The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (bpas) state:
"The fight for equality has been long; it has seen setbacks and victories, joy and sacrifice. But those victories and moments of joy have been long lasting, the setbacks and sacrifice overcome, which is why every woman watching this video is standing on the shoulders of giants.”
This is a disingenuous attempt by bpas to paint the early feminists as those who would have stood with them in fighting for the right of women to end the lives of their unborn children.
Early Feminists Were Pro-Life
Indeed, the fight for equality was long and hard with many setbacks along the way but their battle was to be recognized as equal to men – it was never a battle to promote the right to kill their unborn children. Half of the unborn population are female; their daughters - women of the future whose equality they were fighting for. Would it make sense for them to have sacrificed their unborn daughters while battling for their equality with men?
Here is a small example of the many early feminists who spoke out against abortion:
“When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society – so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged. ”
Mattie Brinkerhoff
“The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation, and awakened active antagonism. That the honorable term ‘female physician’ should be exclusively applied to those women who carried on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women.”
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
“Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.”
Alice Paul (author of the 1923 U.S. Equal Rights Amendment)
"Many tried to hold them back, many still try to hold us back, even though it is against their own interests, because it is no accident that the more equal a society becomes, the more developed it becomes. The more women who are allowed to advance on merit, the greater the depth of talent that business, science, politics, art and every other part of society can draw from.”
This is a presumption by bpas, it is assumed that motherhood and the advancement of women are pitted against each other. Many women successfully manage both career and motherhood; women are strong, capable and creative. They are more than able to develop a career path without sacrificing their children. Bpas – stop patronising women! Your business is making them believe that without abortion, they are doomed to a miserable life. But then, your business relies on women believing that they need abortion …
“So it may shock you to know that under a law passed in 1861 abortion is STILL illegal in the UK unless two doctors decide that the woman’s physical or mental health is at risk. Does a more outdated, patriarchal law exist in Britain today than this?”
Well, it may shock many to know that this law has been flouted for decades. Remember when it was exposed that doctors were pre-signing forms?
Aborted Because of Gender
In recent times, the illegal practice of some abortionists, agreeing to carry out gender selection terminations has been exposed. Former medical director for bpas, Dr Vincent Argent in the article below claims that it is well known that some women are terminating pregnancies purely based on the child's gender:
Dr Vincent Argent
These are but two examples of how the law has been transgressed. If the law was truly upheld instead of government turning a blind eye to illegal abortion practises, there would not be 200,000 abortions every year. The 1967 Abortion Act was supposed to make abortion ‘safe, legal and rare’. It is, since that act, legal but it is not safe and clearly not ‘rare’.
Life Begins at Fertilisation
“When all are equal, we ALL benefit”
When ALL are equal? There is no longer any question that at the completion of the fertilization process, a new, unique human life has begun. This is a scientific fact. Birth is but a transition from one environment to another and there are many more years of development ahead before each person reaches maturity. Even Ann Furedi admits that the fetus - Latin meaning simply unborn (human) offspring is human:
“We can accept that the embryo is a living thing in the fact that it has a beating heart, that it has its own genetic system within it. It’s clearly human in the sense that it’s not a gerbil, and we can recognize that it is human life… the point is not when does human life begin, but when does it really begin to matter?”
Ann Furedi (CEO of bpas), “Abortion: A Civilized Debate,” Battle of Ideas, (London, England, November 1, 2008).
Ann ponders:
“the point is not when does human life begin, but when does it really begin to matter?”
Well she could look to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Article 3: for an answer:
“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
“One day our own sons and daughters, when we chose to have them…”
Meaning those who were not one of the 200,000 sons and daughters killed in the violent act of abortion but the ones who were given permission to make it out of the womb alive?
10 Reasons to Decriminalise Abortion
To address a couple of points in the bpas 10 reasons to decriminalise abortion
“Under the 1967 Abortion Act, which provided exemptions from prosecution under the OAPA (Offences Against the Person Act 1861) but did not decriminalise abortion, a woman cannot decide for herself to have an abortion.
This decision has to be made on her behalf, by two doctors. This paternalistic approach sits at odds with every other clinical procedure. In the 21st century, a woman who ends her own pregnancy without the permission of 2 doctors can be "kept in penal servitude for life”.
Well, could it be that the law recognises that abortion is unlike any other clinical procedure in that it’s only purpose is to kill another human being? I know of no other clinical procedure that is carried out to intentionally cause the death of someone else's body. At the very least, this can cause lifelong grief for the mother. We meet these mothers every day who are hurting badly from a past abortion that had seemed like the ‘right thing to do’ at the time. No one was there to offer them help or support so they went ahead with allowing their child to be aborted.
It needs to be noted that even today, women do die from complications of ‘safe legal abortions’. See below for some examples:
“Removing it from the criminal law will not increase abortions”
Quite likely true as it was the introduction of the 1967 Abortion act that actually did this. Bpas themselves claim that 1 in 3 women will have an abortion during their productive years so effectively; we are seeing abortion on demand to the tune of 200,000 a year. This is really about removing any risk of legal action against the abortion industry so that when there are stings that uncover presently illegal practises like doctors pre-signing forms and arranging sex selection abortions, they do not have to worry anymore that they may face being taken to court.
Don't Patronise Women
The tone of this campaign is in fact patronizing. It paints women as weak, victims of their own fertility and not strong and capable enough to give birth to an unplanned child without their lives falling apart. The reality is that we find most women do not want an abortion but feel there is no choice when they are being told by partners, parents, friends, bosses and abortion providers such as Bpas that abortion is the simple answer to their ‘crisis’ and no big deal. They don’t even have to pay as the NHS picks up the bill for 98% of all abortions in England and Wales. It is just a medical procedure, like any other – except it isn’t, is it?
Abortion providers seem to believe that women are too weak to be fully informed about abortion; ‘what’ is being aborted is described in well-worn deceptive euphemisms such as ‘products of conception’, a blob of tissue, and a bunch of cells. Women are not informed that that ‘blob of tissue’ already has a beating heart just twenty one days from conception and that by eight weeks from conception, the baby is clearly a miniature human being who just needs time for his/her body to mature to the point that he/she can survive in the world beyond the womb.
It is truly outrageous that fetal development and what the abortion procedure does to that ‘bunch of cells’ is paternalistically kept from the woman in a crisis pregnancy situation by the abortion providers. Abortion providers not only flout the law, but refuse to furnish women with all the information that they need to be able to make an informed decision.
Women Have the Right to Informed Consent - Even for Abortions
To be fully informed, women have a right to know the truth about their child’s stage of development, stop treating them like children. Occasionally a provider may be prepared to show fuzzy ultrasound images that only an experienced sonographer can interpret. There are more accessible ways of ensuring there is no misunderstanding. A developmental video from ‘The Endowment of Human Development’ would facilitate this.
There needs also to be honesty about just what the abortion procedure does to her child whose presence in the abortion procedure is viewed as only incidental by bpas et al. and not acknowledged to be a small, developing, living human being whose life is being ended, often violently as is the case with surgical abortions. The ‘gentle suction’ description one sees on websites such as bpas' to describe such an abortion procedure is one example of the deceptive language used to lull women into feeling comfortable about what the abortionist is going to do to her child. Click here to see the truth of what that gentle suction does to her child.
Ann Furedi seems intent on keeping women from discovering the truth: simply the facts about abortion as they pertain to her and her child which could lead to her changing her mind; especially if she were also offered help or support in her crisis pregnancy situation by pro-lifers.
Buffer Zones
To this end, Ann wants to see ‘vulnerable women’ protected from pro-lifers by campaigning for buffer zones near abortion clinics. Such a threat has far reaching implications in that it threatens free speech for all. That is a very real risk that rightly sets off alarm bells for all who value freedom of speech.
When women change their minds, the abortion industry loses business which equals losing the income they would have made had the woman gone ahead with allowing them to kill her unborn ‘products of conception’…
Perhaps Ann needs to stop painting women as pathetic, vulnerable creatures who must at all costs be protected from the truth and from the offer of help from pro-lifers and give serious consideration to what this honest feminist states here:
“The pro-choice movement often treats with contempt the pro-lifers' practice of holding up to our faces their disturbing graphics....[But] how can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real? To insist that truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy. Besides, if these images are often the facts of the matter, and if we then claim that it is offensive for pro-choice women to be confronted with them, then we are making the judgment that women are too inherently weak to face a truth about which they have to make a grave decision. This view is unworthy of feminism.”
Feminist: Naomi Wolf
The abortion industry is plagued with deception and illegal practises
Another example here relates to Marie Stopes International MSI:
Women are indeed vulnerable - to those whose business it is to kill their unborn children under the guise of fighting for a woman's right to bodily autonomy and equality with men. In this way, bpas and Marie Stopes have in fact devalued rather than elevated womanhood and motherhood by turning women into 'victims' of their own fertility and their children into 'burdens' rather than blessings. Abortion providers need women to believe that they need abortion because that is their business and they have been very successful in marketing it, with the support of those whose agenda is population control.