The Cornerstone Group

Some time in the coming weeks, the House of Commons will be grappling with the Government’s latest legislative chimera: the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

I spoke last week at a rally in Westminster Central Hall to encourage public opposition to the Bill. In my speech I made clear that our best hope was a limit of 20 weeks. Much as we would like a lower limit, given the parliamentary arithmetic it is not doable.

On the way in, we had to walk through a picket line of Socialist Workers’ Party reps, jeering and chanting; inside the hall, some of their friends kept up a racket of heckling throughout. Some tried to block the doorway until the police moved in. When David Alton spoke, they heckled him loudly; but when he showed pictures of aborted babies, rape alarms were set off and they started screaming to drown him out.

Not all pro-lifers agree with the use of such pictures; but what they show, like it or not, is the horrifying reality of abortion: a tiny human form torn to pieces.

It is strange how utterly unbearable this truth is to the hard left.

Some protesters were marched out by stewards, but others gripped their seats and went on shouting at the speakers from time to time.

Other parliamentary speakers were my colleagues Ann Widdecombe and David Burrowes and, from the Labour side, Jim Dobbin and Geraldine Smith. Jim said he would be meeting the Prime Minister  to discuss a free vote in the Commons, but that if the Government did not grant one, he would vote against the Bill.

The Catholic Bishop of Brentwood, Thomas McMahon, made a telling point, audible over the roar of the hecklers. He said that there are many people ‘with or without faith’ who believe human life is sacred.

It is well known that the Lib Dems’ Dr Evan Harris, who successfully tabled a staggering hundred-plus amendments to the Bill during the hearings of the Science and Technology Committee, is looking forward to a further liberalisation of the law. Among his goals are removing the need for even one doctor’s signature and enabling nurses to abort children in doctor’s surgeries.

Imagine: in one room the doctor might be advising a young mother on her pregnancy and how to breastfeed her baby, while next door a child is being killed in the womb by the nurse, perhaps herself a mother.

But of course, according to Dr Harris and his supporters that is perfectly all right. Because all that really matters to them are the ‘rights’ of the individual - provided, of course, that that individual has left the illusory protection of the womb.

To be fair to Harris, he has declared an interest in maintaining the current abortion limit of 24 weeks: his girlfriend is the press manager of BPAS (formerly the British Pregnancy Advisory Service), which advertises its abortion services in all the women’s magazines.

Harris is also an ‘honorary associate’ of the National Secular Society. They want to sweep away the influence of religion, even offering a ‘debaptise yourself’ service with a certificate to prove it. In its own words, the Society ‘asserts that supernaturalism is based upon ignorance and assails it as the historic enemy of progress’. Ah, ‘Progress’! That great idol of the atheist.

The question is begged: progress towards what? A nation in which even more than the current tally of nearly 600 unborn children are aborted every day? A world in which a child with two ‘mothers’ - one legally recorded as his father - has no right to know who his actual father is until he is 18? Is that progress? Harris’ party clearly thinks so; they allowed free votes on the other provisions in the Bill but whipped their peers on this.

Finally, knowing that Harris and his supporters will do their utmost to drive through all sorts of liberalising amendments, I strongly hope that those of my colleagues who share my views will unite with those from all parties who, although not pro-life, are uncomfortable with the current limit of 24 weeks, to vote for a reduction in the limit for abortion to 20 weeks.

Fellow-Catholics should not have a problem with this since last year’s joint statement on the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act by Cardinals Murphy-O’Connor and O’Brien. In that they said: ‘Whilst upholding the principle of the sacredness of human life, it is both licit and important for those in public life who oppose abortion on principle to work and vote for achievable incremental improvement to what is an unjust law.’

It is a hopeful sign that since the release of the ‘walking in the womb’ pictures, and the latest evidence on foetal pain, more MPs have reconsidered the issue.

Now that is progress.

I applaud my Cornerstone colleague Nadine Dorries for her sterling work in publicising this issue.

For an update on the campaign against the Bill see http://www.passionforlife.org.uk/

If you don’t find what you want immediately, just keep scrolling down.

This evening I have organised a meeting in Westminster Hall, to present to MPs the important evidence which was excluded from the Science and Technology Select Committee Report on abortion.

Professor Sunny Anand arrived in the UK at midnight on Friday night, to a collective sigh of relief from the staff in my office.

I won’t even begin to tell the story of the effort and organisation required in having his bio-metrics recorded in Geneva en route from America in order to have his Visa processed, so that he could get into the UK to contribute on the panel this evening.

Nope I won’t even begin - the blog’s not big enough!

I also invited Dr Stuart Derbyshire to join the panel, who believes that a foetus can’t feel pain. He didn’t actually send any written evidence to the Science and Technology Committee investigation, yet he was still called as a witness to give evidence. I wonder if that had anything to do with his well known pro-abortion views?

Professor Anand on the other hand, went to great lengths to make the Committee aware of his work and was not called.

Dr Stuart Campbell is also on the panel - Dr Campbell pioneered 4D scanning, giving women the window on the womb they always wished for. Dr Campbell literally shows us how a foetus behaves in the womb; the pictures you see in newspapers of a foetus walking and thumb sucking, are courtesy of Dr Campbell’s work.

Professor Anand is neither pro or anti abortion, but a scientist who simply deals with the facts. The facts unfortunately didn’t fit with the majority pro-abortion view on the Select Committee.

Professor Anand was, however, attacked by Dr Derbyshire in a letter subsequently published in The Times. So I thought, OK then, face to face is far more preferable than letters in a newspaper - if Dr Derbyshire feels so strongly, let’s put him up against Professor Anand on the panel, two competing views.

Dr Derbyshire declined the invitation, claiming the panel would be biased; excuse me? I asked two foetal pain experts, Anand and himself - i.e. two competing views - how is that biased?

I was therefore very surprised to hear Dr Derbyshire on the Today programme this morning with Professor Anand. It was a clear win for Anand, with Derbyshire sounding brittle in the way many pro-abortionists do. I cannot believe for one moment that Derbyshire would ever attempt to debate against Professor Anand in a room full of his own peers.

Professor Anand explained on the Today programme, how likely it is that a foetus can feel pain below 20 weeks. His personal point of view - given that he has no interest in the issue of abortion - is that if an abortion does take place after this stage, it should be done as humanely as possible, as you are ending the life of a feeling sentient being, which is capable of life.

His balanced view when pushed by Naughtie, was that abortion should not take place beyond 20 weeks. Interestingly, Derbyshire, would not mention the number of weeks, but prattled on about sovereignty of the body and rights - in code he was saying that it is a woman’s body and she should be able to abort at any time.

He did concede, that due to the probability of a foetus feeling excruciating pain, the abortion proceedure should happen as fast as possible.

It is set to be a fascinating meeting and I hope as many MPs as possible will attend.

To read the full article click here

 Cornerstone is grateful to The Tablet for permission to reproduce this article originally published in the The Tablet 9th June 2007.

To add further to yesterday’s blog, I agree with the majority of what the Cardinal said in his homily.

The Abortion Act of 1967 was based on lies and more lies. It was an appallingly drafted piece of legislation which, under intense pressure from the abortion rights lobby, allowed the present day situation of abortion used as a form of contraception to occur.

I have made it a commitment that throughout my time in parliament I will do all that I can to reduce the number of abortions which take place each day. My objection to the Cardinal’s statement was that I believe his threat to withhold the Holy sacrament from MPs may actually have had the opposite effect and that he may have in fact given further ammunition to the pro choice lobby, who will describe his actions as extreme and irrational and use that argument to discredit all attempts to amend abortion legislation.

As a result of his comments there will be many commentators who will now use the term ‘right wing evangelists’ when describing attempts to limit access to abortion.

Despite the effect of cultural change, which is a necessary part of legislative change, the law has to be amended, and that is a political process.

The majority of politicians are not Christians. In order to persuade them to vote for a change in legislation, the legislation needs to be reasonable and measured. It is unlikely that MPs will vote for a piece of legislation they think may have been coloured or hi-jacked by the Church.

I also do not believe that the Holy Sacrament should be withheld from anyone for any reason. God is, above all things, loving and forgiving.

I know that many of my fellow Christians despair at my inability to condemn all abortion at any stage. To them, abortion is the taking of innocent life, based on the argument that if left uninterrupted a foetus at any stage would grow into full life.

These same friends however, all use various forms of contraception, and in an attempt not to be indelicate, some of which allow eggs to be fertilised and wasted.

It is a logical position that if you condemn all abortion, you must condemn various forms of contraception, if you truly believe that life begins at conception. I cannot do that. So I stay as true to my belief as I can, without hypocrisy or slight of word.

It is interesting that the Cardinal didn’t mention the Catholic Church’s position on contraception in his homily. Maybe because to do so would have been so obviously counterproductive.

The Catholic Church will never be able to alter its position with regard to contraception and nor should it. It has every right to uphold its beliefs also without hypocrisy. I admire the Church for the brave position it takes.

Unfortunately, this in itself compromises the abortion message of the Church, as without the massive world wide use of various forms of contraception, the abortion rate would undoubtedly be much higher.

Of course it is right that the Cardinal preaches the gospel in and out of season, as one of my bloggers commented. However, at this point in time, in this British society, the message is out of beat with the modern values of today.

I do not advocate changing the message but educating society in order to bring it to the point where the message is heard. I simply believe that is best achieved via methods other than threats issued from a pulpit.

As we now have 4D scanning and medical science advancing at the rate it is, maybe one day we will know for sure when life begins.

When we truly know that, there will be no argument as to when and what limit abortion law is set, whether suspended in a safe dark womb or lying in a hospital crib, life is life.

Nadine Dorries is MP for Mid Bedfordshire

So, the Roman Catholic Church has gone nuclear on abortion

As someone who currently has a bill running in the House of Commons to reduce the upper limit at which an abortion can take place from 24 to 20 weeks and to introduce a period of informed consent or cooling off period - (which is about to come back onto the floor of the House for its third reading in October, the month of the 40^th anniversary of the Abortion Act), this is a position I should welcome. However, I have very mixed feelings

Where has the Catholic Church, or for that matter, any Christian Church been for the last 40 years?

The Abortion Act of 1967 was introduced to legalise abortion in order to end the back street abortion racket.

Illegal abortions were costing lives or leaving women with horrific physical consequences and infections. Something had to be done.

Pre 1967, abortion was a last resort, something a woman resorted to in the most desperate of situations. The reason being that the frightening alternative was the back street abortionist. Everyone knew someone who had a horror story to tell. Breaking the law was not something people undertook lightly either.

Today the Act is undoubtedly used as a form of contraception, and the law, as presently drafted, allows for this to be the case.

It is a fact that the law needs to be amended. However, it is also the case that the public need to be made more aware of what is actually taking place with regard to abortion within society today.

The graphic 4D images which have been put into the public domain by Professor Campbell have assisted hugely with this process.

There has never been a pregnant woman who has not wished, at some stage of her pregnancy, that she had a window which she could peep through to see her unborn child. Professor Campbell and 4D screening has done just that, a miracle in itself. We can see the foetus at all stages of development to the point where we can watch a smile, a thumb being sucked, a hiccough, or even a little cry.

The reports which show that women who have abortions are three times more likely to suffer from depression later in life need to be constantly highlighted. It should be incumbent upon every GP who counsels a pregnant woman seeking an abortion to inform her of this fact.

600 abortions a day take place in the UK. This is an unacceptably high number within a civilised society. We have one of the highest rates of abortions within Europe along with the highest rates of teenage pregnancies.

Abortion has become a growth industry, facilitated and aided by the law.

The recent stance the Catholic Church has taken will assist in putting all of these facts into the public domain. I welcome the fact that it will heighten public awareness with regard to the sheer abuse of the Abortion Act and will once again push abortion up the public and political agenda.

Public opinion has recently shifted with regard to abortion, but not to the position of the Catholic Church.

The public agree that the upper limit should be reduced, that we should work to offer women alternatives, help them to think very clearly about what they are doing, and, where possible, help to provide another solution. But it hasn’t shifted so far that the public want to ban abortion altogether.

For some, the moral dilemma of subjecting women to become criminals and seek the services of the back street abortionist is as big a moral issue as abortion itself.

All this will be considered by Roman Catholic MPs when discussing the dictat of the Church.

Personally, I wish the Church had taken in the bigger picture and had tried to see that seismic change isn’t going to happen overnight. I wish they had seen that the process of reducing the daily number of abortions needs to be approached from a number of angles.

We need to address the fact that the reason why so many unwanted pregnancies occur is due to the fact that so many young people are having unprotected sex. They think it is cool to have sex from a very young age and the majority of teenage boys believe that the consequences of sex are not their responsibility.

The morning after pill costs £25 from a chemist and is only free with an appointment from a GP. This can take up to four days, rendering such a solution useless.

If you are a 16 year old in full time education or on benefits who realises that you may be pregnant you are faced with spending £25 or chancing your luck, you will probably chance your luck.Addressing the high number of abortions which take place is not just about making statements to ban abortion.

Dramatic gestures such as withholding the holy sacrament from MPs who don’t vote to ban abortion completely will only feed and galvanise the pro choice lobby. The comments made by Cardinal Keith O’Brien make the Roman Catholic Church look extreme and out of step with public opinion.

It is Eye-catching today. However, it is ammunition for the pro choice lobby to use for a long time to come.

The pro life lobby has achieved very little since the introduction of the 1967 Act as the rate of abortions continues to increase. It is a fact that the pro choice lobby are winning the battle.

I would like to see the debate move away from the argument to ban abortion altogether and to approach the problem from a number of fronts, in a reasonable and considered manner. Free from political and religious dogma.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the Roman Catholic Church has really assisted a great deal in this process.

Maybe the Church could try knocking some big moral stakes into the ground which inform society of its position with regard to sex before marriage.

The church could, if it were adventurous enough, once again become a force to set the moral agenda within the communities it serves. But that is much harder work than making a grand statement.Meanwhile another 4200 abortions will take place this week. Maybe if those who wish to ban abortion thought a little harder about the heartache and the tears many of those girls and women will go through this week, not all, I know, but many, then maybe everyone will try just that bit harder to find a realistic solution.

If the pro life lobby thought a little more about the pregnant woman, and if the pro choice lobby thought a little more about the baby - if everyone accepted that we don’t live in an ideal world yet, and everyone has to give a little, then maybe we might just begin to get somewhere near a solution that the majority of people who live within this society would like to see. A reduction in the number of abortions carried out each day achieved via a number of measures – a reduction in the upper limit from 24 to 20 weeks and a period of informed consent. Not ideal, I agree, but a massive improvement form where we are today.Whatever way you look at it, it boils down to the Roman Catholic Church blackmailing MPs. Almost as desperate a measure as resorting to a back street abortionist.In my limited experience MPs don’t take well to being backed into a corner or having their independence challenged. Not a good move. 

This is purely my personal opinion. There is no corporate Cornerstone view 

Three issues feature today, all of which are key concerns for Cornerstone members.

1) Education: the continuing backlash over David Willetts’ speech. Cornerstone member Nadine Dorries (a member of the Party’s Public Services Improvement Policy Group) says: “We have spent months working on education, so why didn’t they wait until the policy group had presented its findings? Why did David bypass the parliamentary party and announce our policy to the CBI?” I couldn’t agree with her more. “They’re wrong”, she told the Daily Telegraph [Jonathan Isaby’s ‘Spy column’, p 6 today], “if they intend running the Conservative Party like Tony Blair ran the Labour Party.” Right again.

Just in case there was any lingering doubt about the advisability of the new approach, the Telegraph also reports today [p 6] that only 19% of “all those questioned” in a Yougov poll – including non-Conservative voters – are in favour of the system proposed by David Willetts (a mix of comprehensives and City Academies). And only 13 per cent of our voters back the idea.

But, as I have said before, the way this debate is being presented is false. The leadership must not caricature the Right as simply saying “Bring back grammar schools”. Those who share my views know that while grammars do help some poor children – and just because you do not qualify for free school meals does not make you stinking rich – they are only part of the answer. There are many other up-to-date ideas for helping children escape the ghetto of low-quality education. Vouchers are part of the picture as well. It is not the Right that is stuck in the past; by seeming to endorse the comprehensive principle, I fear the Party is embracing out-dated ideas which have now had their day.

Can anyone explain the thinking behind the Willetts speech? As Churchill once said of Russia “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.

2) Abortion: Ann Winterton will introduce a Private Member’s Bill on June 5 which seeks to require both counselling for pregnant women considering abortion and a week’s ‘cooling-off’ period afterwards. [Catholic Herald, p. 2 today’s issue]. As she says “It is really important that people are not bounced into having an abortion because they are in a state of panic without considering alternatives and without alerting them to possible consequences to their physical and mental health. The alternative is that they can choose to have their babies. There are organisations”, she says, “which will provide support in every single way, including financial support…” Ann hopes that her bill will be the first stage in restricting the 1967 Abortion Act, which in practice allows abortion on demand in the first 24 weeks.The Bill would make doctors specify on notification forms whether an abortion had been permitted either on mental or physical grounds, instead of the ‘and/or’ approach now current. This would, according to pro-life groups, prevent ‘social’ abortions.

Ann points to a study in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry showing that previously mentally healthy women had a far higher risk of developing psychiatric illness after abortion than those not aborting.

I would certainly be minded to back her Bill, and would urge colleagues to give it serious consideration.

3) Europe: Blair has given Brown joint responsibility for government strategy on a revised EU Constitution. See the Telegraph [p5], which calls this a sign of “dual premiership”. Tactics are being devised in preparation for the summit of EU leaders in June.

Perhaps Brown’s – relative – Euroscepticism when compared to Blair is at least one crumb of comfort we can take from his now assured succession. But I hope that next year when we fulfil our pledge to withdraw from collaboration with the EPP we will signal a distinctive approach that will show who the real Eurosceptics are.

David Cameron has already offended Angela Merkel over this issue. I applaud him warmly for doing so. Blair has shown quite enough contempt for parliament already; now let us restore some respect to it.

Edward Leigh is Co-Chairman of The Cornerstone Group