital seems to have been suffering from chronic shortages, which is something we should bear in mind before pointing the finger.

There is no reason at this point, to believe that Savita needed an abortion, let alone that her life might be at risk.

Upon examination it appears that Savita’s membranes are bulging and her cervix can’t be felt, meaning that a miscarriage is sadly imminent. There is no reason to believe that she is at risk of infection or that she needs an abortion. Later on, in the early hours of Monday morning, her membranes rupture. Again, there is no need to think that she may need unnecessary surgery, this seems like a regular miscarriage.

Monday 22nd October 2012

By 10pm on that evening, Savita’s waters had been ruptured for a full 22 hours. She was on antibiotics every six hours. It’s not clear when these were started, it should however have been from the moment the membranes ruptured and ideally based on the results of the blood culture taken on Sunday evening.

Tuesday 23 october 2012

At 8.20 am Savita is seen by Dr Astbury who informed her that ‘that the legal position in Ireland did not permit me to terminate the pregnancy in her case at that time.’ Savita is, at that point very distressed and requesting an abortion to put an end to her ordeal. No-one can blame her. She knows that she is miscarrying her baby and wants the whole thing to be over.

My take on this, is that Dr Astbury obviously sympathises. I think that she doesn’t want to take personal responsibility, or appear harsh and uncaring, nor does she want to cast the hospital in a bad light, there is no medical reason, or so it would seem, for an abortion, this isn’t life or death, they probably didn’t have a theatre or staff available at short notice and so she fell back on the letter of the law as an explanation. It’s fair to say that the law would not allow for an abortion in these circumstances, the foetal heartbeat is present, the patient seems comfortable and stable and no doubt many of the staff would have felt uncomfortable, given that this was not medically necessary, but it seems that there was no discussion as to why the hospital were taking the conservative management approach, one that would be taken in hospitals around the world. Hospitals do not deliver pregnant women the moment their membranes rupture, they can very often be sent home to get some rest in comfort, before being readmitted within the next 48 hours, depending on protocols and individual circumstances. It seems very remiss that Dr Astbury explains this in such a perfunctory and legalistic way. Surely Savita was owed more of an explanation?

If there was a clinical need for an abortion, why did Dr Asbury not consult with any of her colleagues? In any event, Savita was described as being “upset, but not unwell”.

Later on Dr Astbury testified that had she had access to Savita’s blood results earlier, then she would have taken theraputic intervention, i.e, an abortion, earlier. So how does this delay in terms of diagnosis and identifying the infection, equate with being the fault of Catholicism or uncertainty surrounding the legal situation?

But what does not make sense, is that if an infection is present or suspected, it is a contraindication for surgery – why invade a sterile uterus with instruments and risk flooding the body with further infection? Conservative management is always the default option in the treatment of miscarriages.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

This is the day that things begin to unravel for poor Savita. At 7am her pulse is 160 per minute (normal resting heart rate is usually between 60 and 80). Her blood pressure is 100/60 mm (normal is 120/80). Her temperature is 39.6 and in addition foul smelling discharge is present, suggesting infection. The doctor on duty concurs she is suffering from probable sepsis.

An hour and half later, 8.25 am, Dr Astbury and team see Savita on their ward rounds. Swabs are taken to determine what exact infection is present. According to the Irish Times, Dr Astbury testifies thus:

At this point her temperature had come down to 37.9 degrees and her pulse to 144bpm. She said she discussed with Ms Halappanavar the concern that she had inflamed foetal membranes due to infection.

“I also informed Ms Halappanavar that if we did not identify another source of infection or if she did not continue to improve we might have no option but to consider a termination regardless of the foetal heart.”

Mr Halappanavar has said he had no knowledge this discussion had taken place. In his statement he said he was at the hospital with his wife throughout Wednesday.

Subsequent to this, Savita deteriorates further, Dr Astbury consults with a colleague who agrees that delivery is medically necessary, a scan confirms that the baby has died, she is taken into theatre where she delivers, is subsequently transferred to HDU and then ICU and dies following further subsequent deterioration just after midnight on Sunday 28 October 2012.

Savita’s husband has no recollection of the conversation that a termination might be needed regardless of the presence of a foetal heartbeat.

Let’s leave aside the comments from the midwife, who was discussing abortions in a cultural context, Ireland’s Catholicism in relation to India’s Hinduism, in response to Savita’s request for an abortion. These obviously do not dictate care. Also Savita’s request for abortion should not be considered a factor. Patients’ wishes, whilst often taken into account, do not dictate what is best medical practice, as I learnt when I was refused the option of being able to deliver my youngest baby naturally. The doctors understood, they sympathised, they could see I was distressed and terrified and they did what they could to help me be comfortable, but ultimately they would not agree to the course of action that I requested, because it was deemed to be unsafe, and interestingly more unsafe for the baby than for me. I could not force them to act against my best medical interests.

Why would an abortion be required if the Dr could not find the source of the infection? It is clear that the baby could not have been the source of the infection. This is biologically impossible. A baby would not suddenly become infected and pass this onto the mother. The baby is in a sterile environment, even after the membranes have ruptured. The inflamed foetal membranes referred to, or to give it the correct medical term, chorioamnionitis, had not been identified. If this was the concern, which would require delivery, why wasn’t this possibility examined for sooner? It all seems like amateur guesswork. Finding the source of the infection, and treating the infection is a wholly different issue as to why the baby would need to be delivered. Plus we know that Savita presented with infection at the hospital, prior to the rupture of the membranes.

And here’s the absolute crunch. Four key failures. The blood test results performed on Savita on the Sunday evening admission, were ready at 6.37pm that evening, but not read until 5.25pm the next day. They were not then accessed again until after sepsis had been diagnosed and Savita’s condition was rapidly deteriorating, two days later. When Savita started shivering at 4.15am on the Wednesday morning, the first obvious signs that sepsis was raging through her body, her vital signs should have been checked. They were not. The blood culture sample taken from Savita at 8:29 am on Wednesday 24th October was processed onto the computer system by microbiology at 9.54 am but not reviewed by Dr Astbury until 11:20am. The lab also reported that the 2nd key sepsis test should have been performed on the ward, it was not. This a lactate serum test which could have definitively confirmed the presence of sepsis. The sample was taken at 6am on the Wednesday morning and stored in an inappropriate bottle before being sent to the lab who could not process it. The lab would not, in any event have carried out this test which should have been performed at a point of care unit on the ward.

The antibiotic treatment administered to Savita between 7am and 1pm was ineffective as it was erythromycin, a variant that is resistant to E-coli, the infection that pathology determined killed her. Broader spectrum antibiotics would have been a better choice.

The indications that Savita had sepsis were subtle and overlooked, by staff who were not deliberately negligent, but who were overstretched and under-resourced.

Catholics and pro-lifers have been writing today of the horrors of Kermit Gosnell. Pro-choicers have been calling his case an exception from which no broader conclusions can be drawn. Why then, in the case of Savita Halappanavar, and in the face of all evidence to the contrary in this one-off extraordinary case, under which Irish law allowed for an abortion, are they claiming that this is evidence that the law is causing women to die in droves?

Savita died from an E.coli infection, which the likelihood is, entered her urinary tract and bloodstream, causing her to miscarry. It was this bacteria that killed her and prompt identification of it, along with the correct antibiotics that could have saved her life. Aborting her baby would have made no difference to the progress of the disease and would have risked further infection and hastened death.

As well as holding the hospital to account, Parveen should be asking questions of the pro-choicers who have chosen to cynically exploit this tragedy for their own ends. The baby did not kill Savita, the E.Coli did.

Too close for comfort

I have a confession to make. In tweeting up a storm about the media blackout surrounding the trial of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist who reportedly snipped the spines and cut the throats of babies born alive following late term abortions, I was actually being very hypocritical. I knew about this story some time ago, having seen it mentioned by US pro-lifers as well as reading about it last month in the Daily Mail and yet refrained from writing about it and raising awareness.

I’ll forgo the false modesty, I know that this blog is, on the whole, highly regarded in pro-life terms, I also know it is referred to by pro-choice advocates and activists and read by BPAS, Marie Stopes and, according to my stats, IP addresses that emanate from inside the Houses of Parliament. Over the last year, it’s become increasingly apparent that I do have a platform, which I need to remember to use wisely.

So why did I neglect to do my bit here?

1) I was scared. Last year when all the bullying nonsense was occurring, a certain tweeter was repeatedly (and falsely) claiming that I was a member of Abort 67, “an extremist, a bad egg, a fake pro-lifer who doesn’t care, who must be flushed out of the pro life movement”.

I’m not a member of Abort 67, but I’m not ashamed to state that I have enormous respect and admiration for their courage and what they are trying to achieve. Andy Stephenson doesn’t just sit about writing polemic on the Internet or chew the philosophical fat in smokey pubs, but he dedicates his entire life to trying to show people the horrors of abortion, at times risking his own personal safety and even his liberty, when he was subject to an illiberal and misguided prosecution.

Whilst I might have some reservations about the tactics of showing images outside an abortion clinic, actually I have no problem with the way Abort 67 try to reach University students on campus or lobby politically, such as outside the Houses of Parliament or at Speaker’s Corner. But I was worried that by talking about the grisly horrors of Gosnell, and the pickled human feet found in storage jars or dead babies in the freezer, I might be perceived as a sensationalist or extremist. The only coverage I’d seen was in the Daily Mail, a publication that garners much deserved disdain at times, I hadn’t read the Grand Jury report and was concerned that I would be accused of scare-mongering or spreading inaccuracies. A major tactic of pro-choicers (as I will demonstrate in a subsequent post) is to attempt to bamboozle with science and stats, nit-picking to the umpteenth degree and attempting to use semantics, in order that they can scream “liar”. I didn’t want to put my reputation on the line, or be seen to be posting graphic photos or perceived to be revelling in gore.

2) The other reason and perhaps most importantly, was that I didn’t want to think about what had gone on in Gosnell’s abattoir or engage with it. I’d read the reports and recoiled with horror. It was literally unbearable and had the capacity to drive me mad. No doubt the pop psychologists and misogynists will liberally apply the ‘hysterical’ label, but stories regarding the twisted and bloodied corpses of murdered babies, are too close to home for a woman who has had three babies in the space of as many years.

I saw the photograph of one of Gosnell’s victims which appeared without a prior warning, in yesterday’s Atlantic and had a meltdown. The photo depicted a beautiful baby girl, with a full head of black hair, all her features perfectly formed, bizarrely, her umbilical cord had been cut and clamped, and she bore a startling and uncanny resemblance to my youngest baby daughter, and in fact all of my children who were born with lustrous heads of hair and tiny delicate little features. Except she was lying there, lifeless, motionless, dead and cold, having been mercilessly killed by Grosnell, shortly after her cord was cut and clamped and she was breathing. She would never again twitch, her hands wouldn’t uncurl, her limbs wouldn’t fling out in the startle reflex, her mouth would never root around for the comfort of a nipple or teat, she would never have known the comfort of her mother’s, or any human arms, her life consisted of being prematurely forced out of her mother’s womb, then disorientated and distressed from birth, longing for warmth and food, she was brutally murdered and left like a piece of rubbish on the cold hard slab of the abortionist’s table.

It was like looking a photograph of my own babies, particularly my youngest who was born early, weighing 5lbs, less than one of the little boys who was killed, and whom Gosnell jokingly referred to as being big enough to walk to the bus stop. Like this baby, my own baby was tiny, with fragile spindly limbs and swamped by the smallest size nappy. Even the colour of the clip on the umbilicus was the same.

I broke down. There were no words. I usually grab snatches of Twitter or the net on my phone or tablet, often whilst cooking, and the initial response was like being hit in the stomach. I curled up in the foetal position on the floor by the fridge in floods of tears, completely unable to process either the image or my response to what had happened. There was a mixture of overwhelming grief, sadness, anger and despair. I wanted to kick the living daylights out of this man and anyone who may have aided or abetted him in any way. That feeling still hasn’t dissipated, nor have the questions – namely, how on earth could the people working in the clinic have brought themselves to do this, what made them so damaged as individuals that they were able to justify and disassociate themselves from their actions? How could they have become so desensitised to what was going on? What kind of society are we living in when we can allow this to happen and where most people are happy that the media do not report it?

Yesterday was a concrete manifestation of why I had deliberately avoided engaging with this and so writing about it. Because I didn’t have the courage, it was too close to home and I didn’t think I had the emotional resources to cope. I had a very disturbed night’s sleep last night and I still am struggling to rid my mind of those dreadful images as well as deal with the emotions they invoke, which make me want to do terrible things, tear my hair and clutch my head in horror. Whenever I read about dreadful cases of child abuse or murder which crop up depressingly frequently in our national press, it churns me up inside. I cannot envisage what might motivate a person to do such odious things to a little child, and it terrifies me that people can often lose control in such a way that they inflict and violate little children with acts of sickening violence and depravity. Any parent who denies having the odd flash of anger, is either a genuine saint, or lying to themselves, all of us occasionally, at the end of our tether, might speak a little more harshly to our children than we should, but what is that forces a person to cross that line and inflict acts of utter sadism? And the worst most harrowing thing, is imagining the terror and pain experienced by these little ones. Imagining their trusting little faces and lack of comprehension and fear as they are repeatedly battered or worse.

I can’t stop myself imagining the brief painful lives of these little babies, treated as human waste, what they must have gone through, and also the agonies endured by the women, many of whom suffered life changing injuries, permanent infertility, infections and two of whom died. No matter how opposed one is to abortion, we shouldn’t forget the ordeals suffered by the women, most of whom were vulnerable, either by virtue of age, or socio-economic circumstance. No woman would chose to give birth to a live baby to have him or her murdered in front of her eyes. Most women have no idea of what is entailed in a late-stage abortion until it is too late, and I would wager most women going for an abortion have no idea of what to expect, everything is couched in such vague clinical terminology involving ‘products of conception’.

I eschewed writing about Gosnell, because I didn’t want to have to process this emotionally, or deal with the horror, the images or the reaction that they would invoke. Much easier to stick one’s fingers in one’s ears and pretend that it doesn’t happen, or that this is simply an one-off aberration and not think about tiny bodies beheaded and contorted in pain, or women giving birth amongst animal faeces, with filthy tubing used for both inter uterine suction and breathing purposes and freezers and storage jars full of neonates or neonatal body parts.

I suspect that’s one of the reasons for the media blackout. Some things are just too repugnant to bear. We often read about sadistic crimes, such as those of cannibal killers, for example, or serial murders, with a sense of detachment, we can look at these monsters clinically and though be disturbed by their crimes, have a sense that these sorts of crimes are relatively rare and won’t happen to us. With Kermit Gosnell it’s different, in that he and his staff genuinely didn’t seem to have any awareness that what they were doing was in any way immoral and neither did anyone seem to wish to report it. These atrocities occurred at a state licensed abortion facility, which went un-inspected for 17 years due to the pro-choice policy of the Republican Governor of Philedelphia, Tom Ridge. This wasn’t something that just happened to people who had an unfortunate encounter or mixed with the wrong sort. This was something that happened to women who exercised their free and legal choice in one of the most developed and civilised countries in the world. This is what abortion entails. The wilful destruction of innocent human life, depriving babies of their basic right to life in an act of brutal violence, whether inside or outside of the womb. Every single member of humanity, every single person reading this post, has something in common with Gosnell’s victims, we all began the same way, we were all blastocysts, developing embryos and unborn babies too. We all went through those same stages of life, only we escaped the abortionist’s instruments because we were the lucky ones.

And like the media, and like those who knew but didn’t think to report, I sat on this story too, for my own selfish reasons, born out of fear. It once again proves Burke’s adage – all that requires for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.

Savita, Sepsis and Statistics

Much crucial detail from the inquest into the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar is emerging in the media, which is being seized upon and manipulated by opponents of Ireland’s pro-life laws as well as those with an anti-Catholic or militant secular agenda.

The inference is clear – Catholic dogma is responsible for the death of a pregnant woman from sepsis, as evidenced, according to one tweeter, by the presence of a religious statue outside of Galway University College Hospital and the fact that many of the wards are named after saints. Something of a non-sequitur. Clearly the presence of religious symbolism, a reflection of Ireland’s cultural heritage, is indicative that patients can expect a substandard level of care, where medically unsafe and morally dubious dogma overrides the best clinical interests of the patients. Anyone attending St Thomas’s or Bart’s hospitals in London had better be on their guard!

Let’s start with the stats.

Here’s a table showing the maternal mortality ratio, the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births from the Guardian’s datablog, where ‘facts are sacred’.

So, the one of the highest rates of maternal mortality occurs in the US which rather disproves the claim that liberal abortion legislation is safer for women. Ireland, that country where women are deprived of abortion, has one of the lowest maternal death rates in the world, official stats show that on average 4,000 women in the Republic travel to the UK for an abortion every year, a figure that has been steadily decreasing from a high of 6,600 in 2001, so the blame for the UK’s relatively poor performance in the area of maternal health care, can hardly be explained away as being an Irish export. Pro-life Chile has the lowest maternal death rate in Latin America and Poland, another pro-life country also fares well.

Furthermore, more than 100 mothers have died in childbirth in London in the last five years, twice the rate of that of the rest of the country. Whilst we are all screaming about the first maternal death in 17 years at a hospital in Galway, where is the outrage about the lamentable situation in the UK, due to a desperate shortage of midwives? Surely anyone who identifies themselves as ‘pro-woman’ should be demanding to know how the government intends to remedy this increasing problem, aside from disincentivising those who may want more than two children?

Whilst on the subject of outrage, where were the candlelit vigils and expressions of anger over the death of Jessie-Maye Barlow, God rest her soul, the 19 year old mother of one, who died from septic shock following an abortion in September 2012, the inquest acknowledging that BPAS had not followed up on their aftercare and thus the fact that Jessie-Maye had failed to pass all the ‘products of conception’ was missed, leading to her death? Where were the protestations of anger that a beautiful young mother of one, with her entire life in front of her died as a direct result of medical negligence on behalf of an abortion clinic that was too busy to follow basic protocols regarding patient care?

Sepsis

Savita Halappanavar died from sepsis. According to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, between 2003 and 2005 there were five maternal deaths in the UK of pregnant women from sepsis, with a baby under 24 weeks gestation. “Sadly, substandard care was identified in many of the cases, in particular lack of recognition of the signs of sepsis and a lack of guidelines on the investigation and management of genital tract sepsis. Between 2006 and 2008 sepsis rose to be the leading cause of direct maternal deaths in the UK, with deaths due to group A streptococcal infection (GAS) rising to 13 women. Severe sepsis with acute organ dysfunction has a mortality rate of 20 to 40%, which increases to 60% if septic shock develops. Studies in the non-pregnant population have found that the survival rates following sepsis are related to early recognition and initiation of treatment.”

In 2012 the RCOG published green top guidelines for treatment of sepsis in pregnancy. The guidelines state

The signs and symptoms of sepsis in pregnant women may be less distinctive than in the non- pregnant population and are not necessarily present in all cases; therefore, a high index of suspicion is necessary.

The diagnosis of sepsis must be confirmed by blood cultures and early swift administration of broad spectrum antibiotics are the key to the survival of the patient, alongside regular monitoring.

Crucially and unfortunately, this did not happen in the case of Savita, who was admitted into the hospital on the evening of Sunday 21st October. Blood tests that were taken that night, which were never followed up on, showed an elevated white blood cell count which would have been one of the key indicators that infection and indeed sepsis was present.

Whilst oral antibiotics appear to have been started on the Monday night, following the spontaneous rupture of membranes, an infection of the severity of Savita’s would have required intravenous administration. The consultant obstetrician has described the situation as a systems failure on multiple counts, not only were the blood results not followed up on, but also, the vital regular observations which may have alerted the staff to the presence of an infection sooner, were not carried out at regular intervals throughout the night, which is why the infection was only picked up in the early hours of the Wednesday morning, after Savita had taken a dramatic turn for the worse, a doctor who had come to check on her on the Tuesday evening, saw she was asleep and so left her. Once Savita’s membranes had ruptured (in the early hours of Monday morning) then she should have been checked every 4 hours for signs of infection.

The RCOG guidelines state that all staff should be aware of the signs and symptoms of potential sepsis and the rapid and potentially lethal course of the disease, which is often less distinctive in pregnant women. Therefore whilst one can reasonably assume that care was lacking, notably in the failure to follow up on the results of the blood tests, the narrative that University College Hospital Galway were knowingly refusing to treat a woman with a severe and life-threatening infection in order to prioritise the life of her baby, due to Catholic dogma reflected in the law, is an erroneous one. As the consultant testified, had they known about the sepsis or infection, they would have intervened much sooner, however Savita’s symptoms did not physically manifest until the early hours of Wednesday morning, over 48 hours since she was first admitted, whilst the signs may have been present, i.e. a slightly elevated temperature and raised pulse rate, this could also have been due to other factors, such as anxiety and it is only with hindsight and in the light of the missing bloodwork, that this can be identified as being the start of the infection.

Speaking to the inquest, Savita’s husband has reported that doctors seemed nonchalant on Tuesday, certainly there was no cause for concern, or reason to think that her life might be at stake.

Abortion to treat Sepsis – a red herring

Savita’s sepsis stemmed from an antibiotic resistant strain of E-coli, an issue that is in itself concerning. Pathology has indicated that the infection most likely originated in her urinary tract and tallies with the backache that she complained of, prior to admission to hospital. Aborting the baby would not have cured Savita of her infection and indeed in these situations, surgery is to be avoided if at all possible, as it runs the very real risk of spreading the infection further and causing death.

Whilst the hospital had failed to spot the infection, they had noted that an inevitable miscarriage was taking place. Savita, understandably, was very distressed, and wished for her ordeal to be over, as opposed to the interminable wait for nature to take its course and allegedly requested an abortion on the Tuesday morning, following the ultrasound to determine the baby’s progress.

Upon admission to hospital on the Sunday night, it was noted that no cervix could be felt, hence Savita was fully dilated and hence the premature delivery of the baby was imminent, which would mean that the baby would not survive. Later on, her membranes ruptured, meaning that the protective sac of fluid surrounding the baby completely drained, a situation which would likely result in the death of the baby and spontaneous natural delivery.

This is where the confusion sets in, which is being exploited to the max by the abortion lobby. Firstly, that Savita was fully dilated, was as a direct result of the infection which was in her urinary tract. The unborn baby was in a sterile sac of waters and therefore not the cause of the infection. The dilated cervix did not cause her infection either. An open or dilated cervix will not cause an infection, as any woman who has ever had more than one baby, or indeed a smear test will testify. Once you have had a baby, the cervix never fully closes. When I was pregnant with my eldest child, I was dilated by 2cm for a good week before I delivered. An open cervix does not make one more ripe for infection.

The infection risk is posed when the membranes or waters have ruptured, normally hospitals will be wanting a woman to deliver within 48 hours of this occurring in order to minimise risk of infection to the newborn baby. Clearly in Savita’s case this would not have applied, but if her waters broke on the Sunday night, it was not unreasonable for no action to have been taken on the Tuesday, the medics obviously thought that delivery or natural miscarriage would take place swiftly and that conservative management was the safest option in the circumstances.

Whilst Savita may have requested a termination, this may well not have been in her best medical interests.

The unborn baby was not the cause of the sepsis and so there was no good reason to terminate it as Savita’s life did not seem to be at risk. Dr. Hema Divakar, President-elect of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India speaking to the Hindu Times said:

“Delay or refusal to terminate the pregnancy does not in itself seem to be the cause of death. Even if the law permitted it, it is not as if her life would have been saved because of termination. Severe septicaemia with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), a life-threatening bleeding disorder which is a complication of sepsis, major organ damage and loss of the mother’s blood due to severe infection, is the cause of death in Savita’s case. This is what seems to have happened and this is a sequence which cannot be reversed just by terminating the pregnancy.”

Catholicism and the law

It seems to me that there is something of a cop-out or buck passing exercise going on here. Dr Katherine Astbury, the doctor in charge of Savita’s care, told the inquest that in Ireland it is not legal to terminate a foetus on the grounds of poor prognosis for the foetus, but also admitted that she did not once clarify the legal situation with her colleagues or think to do so.

The law in Ireland does not prevent a termination from being carried out, if the life of the mother is at risk and as Dr Astbury testified, had she known the severity of the situation she would have intervened earlier, although from what we know now, an abortion could well have made the situation a lot worse. It seems obvious, that Dr Astbury perhaps sought to take shelter in the law as opposed to exercise her own moral and clinical judgement. No law can be formulated that will cover all the possible permutations and complications that might arise from real-life pregnancy management and so doctors can’t ever be entirely freed from having to make theraputic and ethical decisions. Whilst doctors might have to work within the law, they also need to exercise clinical judgement which will invariably and inevitably involve ethics.

The law in Ireland is clear, section 21:4 of the Medical Council Guide for Registered Practitioners says this:

“In current obstetrical practice, rare complications can arise where therapeutic intervention (including termination of a pregnancy) is required at a stage when, due to extreme immaturity of the baby, there may be little or no hope of the baby surviving. In these exceptional circumstances, it may be necessary to intervene to terminate the pregnancy to protect the life of the mother, while making every effort to preserve the life of the baby.”

So there was no legal reason why the pregnancy could not have been terminated were Savita’s life deemed to be at risk. One has to wonder why Dr Astbury couched her response to Savita’s request in purely legal terms? This was not simply about what the law proscribed, but medically speaking, conservative management of delivery is the safest approach, in the absence of any other pressing clinical factors. Theatre was obviously felt to be unnecessary at this stage, the cervix had dilated, the membranes had ruptured, delivery could not be far off, there was still a foetal heartbeat, the prognosis for the baby was poor, but there was no pressing need to abort medically, as well as legally. Why were the medical reasons not explained to her – that it was presented purely in legal terms seems to be a total failure of communication and gave the Halappanavar’s the impression that best clinical practice was being hampered by the law. The only people qualified to judge on whether or not an abortion should be performed were the doctors, not the lawyers and if any conflict had been perceived, why was this not instantaneously taken up with the hospital’s legal team, who would have been well versed in the ethics.

The Irish Catholic Bishops, responding to the case, said this:

The Catholic Church has never taught that the life of a child in the womb should be preferred to that of a mother. By virtue of their common humanity, a mother and her unborn baby are both sacred with an equal right to life.

– Where a seriously ill pregnant woman needs medical treatment which may put the life of her baby at risk, such treatments are ethically permissible provided every effort has been made to save the life of both the mother and her baby.

Which is why the conjecture over potential situations coming from all sides is unhelpful. Catholic teaching is very clear. Mother and baby have an equal right to life, whilst a baby must never be directly killed in order to save the life of a mother (and I cannot envisage a single situation where that would be necessary), a mother may receive treatment such as in the case of an ectopic pregnancy or a cancer diagnosis, which may put the life of her unborn baby at risk, or may end a baby’s life as an indirect consequence.

‘This is a Catholic country’

This was the comment made by Ann Maria Burke, a midwife manager, in response to a conversation with Savita, who stated that in India, a Hindu country, an abortion would be possible. Now is not the place to discuss India’s abortion record, especially when it comes to baby girls or how that reflects Hinduism, which treats all life as sacred, but as Ms Burke now admits, the remark was regrettable and had nothing to do with medical care. The remark perhaps smacks of racism, or was made in the context of a general conversation pertaining to religious and cultural attitudes, but tellingly the midwife was not directing the care of Mrs Halpannavar, nor was she dictating hospital policy. She was trying to explain the reason behind Ireland’s pro-life laws, which whilst they might stem from and be in accordance with Ireland’s Catholic history, do not indicate that Ireland is currently a country that is governed by those in accordance with the Catholic Church, quite the opposite Enda Kenny the current Taoiseach is doing all that he can to put distance between himself and the Vatican. Moreover Catholic moral theology would not sanction the delivery of a non viable baby as a direct cure for a pregnant woman, and is therefore slightly at odds with the letter of Irish law.

Conclusion

Had the initial blood tests been followed up on, and 4 hourly observations undertaken, then perhaps the tragedy may not have unfolded in the way that it did. What seems clear is that the infection was present upon admittance to hospital and that it is unlikely that an abortion would have cured the infection and potentially could have hastened Savita’s death. The unborn baby could not have been the source of the infection and by the time that the infection was noted, things had already progressed too far. The infection was obviously incredibly aggressive and Savita’s condition deteriorated so rapidly on Wednesday 24 October, that the decision as to whether or not to abort became moot. According to the inquest, septic shock was diagnosed at 1.20pm, two hours later, Savita’s already dead baby was delivered in theatre, so the conservative approach would have been the correct one, nature had taken its course swiftly, within the normal 48 hour window.

There is no indication that the hospital was ignoring the plight or symptoms of a critically ill woman with sepsis in order to rigorously follow the letter of the law regarding her unborn baby, when the law already allowed for an abortion to take place in these circumstances. Until the early hours of Wednesday morning, there was no obvious manifestation of infection, to those caring for her. It was only then that seriousness of the situation became glaringly apparent.

The issues here are about an awareness of sepsis. That is what Parveen Halappanavar, Savita’s husband should be angry about. This is the issue that he should fight for in his wife’s memory, as well as suing the hospital for their negligence in following up on her blood tests. Understandably he wanted his wife’s distress to be alleviated by an abortion, a procedure that may well not have been in her best interests either physically or emotionally. That the hospital could only explain this in legal terms is as great a dereliction of care and duty as it was not to have chased her blood results or carried out her observations.

Ireland’s abortion laws may change as a result, unborn babies will die and no action will be taken to address the urgent problem of sepsis diagnoses, nor indeed the worrying spread of ESBL bacteria that killed Savita. Abortion won’t cure sepsis or aid its diagnosis. It may however mean that more women and babies are exposed to the deadly bacteria. Savita’s memory deserves better.

Does the Church need to renew its relationship with women?

Hot on the heels of the initiative which allows Catholic women to pledge their support for Catholic doctrine (the aim of which is to present Pope Francis with a significant number of signatures as well as present a forum for Catholic women and apologetics), Catherine Lafferty has written a piece for the New Statesman’s version of Comment is Free, which suggests ten ways in which Pope Francis can renew the Catholic Church’s relationship with women.

It is no secret that I have personal issues with Lafferty. Many people witnessed her behaviour towards me last year when I was pregnant, with alarm and dismay. The episode caused considerable distress and much prayer is needed because I still struggle with forgiveness and coming to terms with it all.

This should be borne in mind when reading my critique of Lafferty’s piece – this isn’t about ad hom or personal attack, I wish to lay my animosity to one side and engage with and critique what was written, but it should be noted that perhaps understandably, I find it extremely hard to be objective towards someone, who I believe caused actual harm to my health and that of my unborn baby with a campaign of unfounded and malicious allegations and whose repeated presence in my timeline has been an occasion of sin at the start of the Triduum.

The article’s premise is that the Church needs to renew its approach to its female followers with regards to sex and reproduction. This would seem to be a little misleading, not least because it implies that the Catholic Church somehow needs to change its doctrine, something which is impossible. Secondly, it buys into the myth that most Catholic women are unhappy with the Church, especially in relation to the doctrine on sex and reproduction. This is a myth that I’m looking to disprove.

If women are unhappy with Church doctrine on these issues, the blame can largely be laid at the door of poor or inadequate catechesis. This would certainly be an area that one could argue is in need of renewal, but the Emeritus Pope Benedict did much in terms of sowing the seeds in this regard. The growing Juventum movement is packed with young women as well as men. A newer, younger generation of orthodox faithful Catholic women is emerging. Before claiming that the Church needs to take action to renew its relationship with women, some evidence as to this fractured relationship needs to be provided. A more accurate assessment would be to say that the Church needs to engage with lapsed Catholic women and evangelise better. It needs to send positive and joyful messages of female sexuality as well as remind everyone of the beautiful teachings of John Paul II, in Theology of the Body and Mulieris Dignitatem.

Here’s my take on the some of the suggestions:

Use the reform of the Curia to promote female excellence in the corridors of power. Hard to argue with this one, it’s a point that I have argued and would do much for the Vatican in terms of its perception. With that it mind, it should be remembered that the pursuit of power is not a goal that should be encouraged, for any Catholic in good conscience. Secondly, whilst female excellence should be encouraged, the Vatican needs to be extremely careful to ensure that it does not engage with secular identity politics that are contrary to Catholic teaching which teaches that our identity lies in our dignity as created beings in the image of God. If women are promoted it needs to be because they possess requisite competence and fulfil the criteria of any given position, not solely because of their sex. Woman quotas should be avoided because they are a form of unfair discrimination and buy into the idea that the Catholic Church is somehow oppressive or patriarchal as demonstrated by the priesthood. Whilst it would be good to see more women in the Curia, this should not be for the sake of political correctness. The Catholic Church is not a political party or democratically elected institution.

This bureaucratic reform should be extended downwards to Bishop’s Conferences and diocesan offices, which should also become more efficient and productive with professional staff and dragged out of ‘sleepy backwaters’ with a similar drive for female excellence. This seems primarily a comment on the Catholic Church in the UK. I’m not sure that the same could be said of other countries, such as America for example, and who knows what the situation is in the far-flung corners of the globe. We need to be wary of accusing hardworking diocesan staff of ‘complacency’ or not doing their jobs properly. Many dioceses, such as Portsmouth have in fact, recently undergone restructuring, the Catholic Church works on a model of subsidiarity to which diocesan bishops are key. Where failures are identified, it should be up to the individual bishop to take appropriate action, rather than for centralised guidelines – every diocese will have different requirements. Furthermore some of the staff working in and supervising diocesan offices are stipendiary priests who are unpaid. Many parish secretaries, admin and finance staff are also unpaid volunteers. Instead of replacing them with a professional bureaucracy, which will prove costly, additional training would seem to be the answer in areas where there are gaps in knowledge or experience. There are admittedly diocesan roles that require paid professionals, standards matter and dioceses do conform to employment laws and norms, so I think we need to be careful before making sweeping statements or wholesale accusations of inefficiency. The same sentiment as above would apply when it comes to promoting female excellence. Replacing priests and unpaid volunteers with a professional bureaucracy would cost a considerable amount of money at a time when we know that many dioceses are running a deficit. In any event most diocesan offices are filled with the laity.

Turn all Catholic workplaces into centres of excellence for family-friendly employment. How do we know that this is not already the case? I can think of several positions in my diocese which are staffed by women and are part-time or job-share. As employers, Bishops are subject to UK laws with regards to unjust discrimination when it comes to employment and would legally need to demonstrate that they have the relevant policies in place, which means amongst other things, that women returning from maternity leave will already have the right to request family-friendly hours and parental leave. When it comes to building creches, that is entirely dependent on the size of the plant that a diocesan office may occupy as well as number of staff. There doesn’t tend to be a high staff turnover in diocesan offices, so a creche could quickly become obsolete.

Take a lead in providing affordable childcare. The Catholic Church teaches that couples should be open to the gift of life, a principle which is made harder to live up to by women’s economic needs. Lovely idea in theory. Pie in the sky in real life. The Catholic Church does teach that couples should be open to the gift of life, but she also teaches that parents should be the primary educators of their children. A mother’s economic needs revolve around providing food and housing for her children. Ideally speaking a woman should have the choice as to whether or not she wishes to work, countless surveys demonstrate that most mothers yearn to be at home with their children. Jonas Himmelstrand, a Swedish sociologist, is reporting that psychological disorders in children have trebled in Sweden, widely held up as being a childcare utopia, where over 90% of children under 3 attend full time nurseries. Having children in full-time childcare should not be encouraged. It is not in the common good to encourage or promote a system whereby mothers have little choice other than to become wage slaves. That mothers have always worked is undeniable, but traditionally women needing extra income did this inside the home, whether it be by a bit of extra farming, being a nursemaid, taking in ironing, sewing, craftwork etc. Whilst that is admittedly out of step for today’s era, the rise of the mumpreneur, or woman who works from home, whether that’s freelance writing, running a business on ebay, or whatever, shows that this is still seen as an ideal. Women should be their own bosses, as they always have been, working on their own terms, providing for themselves and their families in a way that fits around family commitments, and not wage slaves to outside employers, trying to split themselves between two masters. Ultimately, it tends to be the children who suffer, when mum has to put them in wraparound care 5 days a week, in order to keep working for an implacable inflexible boss who pays the wages.

Aside from the fact that the Catholic Church lacks the resources to provide free or cheap Catholic nurseries and ignoring the fact that such a practice would inevitably fall foul of laws regarding discrimination, there would bound to be some vexatious litigation surrounding the nature of such provision, encouraging mothers to put their children in nurseries would not renew the relationship with women, but could cause alienation and resentment. The Church would be sending a very definite message as to the desirability of work, and no nursery, no matter how wonderful or gleaming the equipment or activities on offer, can replace a mother’s unique love and care. Children aren’t objects, they should not be viewed as barriers or commodities to financial or economic success and to put one’s own self-fulfilment on the same level as their welfare, is directly contrary to church teaching. Whilst the Church recognises and argues that women should have equal access to public functions and roles, speaking in Familiaris Consortio, John Paul said this

While it must be recognized that women have the same right as men to perform various public functions, society must be structured in such a way that wives and mothers are not in practice compelled to work outside the home, and that their families can live and prosper in a dignified way even when they themselves devote their full time to their own family.

Furthermore, the mentality which honours women more for their work outside the home than for their work within the family must be overcome. This requires that men should truly esteem and love women with total respect for their personal dignity, and that society should create and develop conditions favoriung work in the home.

The Catholic Church can plough funding for research into fertility management which complements rather than compromises its core principles. No need for this. The technology, already exists, NFP methods such as Creighton are 99% effective. Pope John Paul II singled out the Pope Paul VI Institute, who are world leaders in terms of reproductive technology for special praise and worthy of support. Catholics have to accept however, that no method of contraception is 99% effective, and whilst couples may have serious reasons not to add to their families, they must also tread a fine line in terms of not falling into a contraceptive mentality. Where the Church needs to do better is at communicating its message on human sexuality to young men and women, which really needs to start at grassroots level. The technology exists, it’s just not promoted heavily enough and neither do many priests do a great job in terms of preaching about contraception or promoting the alternatives. Likewise NaPro technology, has success rates far and above those of IVF, treating the underlying cause of which infertility is just a symptom. A fertile married couple has to regularly think and pray when it comes to the issue of whether or not to add to their family, and not simply use NFP as an alternative form of contraception. It involves a wholly different mindset.

Put women and their needs at the heart of its Pro Life activism. This is what happens now. Organisations such as the Good Counsel Network and LIFE Charity do just that in terms of their activism, campaigning and actual pro-life work. A creaking Pro Life lobby is ill-equipped to consider why women opt to have abortions and what they need to continue their pregnancies willingly. The pro-life lobby in the UK may be creaking, but there are certainly signs of healthy rejuvenation, such as in the recent foundation of the Alliance of Pro-life students and the success of the 40 days for Life movement. Speaking at the launch of APS, Eve Farron their founder, explained how they made common cause with feminists on campus and forced campaigning and provision for pregnant students at certain universities to be drastically overhauled, so that students with a crisis pregnancy were presented with actual realistic options enabling them to keep their baby and continue studying. Again the Good Counsel Network help women on a day to day basis, they are well versed in the multitude of reasons why a woman may find herself at the door of an abortion clinic and provide help accordingly. A pro-life movement that lacks cohesiveness will find it hard to gain political traction, but that doesn’t mean that it is unable to discern why women may abort. Pro-life work does need to consist of a political element, not simply in terms of legislation surrounding abortion laws, but legislation to enact a society that is open to life and the needs of pregnant women, but this is not its only role. For Catholics, pro-life work consists of prayer, politics, practical action and PR. The pro-life movement is at its strongest when we recognise and hammer home the message that a life is a stake here and the injustice of abortion, to mother and child. Politicians will respond to the will of the people and even SPUC, an organisation of which I am highly critical, is extremely effective at marshalling and consolidating grass-roots support. This is vital.

as tough on the causes of abortion as abortion itself. Good soundbite, albeit a modified version of William Hague. But we need to very careful here. Whilst society must clamp down on those factors that contribute to a woman’s feeling that she has little other ‘choice’, the causes of abortion are very often complex, there is not one single factor. Women who abort their babies are not two dimensional creatures simply exercising a choice because they can, or because they see it as a form of contraception and not the taking of a life. Whilst some women undoubtedly do view abortion as a trivial matter, many don’t and abortion is arrived at via a contribution of factors, not least a society that advocates and promotes abortion as being ‘no biggie’ and certainly not something that one should feel guilty about. Whilst we have to work to bring about an elimination of those factors that conspire to make a woman have an abortion, human history shows us that there will always be women who feel they have reasons to abort. We cannot concede that a reason to abort is a justification and neither should we be giving any fuel to the notion that until reasons to abort are demolished, then abortion itself can be tackled. When we consider the causes of abortion, we have to be extremely careful not to play into the hands of pro-choicers, who will argue that abortion has always existed, there will always be a good reason to abort and so abortion must be safe and legal. People will always want to engage in destructive behaviour, sadly there will always be those who are compelled to hurt their fellow human beings and themselves, but that does not mean that society should legislate, normalise and accept harm, on the premise that it is a lesser evil. Whilst we must be tough on the cause of abortion, we must not lose sight of the fact that abortion is, to use the hated words, a moral evil. That does not mean that women who have abortions are morally evil, or of dubious character, but in our compassion, we must not forget what abortion is. We must continue to be tough on it and not fall into the hands of well-meaning pro-choicers who attempt to justify abortion. Being tough on various causes of abortion includes getting tough on lifestyles of sexual impropriety as well as on repeated abortions, and accepting that a woman’s judgement is not always sound or prudent, by virtue of her gender or reproductive organs. This is a always a flashpoint or bone of contention, no-one likes to be seen as finger-pointing or interfering in others’ sex lives, it plays into the Christian fundie fiddling with ovaries stereotype, but ultimately as Christians we are compelled to make moral judgements with regards to certain courses of action, including abortion.

The other points with regards to population control, education and women’s rights are fairly sound. But as I said at the beginning, the Catholic Church needs to be very wary about succumbing to identity politics. Women are signing up thick and fast at CatholicwomenRising to pledge their support for Church doctrine. To state that the Church needs to renew its relationship with women, implies that there is a schism, one that is only evident in the minds of the media. What the Church does need to do is continue to win souls of all ages, be they the elderly, middle-aged, or young. Part of this must involve evangelisation. But Church renewal is a question that each subsequent generation has to face – we have to enthuse our children and young people to lives of Christian witness and holiness. This is why identity politics is so irrelevant, because Catholic doctrine reflects that men and women were created equal but with different vital roles to play. Our strengths and weaknesses are disparate, we are not all one homogenous mass. The way we go about renewal is in two ways – firstly by how we live our lives and the examples we set to others, Pope Francis is leading the way here, and secondly by implementing decent catechesis and instruction at a local level.

That the Catholic Church in the Western world needs to find ways of countering the rising tide of secularism, atheism and the prevailing zeitgeist of individualism and renew itself is indisputable. But it has to start at catechesis and finding effective ways of educating its laity, be they male or female. Women friendly policies may make for fluffy soundbites in left-wing publications and make a convenient flag for Catholics to wave to show off their progressive credentials. But the New Evangelisation requires action that goes infinitely deeper.

Hijacking the Royal Society of Medicine

BPAS are advertising a conference in June which they appear to be sponsoring, called ‘abortion, motherhood and the medical profession’. It seems a strange title for an organisation who is predominantly concerned with removing motherhood, but this conference needs to be called out for what it is. An attempt at co-opting the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), in order to endorse abortion as being a matter of medical treatment when as a recent symposium on Excellent Maternal Healthcare noted in their press release, abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of a mother.

Abortion is a medical procedure, hence the involvement of the RSM, but this conference will obviously be incorporated by BPAS into their promotional material, with the RSM being used as leverage, in order to endorse any findings or conclusions as being those of a professional body or allegedly evidence-based. The RSM describe this event as a joint meeting with BPAS, which raises questions about impartiality, as well as funding. Have BPAS subsidised this meeting in any way? It probably falls under costs of marketing and PR, in their Profit and Loss account.

In case of any doubt, I’ll run through the programme of events and outline the credentials of the speakers:

Introduction and Opening remarks:

Mrs Joanne Fletcher, Consultant Nurse, Gynaecology, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

An impartial consultant nurse? Actually Joanne Fletcher was the publication co-ordinator of this document about abortion care for the Royal College of Nurses in 2008. Interestingly the document was sponsored by Exelgyn, manufacturers of the abortion pill, RU486, Bayer Healthcare, who manufacture contraceptives and abortifacients. So, absolutely no vested interests there whatsoever then? Back to Mrs Fletcher, not only did she co-ordinate publication of this document but she is also a member of the RCN group – ‘Nurses working within termination of pregnancy Network’. So it’s obvious where she stands on abortion.

Ms Jennie Bristow, Publications and Conference Manager, British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Fairly straightforward who this lady is, she’s in charge of commissioning and publishing research and organising conferences that promote abortion such as this one.

Foetal imaging and imagining the foetus:

This session, is chaired by Clare Murphy, Director of External Affairs at BPAS. She used to tweet as @clare_bpas before deleting her account in favour of a more professional generic BPAS account. I remember her tweeting about the appearance of some of those on 40 days for life – if one can be bothered to search through the blog, I’m sure there’s a tweet somewhere about her deriding the colour of tights of a volunteer, but again, I think we all know where Ms Murphy stands when it comes to abortion.

What intrigues me is why she is chairing a session on foetal imaging and “imagining the foetus”? Is she some sort of leading expert in the field of foetal imaging and diagnostics? Is she a qualified sonographer? My understanding is that she’s been promoted up from her original role within PR at BPAS.

What is imagining the foetus? One has a scan and sees a foetus on the screen (well actually you don’t at BPAS, they won’t show you and will dissuade you if you ask, can’t begin to imagine why). What has imagination got to do with it? Either you see a foetus or you don’t, if one is present on screen, it’s certainly not a figment of imagination.

Which is really the entire point of this session. It’s nothing to do with medical science and more to do with helping the client conceptualise her unborn child as being as un-human as possible. It’s about understanding the psychology of a pregnant woman and manipulation, by using medical terminology such as ‘gestation sac’ and ‘the pregnancy’ instead of what’s actually there, a foetus. (Fetus: Latin “offspring”, “hatching of young” “bringing forth”)

So, who have we got discussing foetal imaging and imagining, conceptualising (or lack of) of the foetus?

Dr Stuart Derbyshire, Reader in Psychology, University of Birmingham

A psychologist, able to discuss ‘helpful’ ways of thinking about and describing the foetus to the mother. Not only is he a reader in psychology, but he is one of the medical experts who argues against the notion that foetuses may be able to feel any pain. So no doubt, his talk will have something to do with the fact that even though the baby might look human and fully developed, it probably won’t feel any pain (how can any of us know with any certainty and besides medical opinion is divided) and so it’s perfectly okay to kill it.

Professor Carol Sanger, Columbia Law School

Professor Sanger is also a fellow of St Anne’s college Oxford. She writes articles on family law and women’s ‘reproductive rights’. She’s an abortion advocate who last year delivered BPAS 2012 public lecture on abortion in the US. Sanger has fought against laws in the US requiring mandatory ultrasounds for pregnant mothers.

And our final ‘expert on this session regarding foetal imaging and imagining is:

Zoe Williams, columnist for the Guardian

Zoe Williams frequently churns out pro-choice feminist propaganda for the Guardian. She describes her views as left-wing and feminist and has written some amusing guides to pregnancy and motherhood. Not quite sure what she’s doing on a session which is ostensibly about foetal imaging. I’ve got 4 children to her 2, have had numerous scans and know quite a fair bit about embryology and foetal development, I’d wager that I’m every bit as qualified when it comes to discussing foetal imaging…

So anyway, then we come on to the next session

Information, counselling and the law

Chaired by:

Dr Ellie Lee, Reader in Social Policy, University of Kent

I’m actually rather an admirer of Dr Lee, despite being co-ordinator of the Pro-choice forum and a strong advocate of abortion. She’s often on Women’s Hour and other media, advocating for abortion. Always eloquent, she has written this paper which is essential reading for any pro-lifer, discussing how the issue of abortion must be ‘de-moralised’, i.e. stripped of any notion of morality. She argues that pro-choicers have not yet won the battle on abortion and discusses ways that the issue should be approached in Parliament. Notably for pro-lifers, Dr Lee has observed that failing to sustain arguments about the sanctity of life has derailed pro life groups in the past, but nonetheless, the idea that abortion should be outside of politics is one of concern. That abortion is political, favours pro-choicers as they well know, despite their protestations about ‘politicising the issue’. It seems pro-life hasn’t done very well, when it has deviated too far from the idea that a baby has a right to life. Her research is invaluable for pro-lifers who wish to inform themselves and develop effective strategies.

Dr Patricia Lohr, Medical Director, British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Needs no further comment

Ms Jane Fisher, Director, Antenatal Results and Choices

Despite their title, Antenatal Results and Choices, whilst not overtly partisan, certainly favour abortion, Jane Fisher has spoken about the improvements in first trimester ante-natal testing which means that women can access ‘abortions they need’ earlier – a good thing in her view.

Professor Sally Sheldon, Kent Law School

Another abortion advocate, who argued in favour of a woman’s right to have a sex-selective abortion and states that it should be women, not doctors who decide whether or not they need one. (Unlike every other medical treatment).

After lunch (if they can stomach it) we have the following session

Testing positive, negative and in between: How the semi-quantitative pregnancy test could transform the management of abortion, miscarriage, fertility treatment and ectopic pregnancy

A semi-quantitative pregnancy test is a self-administered urine test that one takes at home, following a medical abortion, that is once you’ve taken the abortion pill. At present, women require a clinic follow up if they have taken the abortion pill, in order for either a blood test or ultrasound to check whether or not uterine evacuation is complete. This obviously increases the clinics’ overheads and the cost of abortions. You’ve given the woman the pill, had her money, sent her home, it’s obviously a bit of a faff for all concerned that she needs to come back for any sort of check in person to see whether or not the pill has done its job or whether there might still be some bits floating about inside. Of course a pill could transform management of abortion and see a significant cost reduction (wonder if this will be passed on) enabling women to do the test at home before trekking back to the clinic where a person can actually check they are alright.

With the vast majority of abortions being performed under 12 weeks and clinics pushing the abortion pill which can be taken under 9 weeks, it’s no wonder they are excited about this option. More free time to see more new clients!

So which experts have we got on this panel then?

Chair:

Ann Furedi Chief Executive BPAS

Say no more, Ann (kill all the unborn up until birth) Furedi

Professor Paul Blumenthal, Stanford University

The man who argued against the banning of partial-birth abortion in America. That’s when they deliver the baby and crush its head as its coming out. A particularly nasty and gruesome procedure which is fortunately now illegal both over there and over here.

Mrs Joanne Fletcher, Consultant Nurse, Gynaecology, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

As discussed above. A pro-choice activist consultant nurse

Dr Roy Farquharson, Consultant Gynaecologist, Liverpool Women’s Hospital

Author of a book on abortion in the first trimester

The day finishes off with the following session

Discussion: A new generation of abortion doctors – challenges and opportunities

Or, how do we entice more doctors into performing abortions, given there is an acute shortage of suitably qualified doctors, with more and more opting out of abortion procedures and training on conscience grounds, something that is naturally very concerning for abortion providers, hence they are resorting to all sorts of measures, including campaigning for the removal of conscience grounds and offering paid interships in order to train medical students.

So who do we have in this session?

Katharine Elliot

A medical student from the University of Newcastle. I’m guessing she’s pro-choice. Perhaps she’s been on one of their placements and can testify to the joys of learning how to be an efficient abortionist?

Dr Richard Lyus, British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Again self-explanatory

Mr John Parsons, Consultant Gynaecologist

A doctor who believes that there are not enough abortions.

In conclusion then, BPAS are hosting a wholly partisan conference, with a variety of pro-choice campaigners, activists and doctors and seeking to leverage the Royal Society of Medicine’s credentials in order to give the conference and any conclusions or press releases that may emanate from it, authority.

Whether you’ve read this in any depth, or simply scrolled through it to get the general gist, there can be no room for apathy. This is BPAS, this is what they do, it is extremely clever and slick manipulation, designed to fool the general public with medical terminology and assurances that their conclusions are following the deliberations and discussions of experts in the field, all highly scientific, evidence-based and neutral.

Nothing could be further from the case and no-one should be fooled. This is where some of the vast income from providing abortions for the NHS is diverted. Into promoting abortion as an option and finding ways of marketing and making it palatable to the general public, under the guise of science and using women’s rights campaigners as unofficial PR.

If SPUC or LIFE or Right-to-Life hold a conference on maternal care, this is immediately dismissed as being the work of loony nutjob fundies and therefore not worthwhile because their views on abortion are apparent in the name of the organisation. What BPAS are doing with conferences such as these, is a clever piece of PR, marketing and strategy, one that is not overtly political, but masquerades as some sort of scientific inquiry.

Pro-lifers need not only to disseminate this information, but also dispel the inevitable narratives that will pop up arising from this conference, as well as raise our game. We need to remember that there are equally well-informed experts who, on looking on the evidence available , take an opposing view, one that is peer-reviewed and evidence-based.

It is not surprising what is going on here, but anyone who feels apathy as opposed to anger, needs a wake-up call. This is life and death stuff, BPAS are attempting the hijacking of the medical opinion to justify and disguise what is going on – the wholesale killing of the unborn, paid for by taxpayers’ money and wrapped up in important sounding conferences, which are nothing more than an echo chamber for abortionists and their supporters.

Given enough rope

Back to pro-life matters and it’s been heartening to watch LIFE charity who have really raised their game on social media over the past year, in terms of putting out some really useful information, along with biting commentary out into the public domain. Their Twitter handle is @LifeCharity

LIFE were live-tweeting testimony from the Parliamentary Inquiry (led by the all-party Pro-life group) into abortion and disability which examined the unjust discrimination that allows for disabled babies to be aborted right up until the moment of birth, whereas ‘healthy’ children are subject to a 24 week limit. A discrepancy with which the general public are becoming increasingly uncomfortable following the resounding success of London’s 2012 Paralympics, which did much to raise awareness that having a disability does not preclude one from living an active and fulfilling life, nor from achieving success in a chosen field.

All of our medal winning athletes would have been allowed to have been aborted up until the moment of birth according to current UK law.

Ann Furedi, Chief Executive of BPAS made no attempt to hide her extremism, with the following statement, which is an absolute gift to the pro-life cause. Whatever else, one cannot fault Mrs Furedi’s honesty, these are the thoughts of one the UK’s most prolific and influential advocates for abortion:

That’s right. If it’s unfair to kill disabled children up until birth, let’s kill ALL the children, instead of attempting to save the lives of those who can be killed right up until the moment that they are born. And they scoff at the moniker culture of death? Highly appropriate I’d say. Instead of choosing life for all, let’s choose equal rights to be unjustly killed, if at any stage your life becomes an inconvenience.

Here’s another good one.

So when the expectant mother feels her baby kicking and hiccuping from around 5 months, it isn’t really alive, and neither is a baby alive when you can see him or her kicking, somersaulting, stretching, yawning, swallowing on your 12 week pregnancy scans. That’s not life, no it’s just human sentimentality telling us otherwise. When a woman suffers a tragic miscarriage, she has no need to mourn, or hold a funeral because her baby was never really alive? I wonder what this organisation, which exists to support and counsel parents who have lost a baby at any stage in life would make of that?

On the contentious issue of time limits:

I can think of some pro-lifers who may sympathise with that. It’s logically coherent, either abortion is acceptable or it isn’t. If you can kill a baby, does it really matter at what stage?

I think the answer is yes, for two reasons. Firstly, we know that late-stage abortions are physically much more dangerous to the mother, which is why there is always such a rush to get women to abort at the earliest possible opportunity. Late-stage abortions are also a lot more emotionally harrowing for a woman, which any organisation that claims to care about their welfare should acknowledge. Read some of the testimony on this womens’ forum, I linked to in a previous post. Also note, that since linking to it back in November, a pro-choicer has demanded that the moderators remove said thread, due to its age and it allegedly being ‘unhelpful’ towards women thinking of late-stage abortions. Unhelpful being a euphemism for deterrent.

It’s an astounding coming from someone whose organisation purports to care about women, that time-limits which are related to the health and well-being of the mother as well as the baby, are deemed unimportant. Autonomy or choice must come before personal safety and wellbeing.

The other reason why late stage abortions are important from a pro-life point of view is that the 24 week limit means that no attempt is made to help babies who made be born prematurely before this time, such as the case of baby Jayden, who was left to die for hours, as it was against the rules to help him. Ideology must not cause us to stick our heads in the sand over this issue.

But so what if time limits are a political preoccupation? Abortion has become political ever since pro-choicers decided to politicise it back in the sixties. In a democracy politics exist to reflect the will of the people, the majority of whom are extremely uncomfortable with the notion of late-stage abortion. Does Ann Furedi deem public opinion irrelevant in the face of her own personal ideology. It doesn’t matter whether or not stomachs are churned by the idea of fully developed healthy babies being killed subject to the whims of others? People are obviously very ignorant, what matters is that babies must be able to be killed right up until the moment of their birth, if that is what an individual wants, regardless of whether or not it is in step with the views of the general public, who don’t really matter anyway. The kind of atrocities such as those committed by Kermit Gosnell, are irrelevant?

If anyone was in any doubt about the ethic of autonomy being paramount regardless of consequences, here’s a chilling example:

So it doesn’t matter if parents abort a much-wanted unborn baby because they have been poorly informed about their potential quality of life, or future prospects? It doesn’t matter if parents later find out something that had they known prior to the abortion, would have changed their mind and then have to live with the fact that they aborted an unborn baby on a false premise. The anger and sadness of grieving parents doesn’t matter, their right to be properly informed is of secondary import, what really matters is that they made a choice, even if it then turned out to be the wrong one and one that they would not repeat given similar circumstances. All that matters is that a decision is made?

Blowing all claims of impartiality and informing women of all their options out of the water, the Chief Executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Services, says this

People were screaming blue murder at Nadine Dorries’ proposed amendment which suggested that abortion clinics did not offer wholly impartial advice and offered to give pregnant women the choice of independent counselling in which all options and alternatives could be discussed. Whilst wary of adoption being offered as a panacea or first solution to a woman with a crisis pregnancy, it should at least be discussed and given equal weight as an option as abortion. It makes a complete mockery of BPAS’ name of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service – the type of advice on offer is one way.

People say pro-lifers are the extremists? Try telling that to those from 40 Days for Life in Brighton yesterday, who had a car drive past them sizing them up, and which then returned to pelt them with eggs. Or to those working at the Youth Defence office in Dublin who found the memory of Savita Halappanavar defiled when her photo was stuck to their office doors with human faeces.

Sometimes there is no need for pro-lifers to make an opposing argument. Give some people enough rope…

Vigil vigilance

Thinking about this whole vigil issue, I’ve just had a bit of crucial insight, courtesy of a friend who was also thinking out loud. Being so close, I just couldn’t see how a peaceful pro-life prayer vigil, especially one that helps women in desperate situations, could be perceived in a bad light by other pro-life groups, or how they undermine education.

The answer is all to do how with how they’ve been framed by a frantic pro-choice movement desperate to discredit and how this narrative has been picked up by a sensationalist media.

40 Days for Life are being portrayed as a weird fringe activity, dangerous Americans have been conflated with prayer vigils and then education has been chucked in, to make the whole pro-life movement appear as one threatening mess. Prayer vigils are the hinge that allow the pro-choice movement to discuss the importation of American methods and we all know that Americans kill people, American culture is innately evil and all traces of it must be stamped out lest it corrupts and ruins our society.

Groups such as Education for Choice, (who are owned by the Brook sexual health charity) are campaigning for pro-life groups such as SPUC, LIFE and the Right-to-Life trust to be kicked out of schools, claiming that children deserve to be taught about ‘individual choice in a safe environment’ and who promote ‘enabling easy non judgemental access to abortion’, have openly called for parents’ rights to remove children from sex-education lessons to be removed as they are ‘neo-Victorian’. Abortion eduction in schools needs to be vastly improved, in their considered and wholly unbiased position as consultants to abortion providers, opinion. It’s worth reading how they single out SPUC’s campaign against same-sex marriage here.

This passage from their toolkit for best practice, makes disturbing reading for anyone who may be concerned about women or young girls being coerced into abortion and should surely make anyone who would claim that abortion is a woman’s right to choose, bristle:

If a young man has or goes on to have experience of unplanned pregnancy with a partner, it is important that he knows who he can talk to and where he can go for help and support, as well as being able to signpost his partner to appropriate agencies. This is especially important when a couple are not agreed about what the outcome of a pregnancy should be, which can be a very difficult situation for a young man to face. Signposting to young men’s services is an important part of abortion education.

It’s worth looking at that toolkit in full – here’s another passage that stood out, warning schools about inviting in pro-life speakers and telling them to check the organisation’s website as an outside speaker can be lent weight and credibility by their invitation to speak:

For example, some websites promote abstinence as the only effective way of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections; understate the efficacy of condoms and hormonal contraceptives; cite emergency contraception as a form of abortion; stigmatise homosexuality; and overstate the risks of abortion, in relation to physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Without stating the blindingly obvious here, we can see what pro-life groups are up against and how they could do without the bad press of prayer vigils.

I’ve unpicked the inherent racism and ill-conceived myths about America and the pro-life movement previously. In a country which has a wholly different political demographic, not to mention very liberal gun laws, atrocities will sadly occur, as they will all over the world. It is not the vigils themselves that incur and incite violence – it is a handful of unhinged individuals who take the law into their own hands. 8 individuals in the US abortion industry have been killed since Roe v Wade in 1972. That’s 8 too many, pro-lifers abhor violence of any sort and believe all life to be sacred, (the clue is in the name), but this isn’t a case of big scary gun-toting fundamentalists regularly shooting at folk. It’s actually those who are on the vigil who regularly put themselves in the line of fire, being shot at and fire-bombed in some cases, by those from within the abortion clinic. Just as the LGBT lobby distanced themselves from and condemned the individual who shot at a worker at the Family Research Centre last year, pro-lifers equally condemn any who defile their cause by the use of senseless violence.

That prayers and vigils are an important part of pro-life work goes without saying. They matter profoundly and we should not have a situation where one part of a cause undermines another – this should not be an either/or and one of the strengths of 40 days for life is that it has managed to unite many of the different sections within the pro-life movement and bring together Christians of all denominations.

I can well understand the antipathy, but we have to bear in mind, this is not purely a political or educational effort, there is a spiritual dimension and this highlights one of the downsides of a purely secular pro-life group, who wish to distance themselves from the publicly praying weirdos.

I think what those of us on vigils have to do and keep on doing, is what we’ve always done, just quietly and continually pray and know that our witness will eventually shine through. The lies and the conflations of the abortion industry can easily be disproved, BPAS or Marie Stopes have admitted that there is no need to provide clinic escorts, they know full well no harassment, let alone violence takes place, they have cameras constantly trained upon those on the vigils and there have been no arrests or requests to move on and neither do volunteers engage with or respond to any insults or abuse. Neither do they hold up any judgemental or inflammatory slogans or material – there is simply a verse from scripture and a sign which states ‘we are here to help’. If women entering clinics feel bad, it is because their own conscience has been pricked or because they cannot cope with a physical manifestation that not everyone is prepared to validate abortion, as opposed to anything that the volunteers may say or do.

If 40 days for Life are being portrayed as a bizarre fringe movement, the absence of Catholics only serves to reinforce the image and allows the pro-choice movement to dictate the frame. If however, they prove by their witness, actions and lives that they save, that the only threat vigils pose is to the abortion clinics’ balance sheet, the general public will begin to see behind the lies.

I understand the concern, the vigils are being used as a hook on which pro-choice groups are seeking to get pro-lifers out of education, as theirs is the only voice to be tolerated, but this attack upon freedom of religion and attempt at one-sided indoctrination in which abortion is presented as a preferable option in some situations and at worst as morally neutral, must be resisted on the strongest possible terms and shown up for its inherent and ironic illiberality. Prayer vigils should have nothing to do with whether or not children ought to be given a wholly one-sided and relativistic view of sexual morality and neither should they be banished from our streets due to a misconceived fear of US style ‘culture wars’. The UK is not the US and culture wars feed upon an atmosphere of intolerance. The UK is thankfully a largely tolerant country without the same divisions as exist in the US. The issue of abortion is not split so evenly along political lines and 40 Days for Life is not a political protest or one that seeks to denounce women or those with a pro-choice mentality.

The only ‘war’ here is the cultures of life versus death and we should not allow fear to drive prayer out of the public square. The battle for education goes way beyond the activities of those praying for an end to abortion outside a clinic.

Pro-lifers are the real progressives

Today’s political discourse could have been lifted straight out of the pages of Animal Farm: progressive good, reactionary/conservative bad. Generally speaking whether one’s political sympathies lie to the left or right, all mainstream politicians are jostling to claim the ‘progressive’ mantle, whether it be David Cameron with his push for gay marriage or Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ Labour party.

Like most political tribalism, this label is a simplistic one and it certainly looks as though the scales are finally beginning to fall from the eyes of former metro-libs, with even the very pro-abortion Diane Abbot MP decrying the hyper-sexualisation of today’s society. Not all social change or progress furthers the interests of the common good, whether that be the excesses wrought by the sexual revolution (of which the pedophile scandals of the sixties and seventies is a fruit), or the closing down of the industrial areas of the north with no replacement, by Margaret Thatcher. Progress for its own sake does not constitute a good. The majority of the UK population could be placed in the ‘reactionary’ category in at least one area of our views.

Watching some of the media coverage of today’s tragic fortieth anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision in which the US Supreme Court legalised abortion , it struck me that far from flying the vaunted ‘progressive’ flag, it is actually the pro-choicers who are the reactionaries here. They aren’t fighting for any social change, other than to retain the same old status quo that has been in place for the last forty years, one that has resulted in approximately 54 million US abortions, or missing children since 1973.

Perhaps that’s why, as Time magazine pointed out in its January edition, pro-choicers are losing the battle and pro-lifers are hopeful. Faced with an army of young grassroots pro-life activists, Nancy Keenan head of Pro-Choice America has resigned, stating that in order to successfully defend America’a abortion rules the movement needs to emulate the pro-life youth. The tactics of the pro-choice movement in the UK are certainly looking in need of a re-vamp, reverting to the same tired modus operandi of turning up to scream abuse, chant the same old stale slogans and wave the same placards every time they get an inkling that a group of pro-lifers might be getting together. As opposed to any sort of positive action that might actually help women and give them that Holy Grail of ‘choice’, all they can do is turn up like a bunch of rabid old reactionaries, resistant to any positive action that might actually help women chose to be mothers.

The treatment of @londonistar, who has recently set up the Marie Copes blog for victims of abortion to anonymously tell their tale in a safe, non-judgemental space, best exemplifies the attitude. Having discovered that her unborn child had Downs Syndrome and having been given an extremely negative outlook by the doctors, her and her husband took what was an extremely painful decision to abort a much wanted child. Her experience was utterly horrific from start to finish – she was let down by the medical profession who gave her a very limited and one-sided view of the condition and prediction of the quality of life of her child, leaving her with what she felt at the time, no other option. The procedure itself was botched, the nursing ‘care’ was brutal, leaving her in agony, needing reparative surgery, facing infertility and an unacknowledged need to grieve. The pro-choicers and feminists reacted in anger when she told them her story; instead of being outraged at her presented lack of choice and campaigning for better information for pregnant women with difficult diagnoses or even a better standard of care from the abortion clinics, they simply raged at her for having related her experience and daring to feel any grief. It was the pro-lifers, those whom one would expect to be judgemental and angry who reached out to her in a spirit of compassion and love, not only for her in her grief, but also so that they could better understand and learn from the needs and emotions of a woman faced with an agonising dilemma, whereas to use her words, the pro-choice feminists treated her like a ‘political pawn’.

Far from being solely concerned about the cute little baby, pro-lifers are intuitively concerned with the woman, the mother and her needs and rights, which is why at the Vigil for Life which took place in Dublin’s Merrion Square on Sunday and attended by 25,000 people, the crowd was awash with banners stating “Love them both. Abortion kills one, hurts another” together with a picture of a mother and her baby. It isn’t pro-lifers propagating the culture wars, pro-lifers are successfully engaging with women, with appeals to those attending America’s March for Life taking place this weekend, to avoid using graphic images in order not to distress vulnerable and post-abortive women. Equally at the 40 days for life prayer vigils, it isn’t the volunteers quietly and peacefully praying for those inside the clinic and offering help, who are upping the emotional ante, rather the vociferous, angry pro-choice opposition.

But this isn’t simply about the words. Pro-lifers are also attempting to progress women’s rights in a way that leaves the traditional militant feminists way behind. Feminism tends to treat children as an encumbrance or a burden to equality and seeks to circumvent them, in order that women may be seen to compete on an equal footing with men. A pro-life feminism embraces motherhood and child-rearing as being an authentic part of a woman’s femininity and actively campaigns for solutions which means that a child is no longer an obstacle to an education or to a woman being able to be financially self-supportive. That’s not to say that an authentic feminism rejects men as unimportant or irrelevant in the process of child-rearing, but accepts that in today’s increasingly feckless society, women are often faced with no other choice than to raise a child alone.Feminists for Life is a good example of how pro-lifers in America are reaching out to college students.

In the UK, the Alliance of Pro-life students has, in a short period of time, made enormous progress. Speaking last week at the launch, Eve Farron, their 22 year old leader, talked of how they have made common cause with feminist groups on campus, forcing them to address the lamentable lack of provision for pregnant students and working together to ensure that college students really do have a choice if faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

She described how young freshers are handed a welcome pack consisting of a free pizza voucher on one side with an advert for Marie Stopes at the back. That was certainly the case for me when I started at the University of Sussex recently. We were given a compulsory talk by the ironically named Student Life Centre who made it clear that there was an abundance of sexual health-care services, including abortion on offer. When I went to them to ask for help in terms of essay deadline extensions, being 9 weeks pregnant with three existing children and incredibly sick, they were not exactly forthcoming, neither were the faculty staff. The baby was due in the summer holidays and when I asked whether or not I would be able to bring her to lectures and seminars, as the creche would not take babies under 6 months, and breastfeed, obviously taking her out if she caused a disturbance, the answer was a resounding no. I could not quite believe how a university, that prides itself on its diversity, that strives to teach everything through a prism of feminism, gender and queer theory, could be quite so obstructive. Furthermore, the creche was scheduled to close, due to cuts and not being cost-effective, before finally being out-sourced to a private provider after a huge outcry. When I approached the student body for help, I was told it probably wouldn’t be worth pursuing the matter, it would get me a bad name, the best thing to do was defer, and of course, be liable for the new higher tuition fees. Had I not been of a strong Catholic and pro-life persuasion, I could well see how having an abortion would have seemed the only feasible choice in that situation and where were the feminists then? Any advocacy was totally non-existent.

I digress, but it goes to show that by contrast to shouting catchy slogans, the pro-lifers are actively working for social change, not only by convincing people with the overwhelming scientific evidence and intellectually rigorous arguments but also by their deeds and actions, whether that be the peaceful, non-confrontational outreach on the streets to women in need, advocacy for students and young people, or working for political solutions and social change. Pro-lifers also seek to advance the rights and cause of the disabled, recognising that every life is of equal dignity and worth and that the two causes are immutably entwined.

Pro-lifers don’t want to turn back the clock to a time when abortion was illegal, they want to strive for a society where abortion is unthinkable and unnecessary. Pro-lifers want a society where women can have children at an early age and yet still be educated and professionally successful, we want a society where fathers are held accountable for their children and not let off the hook by abortion. We want women to contribute to society, through child bearing and also through professional employment, if that is their choice. We want an authentic feminism that allows women to fulfil their natural vocation as mothers, not one that makes work and child rearing mutually exclusive, which is what current strands of feminism and pro-choice rhetoric seek to reinforce. The most exciting thing about this – it is being led by women themselves!

Pro-lifers are the real progressives, working for true social change, one that supports and upholds the dignity of women whilst protecting the right to life of all our unborn children. We recognise that for a society to be welcoming of life, a myriad of complex social problems need to be solved, not least that abortion disproportionately affects the poorest and are working for a better society for all, instead of banging a single issue drum. Whereas the pro-choicers are clinging to their outdated mantras of the seventies, fretting over fripperies such as gender appropriate lego and squabbling over internal victim hierarchies, pro-lifers are solidly working for a radical solution so that no unborn child ever need to be killed in utero again.

This is why the pro-life movement should wave its progressive credentials with pride.

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