Guidelines for a pro-life agenda for Europe in the coming years
John Smeaton, National Director, Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (UK)
4th Pro-life World Congress, Saragossa, Spain, 6th - 8th November 2009
On behalf of the British pro-life movement, I congratulate the Spanish pro-life movement, and I congratulate the Spanish bishops, for your magnificent united defence of the sanctity of human life from conception, for your magnificent united defence of marriage as the lifelong union between a man and a woman, and for your magnificent united defence of parents as the primary educators of their children.
I recall that prior to your general election last year, Spain's Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, attacked your cardinals and bishops for speaking out in defence of the sanctity of human life. A statement from the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, led by Mr Zapatero, accused the Spanish Catholic Church of straying [quote] "from the fundamentals of democracy" [quote] saying: [quote] " ... in a regime based on freedoms, faith cannot be enforced by law" [unquote].
Britain's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, used a similar tactic last year when he wrote to Members of Parliament in support of legislative proposals to permit the creation of interspecies embryos (human-animal embryos) for experiments, and various other abuses of human embryos in vitro - referring in his letter five times to the "religious" objections of those who oppose destructive human embryo research.
Mr Zapatero and Mr Brown are using their powerful positions, as prime ministers of their countries, with privileged access to the mass media, to promote the lie that the defence of the sanctity and inviolability of every human life can only be based upon religious belief and that those who speak out in defence of laws which protect the sanctity of human life are seeking to impose their religious beliefs on society.
In fact the reality is very different. The pro-life movement is not seeking to impose religious beliefs on the rest of the world. On the contrary, the pro-life movement represents humanity's consensus on the right to life. Those who oppose abortion and other anti-life practices are seeking to uphold solemn international human rights agreements. They are seeking to uphold, for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which celebrated last December its 60th anniversary. If you go to the United Nations's website for the 60th anniversary, at the top of the home page you will see the following words from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, [quote] "The [60th anniversary] campaign reminds us that in a world still reeling from the horrors of the Second World War, the Declaration was the first global statement of what we now take for granted -- the inherent dignity and equality of all human beings" [unquote].
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR) recognizes the primacy of the right to life. The Preamble together with Article 3 makes it clear that the right to life is equal and inalienable and extends to [quote] "all members of the human family" [unquote] a point to which I will return later. Article 6 specifically deals with the issue of persons by stating that [quote] "Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law" [unquote]. Article 2 asserts [quote] "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property birth or other status" [unquote] - which scholars tell us is a list which was intended to be exhaustive, so that never again, after the horrors of the 2nd World War, could human beings be treated as non-persons, forcibly deprived by governments of human rights.
To dispel all doubt about the status of the unborn child in international human rights agreements, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child reiterates the right to life expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, the Preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states [quote] "childhood is entitled to special protection and care" [unquote] and [quote] "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth" [unquote]. This injunction is one of the strongest in human rights statements regarding the requirement to protect life in the womb. In addition, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely and rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history, ratified by nations representing populations of all faiths and none. Humanity's consensus, reflected in these and other human rights agreements, crosses all boundaries of race and religion.
Turning to the family, to marriage, and to parents as the primary educators of their children, I want to thank the Spanish pro-life movement on behalf of the British pro-life movement for your great public battle against the government's plans to legalize access to abortion for your children without parental knowledge or consent.
For many years in Britain, our government has been pursuing a policy of providing access to abortion and birth control drugs and devices for children under the age of sixteen without parental knowledge or consent. Later this month, the British government is introducing legislation designed to extend such access to abortion for children to every state school in the country. Please pray for us and we will pray for you and for the magnificent witness of your Catholic hierarchy, defending parents' rights, in your country.
I would like to quote from an important talk, given in Qatar, by the distinguished US attorney and bioethicist, William L. Saunders Jnr, entitled "Human Rights, the Family and the Education of Children".
Mr Saunders writes: [Quote] "Article 16 [of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights] declares: 'The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.' Thus, article 16 recognizes the common sense fact, sometimes overlooked by governments and international organizations, that the family exists prior to the state, is the foundation of the state, and that the state is obligated to protect it."
Mr Saunders continues: [quote] "Article 16 goes further. It recognizes the right of a man and woman to marry and found a family. In other words, it recognizes that the family is founded ... upon marriage. We can all be thankful the Declaration recognized these fundamental truths." [unquote]
Listen carefully to William Saunders's explanation of how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights upholds parents as the primary educators of their children. He says: [quote] "Echoing the approach of article 16 [of the Declaration], article 26(3) recognizes that parents are the primary educators of their children. 'Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children' [the article states]. As article 16 recognized the priority to the state of the family founded upon marriage, article 26 recognizes the priority of the wishes of parents regarding the education of their own children over any designs of the state. Remember, per article 16, the State is obligated to protect the family. If the State presumes to usurp the rights of parents to choose the education of their own children, it damages the family, violates its own obligations, and undermines the foundation of a just society and State." [unquote]
William Saunders underlines the historical significance of the Universal Declaration's insistence on parents as the primary educators of their children by citing Mary Ann Glendon, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, former US ambassador to the Holy See, and President of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences. In her authoritative book on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights A World Made New Mary Ann Glendon writes:
[quote] "In the article on education [26]...[the drafting committee for the Declaration] made an important change, influenced directly by recollections of the National Socialist regime's efforts to turn Germany's renowned educational system into a mechanism for indoctrinating the young with the government's program.... [A]fter Beaufort of the Netherlands recalled the ways in which German schools had been used to undermine the role of parents, a third paragraph was added: 'Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.'" [unquote]
"In other words" William Saunders comments [quote] "one of the most important lessons drawn by the framers of the Declaration from the experience of the Second World War was that parental choice in education is a fundamental plank of international peace and security" [unquote].
Tragically, over 60 years on from the Universal Declaration and the Second World War, it seems that lesson has not been learned, not least in Europe, and not least by Mr Zapatero and your government here in Spain.
Europe is under intense attack and the Spanish pro-life movement and Catholic Church leaders must be in the front line of resistance. This is World War Three and it's primarily a war on the unborn and on parents as the primary educators of their children.
In Paris next Friday, 13th November, Mrs Christine McCafferty, a veteran anti-life British Member of Parliament, is resurrecting her radical pro-abortion report seeking to promote abortion on demand, including abortion for children under the age of consent, throughout the 46 countries of the Council of Europe. Mrs McCafferty is chairman of the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Mrs McCafferty's report argues that young people in their "reproductive years" need to have confidential access to abortion and birth control drugs and devices, and it states: [quote] "A range of family planning, including emergency contraceptives, safe abortion, skilled birth attendants and obstetric emergency care, must be accessible, affordable, appropriate and acceptable to all, irrespective of age, community or country" [unquote].
It's important that everyone at this pro-life congress emails the committee-members meeting in Paris to urge them to support pro-life amendments to Mrs McCafferty's pro-abortion report, and to vote against the report as a whole if the committee rejects the amendments. The title of the report is "Fifteen years since the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action". Please let me have your email address and I will send you a link to the superb briefing on Mrs McCafferty's report prepared by the European Centre for Law and Justice, based in Strasbourg.
There is in fact a worldwide attack on unborn children, on marriage and the family, and on parents as the primary educators of their children. It's being led by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the world's largest abortion-promoting agency, which has its headquarters in London. This attack is also promoted by the pro-abortion lobby in the European institutions, including the European Commission which is the world's largest multilateral donor to International Planned Parenthood Federation. This attack on the unborn and on families is also supported by leading international pro-abortion figures such as Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, who is clearly exploiting his entry into the Catholic Church in order to undermine Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life, on marriage and on human sexuality, together with his wife Cherie Blair, who is also a Catholic; and by US President Barack Obama's administration.
To begin with President Obama: In a recent speech, Wellington Webb, appointed by Barack Obama as special adviser to the US mission to the United Nations, confirmed that the Obama administration will be promoting legalised abortion throughout the world, targeting adolescents in a worldwide abortion drive. The ambassador was speaking at the UN's 15th anniversary commemoration of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). His speech expressly committed the US government to promoting [quote] "access to reproductive health commodities and services for adolescents" [unquote] and he stated [quote] "President Obama, Secretary Clinton and Ambassador Rice have all underscored the strong support of the United States for human rights, women's rights and reproductive rights as well as universal access to reproductive health and family planning". [unquote]
Hillary Clinton, Obama's appointee as US Secretary of State, has made it clear that when her government speaks of reproductive health, it's a term which includes access to abortion.
We must understand that it's the intention of the Obama administration not to allow health professionals' conscientious objection to abortion to get in the way. "Universal access" to "reproductive health", to which the Obama government declares itself to be committed, cannot be "universal" if troublesome pro-life health professionals object in conscience to participating in abortion cases or referring them to colleagues.
Actions speak louder than words - especially for Barack Obama on abortion. In his infamous speech at Notre Dame University , he declared: [quote] "Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause" [unquote]. In his 9 September address to Congress on health care reform legislation that he promised that "federal conscience laws would remain in place". He has, in fact, taken action to reverse a regulation that allows health care providers the right to refuse to perform services to which they object. What Barack Obama does today, pro-abortion politicians in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, and throughout the world will seek to do tomorrow.
Sadly, the situation is made even worse by church leaders who appear to have imbibed the spirit of the age. I want to say a few words about the Catholic Church and about our battle for the sanctity of human life, for the family, and for parents as the primary educators of their children, and I will start with the Catholic Church in England and Wales, which is my part of the world. I do so because, whilst the pro-life movement is a human rights movement, of all faiths and none, which represents humanity's consensus on the right to life, I do not believe the pro-life movement can win this battle on its own. It needs the support of people of faith throughout the world, Muslims, Christians, and, in particular, the Catholic Church, with its unequivocal teaching on the sanctity and inviolability of every human life, as well as its wealth of teaching on marriage and the family.
While the teaching of the Catholic Church is that there is a congruence between faith and reason on matters such as homosexual adoption, Catholic church leaders in England and Wales are prepared to refer homosexual couples to other adoption agencies - thus putting children at serious risk. The argument that homosexual adoption is wrong per se and must be actively resisted by everyone is not put at all. It is left to secular, lay movements to seek to present the bioethical arguments in support of life, marriage and the family, but without strong Christian leadership such movements are all too easily branded as extremist.
Christian leaders in Britain in recent years have lamented the state of religion, as witnessed in low church attendance. Whatever causes such low attendance, the situation is worsened by the lack of clear teaching on culture-of-life issues by Christian leaders. Pope John Paul II insisted in Evangelium Vitae that Catholics and all people of good will must resist abortion by conscientious objection[1]. Tragically, in Britain, induced abortion and birth control drugs and devices are provided to children at school, including Catholic schools, under the age of 16 without parental knowledge or consent. This is happening with the co-operation of the Catholic authorities.
Britain is witnessing the fulfilment of the prophetic message of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's historic encyclical which celebrated its 40th anniversary last year. Speaking about the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative aspects of sexual intercourse he wrote: "Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone."[2]
Moreover, as Pope John Paul II points out in Evangelium Vitae, there is a close interconnection between contraception and abortion.[3] According to the manufacturers, one of the contraceptive pill's modes of action is to cause an early abortion.
A teacher at a Catholic comprehensive school for boys and girls in Kent, England, spoke out recently about the sex education given to her class of 13- to 14-year-old children. The teacher, a Miss McLernon, said: [quote]"I think people should be aware of what is going on in schools. I witnessed the nurse using a plastic model to show these children how to put on what she said was a chocolate flavoured condom." [unquote] She went to on to explain to her pupils that flavoured condoms had been made because prostitutes didn't like the taste of rubber.