Responding to criticisms of 40 days For Life. Part One.

So here it is, as promised in my previous post, and slightly redacted here and there to remove personal details and irrelevant verbiage, my pro life apologia. Part one:

Dear A
I understand your concerns about the possible intimidation of women who are already in an enormously stressful situation. I would be horrified too if I thought that some of the reported accounts of what happens at 40 Days For Life were accurate. However I think it is a shame you didn't feel able to discuss this with me first, if only to give me an opportunity to explain a little more..


I think there is much about this issue and my involvement with it that you misunderstand. I try to keep in mind that people who hold contrary positions to my own usually do so out of the best of intentions. Often we want the same thing, but our vision for how to achieve that may differ considerably.


I too am greatly concerned about the rights of women, but I believe the rhetoric of choice, applied to abortion, is deeply misleading. Abortion hurts more women than it helps.


A woman doesn't 'choose' abortion like she chooses a home, a husband or a career. She chooses it like a trapped animal chooses to gnaw off its own leg to get away. This is the choice that confronts many women who choose abortion. For them, to choose abortion is to exercise a 'non choice'. They choose abortion precisely because they feel they have 'no choice'. Many of them are under enormous pressure from family, often a mother or a boyfriend to abort. They are told that unless they abort, they will get no support. Alone and abandoned they feel that they have no other option available to them.


For these women, an encounter with a pro lifer is often the first time they have encountered someone who has responded to their pregnancy as something other than an insuperable disaster. They are offered whatever help and support they feel they need, practical, financial and emotional. And that help is ongoing for as long as they feel they need it. Sometimes this will be many years. This is something that BPAS and Marie Stopes cannot offer. The only "help" on offer from such places is an abortion.


The decision to seek an abortion is not a straightforward one of choice. Many of the women helped by pro lifers are those who fall through the cracks of society. Some of these women are illegals, working in the black economy, with no access to benefits of any kind. Some are foreign students who have invested everything in the opportunity to study here and are without family or friend support of any kind. They can get an abortion free on the NHS but must pay for any obstetric care they receive. Where is the "choice" for women like these? For them, the idea of 'choice' is mere empty rhetoric, because they simply have none. There are many women such as these, who have been supported to keep their babies who would otherwise have aborted because they felt that they had no other choice.


A couple of months ago, one Sunday during an aggressive pro choice 'counter protest' outside the clinic, a middle aged woman got out of a car and approached a friend of mine wanting to know what was going on. When my friend explained about the vigil she became very emotional. She said that March was a very difficult time of year for her. More than 20 years previously, she had had an abortion and was still carrying the pain of that experience. She tearfully hugged my friend and said " I wish you had been there for me all those years ago, because no one was there for me then. I was all alone" This is a story we hear many, many times.


Many of the people involved in pro life work are themselves post abortive and have found healing in helping other women in crisis pregnancies, and also in helping other post abortive women who are struggling to come to terms with their experiences. Shattered by the pain of abortion, many of these women have become the most eloquent and impassioned defenders of everyone's right to life.


Having experienced a pregnancy full of panic, depression and feelings of being unable to cope, and having been helped through that by the unending kindness and patience of people like your sister D, whose goodness to me I will never forget, my heart is torn to pieces when i think about those women who find themselves alone, unsupported and afraid. And having subsequently lost one of the babies I so noisily complained about, I quail to imagine the depths of anguish that such women feel when their immediate crisis passes and they look back on what they have lost. This is how my pro life consciousness became activated. I suddenly saw that this was an issue of NON choice for many women. And that many, many women are silently carrying the unspeakable pain of abortion.


At least a woman who has had a stillbirth or a miscarriage feels that sympathy for her loss may be legitimately sought and received. The woman who has ended her own pregnancy is often left carrying the can for "her choice". This makes her suffering all the more ferocious.


The media has massively twisted what happens at 40 Days For Life. They have tried to present it as an American style 'protest' which it isn't at all. At all vigils there is a sign displayed prominently saying "we are here to help". And the help that is on offer is real, as many women will attest. No-one is judging, condemning or bullying but trying to offer a lifeline.


It is grotesquely wrong and unfair to conflate peaceful pro life outreach with the murder of abortionists. All pro lifers are appalled by violence, because we believe that all human life is worthy of our respect and protection. A few lone crazies do not represent any organisation or movement. It would be equally wrong to tar all peaceful Muslims with the 9/11 brush, or all atheists with the murderous purges of Stalin, Pol Pot or the French Revolution.


I don't want to see a return to "back street abortions", I am far more ambitious than that. I want a society where no woman ever feels she has "no choice" but to abort her unborn child. I want to promote a new way of looking at life. Abortion hurts women.


Despite the euphemistic language that surrounds it, everyone knows that abortion involves the ending of a human life, and that is why you quite rightly say that the decision to abort is "one of the most difficult and heartbreaking" that anyone is ever likely to face. 
It is always wrong, in my opinion, to kill a living human being. That is not to deny that some women face the most horrendous circumstances. They do. And there are no tidy solutions to some of life's grimmest problems. But far harder I think, to walk with a woman in difficult circumstances, and try to share some of her burden.


I don't feel the shame that you say is rightfully mine. I dont feel ashamed because I am so convinced of the inestimable value of every human life, and of our obligation to defend the weakest and most vulnerable members of our human society. This is a matter of conscience for me and although I am sad to lose your good opinion of me, it would be sadder by far for me to silence my conscience in this, or any other respect, in order to secure the esteem of friends.


All this said, I know that you are a wonderful person and that you see this issue in a very different light. I may not be able to convince you of my own good intentions, and I almost certainly will not be able to convince you to see things from my vantage point, but I hope that you will be able to find a way to accommodate, if not exactly celebrate, my 'diversity' in this respect.

let the pro lifer be unto you as a heathen and a tax collector.

So. My book club of more than 10 years standing has ground to a sudden, juddering halt.

One minute we were rolling down the literary highway,  the next we were standing on the hard shoulder.

It was like having a blowout on the motorway.

I got an admonishing email from a book club buddy..

A VERY admonishing email. The kind that ends with a final deprecating "Shame on you"

Seems I've been rumbled. 

My involvement with 40 Days For Life would appear to be in the same category, pariah wise, as belonging to the BNP.

So my liberal minded book buddy had little option she felt, but  to call me out on my "behaviour". 

After all, as she put it, if I was a racist she would have a moral obligation to call me out on that too.  To remain silent she said, would  make her feel "complicit" in my actions, actions which in truth, she explained, horrified her.

Such is the heavy moral obligation incumbent on the right minded liberal thinker these days.

Liberal totalitarianism is a tough job, but someone has to do it.

So the email listed all the ways in which my "behaviour" represented such an affront that the book club really couldn't continue without addressing the issue and helping me see the magnitude of my error. And ultimately it seems,  my recanting.

The principal concerns were these:

That my presence outside the clinic is tantamount to bullying women who are at their lowest ebb,  facing "the most difficult and heartbreaking decision that anyone is ever likely to make"

That the right to safe and legal abortion worldwide is paramount, and that I, and 40 Days For Life,  put this hard fought right at risk.

That I open up the country to "more extreme elements", and increase the likelihood of violence such as the shooting of abortionists.

That I terrify women, making it more likely that they will "take matters into their own hands".  Her principal concern was, she said, above all for the safety of these women.

That for all the babies lives saved by 40 Days For Life , there are many others "damaged, destroyed and cut short" by their campaigns.

I won't go into all the too'ing and fro'ing, but suffice to say that it stirred up a hornets nest.

The next book club was slated as an air clearing session.

'Out' being better than 'in' after all. 

To be honest though, I didn't feel terribly enthusiastic about providing myself as a target for anyone to dump their disapproval on.

It's hard to enjoy the nibbles and Sauv Blanc when you feel like a counter revolutionary in a Maoist struggle session.

But along I went nonetheless, to face the music.

Oh, anyway, I don't think I have the heart to hash it all out here, but the long and the short is that the book club would now appear to be at an end. 

Having attended the 'air clearing' it wasn't quite the Star Chamber experience I was expecting. They didn't tar and feather me.

It was rather polite. And heartbreaking actually.

These are my friends of many years standing.

I'd been told that everyone was in agreement, but  in fact two or three of the book clubbers said they were on the fence on the issue and just wanted the club to continue regardless.

Having already sent two emails responding in detail to most of the indictments, I said very little. I felt I'd already said most of what needed to be said.
I felt that for me, the most significant question was whether I could continue enjoying the book club, and their company, despite feeling so 'disapproved of'.  Oddly perhaps, I felt I could. I wasn't expecting approval anyway.
And this seemed like one of those 'potential' moments, when the "tolerance in diversity" rubber really hits the hard road. I wanted to hang in there.
But the most significant questions was theirs.
Could they 'bear' me?

Well, at the heels of the hunt, the book club came to an impasse. Three of the book clubbers resigned. They felt that what had happened had made the book club itself untenable for them. 
And no one else has the heart to carry on.  

Having poured out my heart about the pro life issue in two emails, in which I answer the charges which were put to me, it occurs to me that it might be worth leaving the relevant parts of  my  responses here on my blog. In part because I know that my book club are not the only ones among my friends who are mystified or even angry or repulsed by my pro life activities. Some of them read my blog, others may stumble across it.

So I'm planning to post  my responses to the main criticisms shortly . Just for the record, so to speak.

More on this to follow.

Spin, Lies and Videotape: 40 Days For Life

On Monday 12th March, a man with a video camera came to Bedford Square, apparently to interview the people on vigil there with 40 Days For Life. There have been reports that he turned the camera around and fimed the clinic, or that he was filming a 40 DFL person with the clinic behind her, which have morphed into reports of him filming women, "sticking his camera in women's faces" etc.
Given the nature of what is happening there, and the attention that 40 DFL is getting- especially among 'pro choicers' for whom the good behaviour of those involved poses an interesting problem - those on the vigil are under intense scrutiny for anything with which the opposition could make hay.

Filming around the square, especially if done by someone apparently simpatico to the pro life cause, was always going to be potentially incendiary.
I don't know whether the camera was only trained on those who were being interviewed, or whether it swung around to take in the Square, including the clinic itself.  I cannot believe that anyone would be so enormously crass as to purposefully "film the women going in and out", as has been alleged.  Certainly that remains an allegation with no actual factual support. But no matter, this is what has been reported in the press, for as we know, a lie can travel twice around the world before the truth has got its boots on.
Nonetheless, even the possibility of such filming is naturally terribly upsetting and invasive for any woman visiting the clinic and for that reason, best avoided altogether in my opinion.
What we have seen is the pro choice lobby quickly taking full advantage of this incident and spinning it into a narrative in which 40 Days For Life themselves were filming women going in and out for the purpose of intimidating them.
A reporter from the BBC Today programme visited the square and asked about reports that women were "encircled and shouted at", a scenario SO depressingly spurious that it was plain, to me that there was some mischievous misrepresentation of the actuality going on.
During some ensuing Twitter conversations with the concerned and the outraged ,  I have put it to them that the cameraman was not himself part of the vigil, and that he was just  filming those who were.
How much authority, I wondered, are those who attend the vigil expected to have over other people who turn up and film in the Square?
A couple of days after this incident I was in the Square and a man from Reuters was spending lots of time taking pictures with his great big conspicuous Press camera. He wouldn't give his name and told me he didn't need anyone's permission and could take pictures whether we liked it or not.
The day before this ( a day after the filming brouhaha had broke) Sunny Hundal of the blog Liberal Conspiracy, visited the Square to interview people on the vigil.
He called his post "Anti Abortion Preachers Caught On Film"
Ironically, it might have been called "The Hypocrisy and Conceit of So Called Pro Choicers Caught On Film"
Take a look at the video. Watch where the camera goes at about 1.17 minutes in:



See that? It pans right around and films the clinic entrance itself.
The very thing 40 Days for Life are accused of doing.
Or at least accused of not stopping.
So I suppose they were doubly guilty for not also stopping Sunny himself?

Sunny is mostly the one holding the camera.
But then an interesting conversation developed. This time, not about the alleged filming of women, but about the accuracy of the fetal models which were kept in a small black box..
Most of the talking is done by a woman who identifies herself as Heather Wallace. She presents herself to them as being an expert in fetal development and someone who knows what she is talking about when she critiques the accuracy of the fetal models. Models which by the way, were  positioned with those praying on the other side of the road to the clinic.
The two men who she is talking to say little, and don't take much issue with her repeated insistence that "it doesn't look like that!" as she fingers a model of an eight week fetus.
In fairness to them, they have turned up to pray, and haven't made any claims of expertise for themselves in the area of embryology.
 Likely they were also mindful of the 40 DFL statement of peace and unwilling to be drawn into an argument.

 I sensed that her lexicon was not typical of a specialist and that she was likely to be pretty much bluffing about the extent of her knowledge in this area. I guessed that she was someone with probably enough tangential experience to give her the confidence to challenge, on the assumption that the men she was talking to probably wouldn't know any better.
 Besides, I believe an 8 week embryo does pretty well "look like that".
I left a question on Sunny's blog asking where Heather got her information from and what then, she thinks the 8 week embryo does look like.
Turns out she works in medical publishing.
And she never did come back to say what she thinks the eight week embryo looks like.
So in the interests of clarity and accuracy, I thought I'd post pictures of the model in question and show you detailed colour pictures of an embryo of the same gestation.
You can judge for yourselves whether or not you think  "it doesn't look like that!"
Here are some photos of the actual model Heather objected to:

Here are some photos of actual embryos of 8 weeks gestation:

Here is a fetus at 7 weeks and 4 days:

Link

And here is one at 9 weeks:

Link

This is a very good quality video of an ultrasound at 9 wks 2 days.


And finally, at 10 weeks gestation, still in the intact amnion, held in a gloved hand.

"Beneficence towards the fetus"

I have been away from my blog on account of being mired in a lengthy discussion online about abortion.
One commenter argues that the fetus is a 'proto human' whose sole worth is in the eyes of parents as the "potential person" it will become. It has no intrinsic worth of it's own.

Because the conversation has had many twists and turns I didn't want to get too bogged down with the question of fetal pain, since, although horrendous this is not the crucial "wrong" of abortion.
Nonetheless, this commenter challenged me further on a reference I had made to the fetal awareness in utero.
I think it is safe to assume that abortion, for the sensate fetus, is a horrendous death.
He disagrees.
He linked to this paper here:
Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multidisciplinary Review of the Evidence
The conclusion of the report is as follows:

 "Evidence regarding the capacity for fetal pain is limited but indicates
that fetal perception of pain is unlikely before the third trimester. Little or no evidence
addresses the effectiveness of direct fetal anesthetic or analgesic techniques. Similarly,
limited or no data exist on the safety of such techniques for pregnant women in
the context of abortion. Anesthetic techniques currently used during fetal surgery are
not directly applicable to abortion procedures".

I was struck when reading the report that the language is ambivalent. Phrases like "pain is unlikely", "little or no evidence", "little or no data" are not the language of certainty.
And yet my interlocutor is confident that this report supports his contention that fetal pain is impossible.
If we were talking about any other human being than the unwanted unborn, wouldn't we be giving them the benefit of the doubt?
Wouldn't we be horrified at the merest possibility that any surgical procedure carried out on a born  fetus would cause them to feel pain?
This is how I responded to him:

The report you link to, which was put together in response to moves to legislate requiring physicians
to inform women seeking abortions that the fetus feels pain and to offer fetal anesthesia.

Small wonder that those same doctors with blood on their hands, whose work consists of dismembering the unborn, have chafed at the idea .

The report you link to is littered with caveats like "unlikely" or "possibly" or "little evidence as yet".,
Strange don't you think, that where the wanted get the benefit of the doubt, the unwanted get none.

I thought this passage very telling:

"...Instead, beneficence toward
the fetus represents the chief justification
for using fetal anesthesia or
analgesia during abortion—to relieve
suffering if fetal pain exists."

In the absence of crucial "beneficence" we can sweep away all doubt.

The baby who is not wanted can die and die violently.

The baby to whom we feel is owed  beneficence however, will get the benefit of the doubt regarding it's experience of pain.

This is why I stand in solidarity with the weakest members of our human family, against whom all,
from their parents and grandparents, to the medical establishment to the legal system, have shut their doors.

There is no "BENEFICENCE" toward them.

 Honor and Marie-Aibhlinn on the steps of the BPAS abortuary

40 Days For Life: An inspiring talk

This is so encouraging.
Shawn Carney and David Bereit speaking at Helena, Montana:



                 

HT Discover Happiness

40 Days For Life. A timely and powerful testimony.

Yesterday morning I recieved this months CD of the month from Lighthouse Media.
It is the incredible testimony of Dr Bernard Nathanson, the abortionist turned passionate pro life activist who died earlier this year, May the Lord have mercy on him.
He gives an eloquent and dignified account of his  life, his Jewishness, the hardship and poverty endured by his grandparents and his father, his fathers subsequent rejection of God and how this informed the young Bernards own worldview.
He explains  how he came to spearhead the abortion rights movement in the US which ushered in the legalising of abortion, and his succesful business running the largest abortion facility in the world.
He estimates that he was directly responsible for 75,000 abortions  and the wrecked lives of many others.
He was the man who, in his own words "uncaged the abortion monster" in the US, and by extension, much of the world beyond.
And he would spend the rest of his life attempting the apparently Sisyphean task of  getting it back in it's cage.
Small wonder that he was quoted as saying "I have such a heavy moral baggage to drag into the next world"
It is simply devastating to consider how it must feel to wake up to the magnitude of the crime against humanity in which you yourself have been a key player.

At one point in the talk he describes how, after he himself had already repudiated abortion, he asked a doctor friend who was a practising abortionist to film a D&E (dilatation and evacuation) termination in progress. This friend, when he saw on the ultrasound monitor, the reality of kicking  limbs being torn asunder and understood for the first time what he had being doing, he was distraught. He never carried out another abortion again.

He speaks beautifully about the significance of personhood. Because the human being in the womb IS a person, and to deny personhood to another human being is to tread in the footsteps of history's most reviled and wicked tyrants. This really made me aware of the importance of the language we use, and I made a mental note to myself to be sure to use the word "person" more often when referring to the unborn baby.

He rejected abortion as an atheist, on humanitarian and scientific grounds. And he remained a pro life atheist for some time.
It was only later, after a crushing depression, that he started to reconsider faith with fresh eyes.
Looking to the Jewish faith of his fathers for some hope for redemption and forgiveness, he found little.

Eventually, through the aquaintance of an Opus Dei priest, Fr John McCloskey,  who understood that Dr Nathanson was a man best reached first in the intellect, he came to accept the peace of Christ.

It was a deeply moving account. And I felt that throughout it, I could hear in his voice the sobriety, gravity and firmness of purpose of a man set on spending the rest of his life making reparation.
I have rarely listened to a talk that so haunted me, and even though there are lots of noisy distractions here, I have found my thoughts drifting back to it all afternoon and evening since.

It was very well timed on the part of the Lighthouse team to send this CD out while 40 Days is underway. And listening to Dr Nathansons story has reminded me not only of the horror of abortion itself, but of the devastating effect on so many people who have been touched by abortion, the consciences dulled, the emotions wounded, the hearts hardened or broken.
It has renewed my zeal to teach my children to protect and defend human life always, and why it is necessary to never "pass by on the other side of the road", but to put ourselves at the service of  the least of our brothers.

40 Days For Life London

 

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You'll be glad you came.
See you there!

Come and join us outside the BPAS abortuary at 26-27 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3HP