Doing it all by ourselves

I saw this wonderful image on someone's blog site and I can only apologise because I can't remember whose and can't find it again!  I managed to find the photo though and thought I would share it because, as you may already have noticed, I like cute piccies.

There is of course an underlying seriousness to this one because we are in a "copy and paste" technical age when it comes to the creating of human life.  However, I'm a great believer in sometimes keeping it light (if only on the grounds that you have to laugh or you'd cry) and think that humour can often make a point with brilliant... well, pointedness.   To which end, I also share the joke below.  I know it's been around for a while, but I still think it is an excellent way of putting across the message that - reproductive technologies and subatomic physics notwithstanding - we are still, as Pope Paul VI tried to tell us in Humanae Vitae, ministers and not masters of a Bigger Plan. 

Scientist: God, we don't need you any more.  We've figured out how everything works and we can create life by ourselves now.  You're obsolete.

God: OK, if you say so.  Want to show me how you create life?

Scientist: Sure thing. 

[He bends down and starts to scoop up a fistful of dirt.]

God: No, no!  Get your own dirt! 

What to do about abortion ads?

Scroll down and you will see the blog post written by our group Chair, Katherine, on "Abortion Advertised as a Service".  She's covered the subject admirably and with her usual eloquence and conviction, so I have nothing to add... apart from to maybe muse as to how anyone could think a three minute slot between ads for Max Factor lipstick and Mr Muscle kitchen cleaner (note: the St John's Pro Life Group is not giving personal endorsement to either of these products!) is an appropriate context in which to offer information about such a serious topic with all its implications in the areas of physical and mental health and of ethics.  It makes it all too easy to think of post conception advice as just another service and abortion as just another “product”, but hey, one doesn’t pop out in one’s lunch hour to pick up the dry cleaning and to dispose of the unwanted products of conception.

With that last sentence I don’t want at all to belittle the struggles of conscience and the difficult circumstances of many women who are considering or who have had abortions - but it seems to me that we are in danger of constructing a social attitude that does just that.  This is serious stuff.  Let’s be responsible about it and let’s keep it right out of the arena of commercial advertising.

As Katherine points out, prayer is our most powerful weapon in the pro-life armoury (and yes, when we are talking about defending life, we are talking about spiritual warfare, even as we compassionately tend those wounded in battle... which includes women who have had abortions).   Having said that, prayer gives rise to action and our group members are writing to our MP again on this one, because there are powers the Government can use to block advertising by commercial post conception advice services.  In doing so we have drawn heavily on some guidelines drawn up by SPUC – thank you SPUC! - which can be found on their website. Please consider doing the same yourself.

When is a Baby not a Baby?

When it’s a “product of conception”...

Saturday was the Memorial of St Thomas Aquinas and our Assistant Priest, the marvellously erudite but incredibly youthful looking Fr Aaron Spinelli (I just have to ask him what face cream he uses), gave us a good homily on Thomas and his lifelong quest for Truth. Truth, Fr Aaron reminded us, does exist in an absolute and objective sense and therefore it gives rise to certain laws.  These laws do not shackle us and restrict our freedom but, by illustrating to us the truth of our human nature and of creation, liberate us from searching down dark side paths and dismal dead ends for what will make us happy.  In short, they enable us to be fully who we are.  Let off from the burden of deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong and essentially “so”, we are released to live life to the full.  Our dignity lies in freely applying the rules of ethics to certain situations, not in making them up in the first place.  We were never designed to do the latter and we fall apart under the strain.  (In fact we’ve been falling apart ever since Adam and Eve ate that apple and sought their autonomy from God.)

One doesn’t have to have a religious faith to instinctively realise the above.  “Natural law”, as the Church calls it, means that the laws of Truth are written into our very natures, into the way our minds are structured, into the way we see the world. As Pope Benedict put it, "Human freedom is always a freedom shared with others. It is clear that the harmony of freedom can be found only in what is common to all: the truth of the human being, the fundamental message of being itself, exactly the lex naturalis” (address to the International Congress on Natural Moral Law in 2007). One of the tragedies of our modern world is that we are increasingly overriding that instinctive knowledge of truth in favour of a personal autonomy of conscience, causing an inner tension both within individuals and within society which is tearing us apart.  In the case of abortion, it is literally tearing us apart.

The video above is a brilliant take-off of the way we manipulate language in order to avoid the truth about human nature and ethics in the area of abortion.  I remember pouring over pregnancy books when expecting my first child and lapping up information like “Your baby now has a rudimentary nervous system”.  OK, it’s a baby then, but a few weeks later when it is fully formed with a beating heart and tiny, perfect fingers and toes, it can be a “product of conception” for the purposes of “terminating the pregnancy”.  Arnold Schwarzenegger did a lot of “terminating” in the films bearing a similar name and it wasn’t pretty.  People died.

Women who have abortions often do so in the face of much anguish and emotional pressure and in very difficult circumstances.  But here as in so many other situations, we do not help them by attempting to obfuscate the truth about what they are planning to do.  They will have to live for the rest of their lives with a knowledge, deep down and denied perhaps, that they have flown in the face of human nature and of right and wrong in what they have done. We are not freeing these women from a burden, but shackling them for life to a bigger one. If we act against the truth about ourselves and others, the outcome is never liberation.

Abortion advertised as a service

I'm sure by now that just about all of you are aware that from 30th April 2012 "commercial post-conception advice services", more commonly referred to as abortion clinics, will be allowed to advertise themselves on television and radio.

The decision taken by the BCAP (Broadcasting Committee of Advertising Practice) is extremely disappointing and spells a dismal future for the unborn in this country. For starters it allows clinics who profit from conducting abortions to advertise publicly. This step not only encourages more and more vulnerable women to take this course of action, convinces them that this is the only one they can take, the only place they can turn to for help but truly plunges our society into a "culture of death", a country where the killing of a child is not only acceptable but it is something you can publicise in order to make money out of it. In their advertisements they will also not be obligated to mention what services it is that they offer, nor that they profit from it. It won't be until a woman walks into one of their centres that she will be told of what it is they actually do. This is, to my mind, outrageous as pro-life organistaions have to clearly state what they do and that they will not refer women for abortions. This ruling has also allowed commercial pro-life centres to promote themselves in an attempt to 'level' the playing field...except that, as far as I or any of our Pro-Life group know, there aren't any commercial pro-life organisations. All of them are run by charities and, unlike their profit making pro-abort counterparts, simply do not have the funds to invest in prime time advertising slots. The money they receive goes straight back in helping the people who walk through their doors. Take Oasis in Horsham for instance. They run a service with trained counsellors who will not only speak to women facing crisis pregnancies but also offer help to both men and women post-abortion and to those recovering from miscarriages and still births. They also rent a storage facility where they hold donations of clothes and other baby items (cots etc.) which they give free of charge to anyone who needs them. They totally rely on leafletting and word-of-mouth around our town to let people know what it is that they do. They, and all the thousands of similar centres up and down the country, are running on so tight a budget and are so dedicated to seeing that it is spent where most necessary that TV ads are out of the question.

It is strange to think that we spend so much time, so much energy talking about human rights, about social justice and equality yet we regard life at its earliest stages, in one of its most vulnerable forms as invaluable, totally without rights, as a burden, as something that can easily be disposed of if it is not wanted. We live in a world now where we all have rights but absolutely no responsibility. We have the 'right' to a child but don't have to take responsibility for our actions should we get pregnant by chance, it can all be swept under the carpet so-to-speak; gotten rid of and forgotten about. Abortion is no longer seen as something awful, an attack on the precious gift that is a human life, but a 'public service', something to which we are all entitled, something that is portrayed not only as being helpful but a necessary part of our society.

Did you know that for a long time New Year's Day in England was celebrated on March 25th? Do you know why (without instantly Googling it...) this date is so special? March 25th is the Feast of the Annunciation, the day we humbly and joyfully celebrate the conception of Jesus in Our Lady's womb. Previous generations were totally in awe of Our Lord's incarnation but they recognised that His life here as a man didn't begin after His birth in Bethlehem, they knew it started on that day when Gabriel appeared to Mary and cherished that moment, that very beginning of life that had been so graciously given to us by God, and moulded the year around it. How far we have come now that a child is not a child at the moment of conception, it is a 'thing', a 'clump of cells', treated like a disease and removed at the earliest convenience. We cannot allow such a sentiment to take an even deeper hold on our culture, we need to show that life is a gift; a beautiful, wonderful God-given gift, that each and every person is more valuable, more loved than any of us can ever begin to imagine, that each person is marvellously unique and has their own special vocation here on earth. Please join our group in praying that these advertisements won't go out onto television and that once again the gift of life will be cherished, respected and celebrated by all.

How precious YOU are

I have just read this beautiful prayer of Mother Teresa's on The Passionate Papist (via The Pulp.it).  Go over there for the full prayer, but here are some extracts that are particularly "pro life" in that they emphasise just how beautiful, amazing, precious, lovable and loved each and every human being is - without exception.

Jesus says, 'I thirst for you...

'I know you through and through. I know everything about you. The very hairs of your head I have numbered. Nothing in your life is unimportant to Me. I have followed you through the years, and I have always loved you – even in your wanderings. I know every one of your problems. I know your needs and your worries. And yes, I know all your sins. But I tell you again that I love you – not for what you have or haven’t done – I love you for you, for the beauty and dignity My Father gave you by creating you in His own image. It is a dignity you have often forgotten, a beauty you have tarnished by sin. But I love you as you are, and I have shed My Blood to win you back. If you only ask Me with faith, My grace will touch all that needs changing in your life.
 

'I know what is in your heart – I know your loneliness and all your hurts – the rejections, the judgments, the humiliations, I carried it all before you. And I carried it all for you, so you might share My strength and victory. I know especially your need for love – how you are thirsting to be loved and cherished. But how often have you thirsted in vain, by seeking that love selfishly, striving to fill the emptiness inside you with passing pleasures – with the even greater emptiness of sin. Do you thirst for love? “Come to Me all you who thirst…” (Jn. 7: 37). I will satisfy you and fill you. Do you thirst to be cherished? I cherish you more than you can imagine – to the point of dying on a cross for you.

'No matter how far you may wander, no matter how often you forget Me, no matter how many crosses you may bear in this life; there is one thing I want you to always remember, one thing that will never change. I THIRST FOR YOU – just as you are. You don’t need to change to believe in My love, for it will be your belief in My love that will change you.

'All your life I have been looking for your love – I have never stopped seeking to love you and be loved by you. You have tried many other things in your search for happiness; why not try opening your heart to Me, right now, more than you ever have before.

 

'Whenever you do open the door of your heart, whenever you come close enough, you will hear Me say to you again and again, not in mere human words but in spirit. “No matter what you have done, I love you for your own sake. Come to Me with your misery and your sins, with your troubles and needs, and with all your longing to be loved.'

News

A quick browse around the blogsites has revealed some pro-life news stories of interest...

Firstly, something positive and heartening!  The signs of the times are not all bad.  Fr Tim Finnigan at The Hermeneutic of Continuity reports on a new fundamental law passed in Hungary which protects the institution of marriage (defined as being between a man and a woman) and the family as bedrocks of society and also protects the life of a foetus from conception.  See his blog post which also links to his source, a report from C-Fam.  Of course there has been opposition, for example from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, claiming that the protection of unborn life undermines women's reproductive health rights...

More worringly, John Smeaton of SPUC reports on measures to thwart the work of pro-life pregnancy counsellors.  His post centres around a system of voluntary registration for counsellors which is under consideration by a cross-party group of MPs and which would require advice centres to "meet minimum standards" and use "appropriately trained counsellors".  This sounds well and good, but in practice, who would decide what constituted appropriate training and minimum standards?  John Smeaton claims that it is likely to be the Department of Health with advice from pro-abortion counsellors.  The MPs are divided over the issue of whether such counsellors would be obliged to declare any ethical stance, such as holding pro-life views, with Nadine Dorries holding that no-one should be able to offer crisis pregnancy counselling who had "any agenda whatsoever, be it religious or financial".  There is also the issue of advertising by commercial post-conception advice centres, about which a new regulatory code has just been released (more on this in another post) which would require pro-life advisers - should they be able to afford to advertise at all - to declare that they do not offer or refer for abortions.  Abortion-providing advice centres on the other hand are under no obligation to state that they do offer abortions.

Well worth attending

Finally for this round-up, SPUC (as Fr Finnigan also reports) are holding a Conference on Maternal Health on 20 March in Regent Hall, London which sounds excellent.  It deals face-on with of one of the biggest arguments (or rather, fallacies) of pro-abortionists: that abortions are necessary to save women's lives, particularly in the developing world.  Fiorella Nash wrote an excellent blog post for SPUC back last September refuting this argument.  Do have a read if you haven't already.

Where can I find happiness?

Hat tip for this one to Richard at Linen On The Hedgerow.  It's taken from his listing of the week's top blog posts and consists of extracts from a speech given in the US by Archbishop Charles J Chaput at the Cardinal O'Connor Conference on Life.  For the full report, go over to Making Things Visible.

The speech refers to "Americans" but most of us in the First World can put our own names in instead, which is why I've bracketed "Americans" whenever it pops up!

There are rich blessings to be found in crosses accepted and sacrifices made for love.  In fact, as the parent of any disabled child must know, despite the difficulties and struggles we would hardly even describe our experience as a sacrifice.  It is a relationship with someone infinitely precious and a path into love.  How tragic not even to put one's foot onto the path to begin with...

How do we translate that message to the wider, secular world?  It's important, because it's a message not just about "pro life" but one that touches on the very question of what happiness is.  It's getting the answer to that question wrong that skews our perspective on everything else.

Archbishop Chaput said:

The great French Jesuit Henri de Lubac once wrote, “Suffering is the thread from which the stuff of joy is woven. Never will the optimist know joy.” Those seem like strange words, especially for [Americans]. We [Americans] take progress as an article of faith. And faith in progress demands a spirit of optimism.

But Father de Lubac knew that optimism and hope are very different creatures. In real life, bad things happen. Progress is not assured, and things that claim to be “progress” can sometimes be wicked and murderous instead. We can slip backward as a nation just as easily as we can advance. This is why optimism—and all the political slogans that go with it—are so often a cheat. Real hope and real joy are precious. They have a price. They emerge from the experience of suffering, which is made noble and given meaning by faith in a loving God.

A number of my friends have children with disabilities. Their problems range from cerebral palsy to Turner’s syndrome to Trisomy 18, which is extremely serious. But I want to focus on one fairly common genetic disability to make my point. I’m referring to Trisomy 21, or Down syndrome.

Down syndrome is not a disease. It’s a genetic disorder with a variety of symptoms. Currently about 5,000 children with Down syndrome are born in the United States each year. They join a national Down syndrome population of about 400,000 persons. But that population may soon dwindle. And the reason why it may decline illustrates, in a vivid way, a struggle within the [American] soul. That struggle will shape the character of our society in the decades to come.

Prenatal testing can now detect up to 95 percent of pregnancies with a strong risk of Down syndrome. The tests aren’t conclusive. They can’t give a firm yes or no. But they’re pretty good. And the results of those tests are brutally practical. Studies show that more than 80 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome now get terminated in the womb. They’re killed because of a flaw in one of their chromosomes—a flaw that’s neither fatal nor contagious, but merely undesirable.
 

I’m not suggesting that doctors should hold back vital knowledge from parents. Nor should they paint an implausibly upbeat picture of life with a child who has a disability. Facts and resources are crucial in helping adult persons prepare themselves for difficult challenges. But doctors, genetic counselors, and medical school professors should have on staff—or at least on speed dial—experts of a different sort.

Parents of children with special needs, special education teachers and therapists, and pediatricians who have treated children with disabilities often have a hugely life-affirming perspective. Unlike prenatal caregivers, these professionals have direct knowledge of persons with special needs. They know their potential. They’ve seen their accomplishments. They can testify to the benefits—often miraculous—of parental love and faith. Expectant parents deserve to know that a child with Down syndrome can love, laugh, learn, work, feel hope and excitement, make friends, and create joy for others. These things are beautiful precisely because they transcend what we expect. They witness to the truth that every child with special needs has a value that matters eternally.

Raising a child with Down syndrome can be demanding. It always involves some degree of suffering. Parents grow up very fast. None of my friends who has a daughter or a son with a serious disability is melodramatic, or self-conscious, or even especially pious about it. They speak about their special child with an unsentimental realism. It’s a realism flowing out of love—real love, the kind that forces its way through fear and suffering to a decision, finally, to surround the child with their heart and trust in the goodness of God. And that decision to trust, of course, demands not just real love, but also real courage.

The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is never between some imaginary perfection and imperfection. None of us is perfect. No child is perfect. The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is between love and unlove; between courage and cowardice; between trust and fear. That’s the choice we face when it happens in our personal experience. And that’s the choice we face as a society in deciding which human lives we will treat as valuable, and which we will not.

And, just as some people resent the imperfection, the inconvenience, and the expense of persons with disabilities, others see in them an invitation to learn how to love deeply and without counting the cost. These children with disabilities are not a burden; they’re a priceless gift to all of us. They’re a doorway to the real meaning of our humanity. Whatever suffering we endure to welcome, protect, and ennoble these special children is worth it because they’re a pathway to real hope and real joy. Abortion kills a child; it wounds a precious part of a woman’s own dignity and identity; and it steals hope. That’s why it’s wrong. That’s why it needs to end.

Cute!

Hat tip to Robert Colquhoun over at Discover Happiness for these amazing images, which I hope it is OK for me to reproduce here.  My daughter reckons they're cuter than their "born" counterparts!

How varied, beautiful and precious life is... at every stage.

Giving each other reasons to live

Lord Falconer’s report on Assisted Suicide is one of the issues exercising our group members at the moment.  As our group Chair, Katherine, remarks, it makes chilling reading: pop over to Five Feet Above Sea Level for her lucid yet passionate commentary on the report.  I suspect readers of the blog will already know about the report and its conclusion that there is a “strong case” for assisted suicide to be legalised in the UK (if not, Katherine summarises the gist very well.  See also the letter our group wrote to our MP, below).

Since the issue of disability touched our family directly, I have been increasingly conscious not only of the value we place on various human lives, but on how we encourage people to value themselves.  My daughter, now 16, was diagnosed two years ago with Friedreich’s Ataxia, a degenerative neurological disease which is gradually but inexorably robbing her of her coordination, balance and mobility.   The diagnosis came out of the blue when, almost overnight, she stopped being able to control her hand well enough to write or draw.  Until then we had thought she was just “a bit clumsy” (well, like mother like daughter), partly thanks to her own valiant attempts to conceal just how much she was struggling with simple daily tasks like doing up buttons and zips.  At diagnosis we were told that she would be confined to a wheelchair in 10-15 years.  In reality, she is already having to rely on a wheelchair or a crutch + somebody’s arm in order to walk for any distance.

Suddenly all our expectations of the future were fundamentally altered.  At first my daughter thought her life was over.  She withdrew and wanted to die.  It was a very black time.

We’re lucky.  My husband and I have faith, family and a parish community around us.  Drawing on these and on some wonderful caring professionals we have been able to support my daughter and together we have staggered through the initial blackness into what I’d maybe describe as a state of “lightening grey”.  But the effects on my daughter’s emotions and psychological balance have been huge.  It’s not just that she is coping with an illness whose progress cannot be accurately predicted because it varies from individual to individual, something which is frightening enough.  Over and above that, her own self-image and her estimation of her own worth have been rocked.  She’s 16, after all, and female, and bombarded with images of women air-brushed to such a level of perfection it wouldn’t even be found in paradise.  The messages she’s getting from the media about sex and relationships give matter for a whole blog post in themselves. And on top of all that, she has a wheelchair accessory to add to every outfit and she thinks it ruins her look... That’s a somewhat facetious way of saying that she’s struggling to establish her worth now that she can’t walk or write and finds it easier to drink out of a cup with a lid on it, and she can’t see how that fits in with the often very superficially based expectations around her.

What do we, as a society, have to say to her?  “Chin up love, none of that matters to us, you’re still the same person you ever were and we love you just the same.  Just by being you you’re making a huge contribution to the world.  You’re infinitely precious and valuable and your vulnerabilities serve to bring out the best in us and give us opportunities to serve, to care, to do good, to focus on what’s really important in life.  We’ll invest our money and our efforts into making sure that you have what you need to help you cope with your challenges, because at the end of the day, it’s human friendship that will make your life worth living and give you things to look forward to. We’ll be there for you, right there with you in your suffering.”  

Or, “Chin up, it’s true that your life has limitations, you’re not perfect and you’re not going to have the perfect life that is the obvious right of every one of us; you have pain, you may never be able to hold down a full-time job and you’re going to be making demands on the resources of the State and your loved ones... but don’t worry, we’ve been spending loads of time and money ensuring that we can give you something that will take all that away forever.  You can look forward to dying before it all feels too much.”  Advocates of assisted suicide may well have good intentions, but is this the mindset we want to become prevalent?  There’s a better path for compassion to seek.

We work hard, every day, at trying to reinforce our daughter’s self-image, to cheer her up, to help her develop a positive “can-do” attitude – generally, make her realise how much she’s worth. Bit by bit, little by little, she’s getting there.  Thank goodness for that, because she means everything to us and we want to give her reasons to live, not die.  Lord Falconer’s report helps us not one jot. 

Below is the letter our group have sent, as individuals, to our MP.  If you’re reading this in the UK, feel free to send a customised version to your own MP.

Dear...

I am writing to regarding the Falconer report and the recent campaigns for euthanasia and/or assisted suicide to be legalised in the UK.  We believe the Falconer report gives great cause for concern and should the question of the legalisation of ‘assisted dying’ be raised once again in the Commons, we would urge that you please vote against it.

Bias in the report

The Commission which produced the report was heavily biased from the outset having been funded by Terry Pratchett, a known supporter of euthanasia and the patron of Dignity in Dying, and with nine of the eleven members of the panel being strongly in favour of the legalisation of assisted suicide. The deal to run the Commission was negotiated by Demos with the think tank run by Kitty Usher, a former colleague of Patricia Hewitt who, along with Lord Falconer, tried unsuccessfully to change the law in 2009. The Commission was founded with the clear intention to bring about a conclusion in their favour, as its stated aims betray: to ‘…investigate the circumstances under which it should be possible for people to be assisted to die; recommend what system, if any, should exist to allow people to be assisted to die; identify who should be entitled to be assisted to die and recommend what changes in the law, if any, should be introduced’.  In light of all the above over 40 organisations (including the British Medical Association), as well as many high profile individuals, boycotted the Commission.

Our major concerns

·         The report readily uses the term ‘assisted dying’ when referring to both euthanasia and assisted suicide, thus clouding the distinction between them.  This fudging of terms could potentially lead to 13,000 deaths a year in Britain should ‘assisted dying’ ever be made legal (as outlined in the 2005 House of Lords report).

·         The report over-emphasises the need for assisted dying without suggesting that any extra effort or investment be placed in improving our current long-term and palliative care systems. Sadly PCT-run palliative care facilities and hospitals vary vastly in terms of care depending on one’s postcode. Hospices, especially the local St Catherine’s Hospice, deliver excellent care and devotion to their patients but are usually over-subscribed. This situation leaves the terminally ill and elderly in a very vulnerable position.  

·         Given the circumstances mentioned above, depression would undoubtedly play a huge role in affecting the patient’s judgement; yet the Commission did not make sufficient allowance for the possibility that some people would be pressured into choosing assisted dying at a time when both their physical and psychological health are at their most fragile.

·         We are concerned that the report will encourage pro-euthanasia campaigners to renew their efforts to have assisted dying made legal in Britain.  These efforts will tend by their very existence to promote a subtext which runs as follows: when someone can no longer support themselves due to illness or old age they constitute a ‘burden’ to family and friends or a drain upon State resources; as they are no longer economically productive there is no basis for them to enjoy a sense of self-worth; it is therefore a kindness to allow them to choose to end their lives with ‘dignity’ before their condition worsens.  

      Unless we work to change the way illness, disability and age are perceived by our society, there will be no incentive for us to concentrate effort and finance on developing pain management, aids to help patients keep their independence as long as possible and compassionate nursing care.  Legalised euthanasia will be seen as the logical and easy option for those faced with the prospect of a long, painful illness. As a result many will miss out on months or years of worthwhile life and our society will be impoverished by the lack of individuals who, by their very vulnerability, can foster the best in human nature in others.

·         We fully appreciate the apprehensions of terminally ill patients who are facing the prospect of a long, painful illness, perhaps with the loss of faculties.  However we feel that the report fails to give due consideration to the difference in quality of life that can be made through palliative care as mentioned above.  The support of other human beings can in itself make life worth living even when it involves suffering. 

·         Should it become relatively commonplace for people to kill themselves when they are at their most vulnerable this would affect the human value of each and every ill, disabled or aged person. In effect we would have defined them either as non-productive ‘second-class citizens’ or hopeless victims of irredeemable suffering.

·         In reply to those who argue that not everyone would choose to die we would draw attention to the words of Els Borst, the former Health Minister for the Netherlands, who pushed for euthanasia to be legalised in her country. She has since said that the Dutch government responded too quickly to demands for euthanasia to be legalised without correct attention being given to support for the dying. She admitted that this was ‘not in the proper order’ and that, ultimately, many have suffered and chosen to die because of this upside-down, hasty decision. This is a truly tragic set of circumstances, one we must not allow to be repeated here in Britain.

·         We are writing as a Christian group and as such have a strong belief in the sanctity of human life and the innate dignity of each and every human person, each one of whom is not only made in the image of God but is also a unique individual loved beyond measure by his/her Creator.  Whilst we appreciate that not everyone will share our belief in God, we strongly feel that the Christian voice has a right to be heard along with all others in our democratic society, particularly as Christian values have been foundational to the shaping of our country’s laws and governance, a fact of which the Prime Minister David Cameron reminded us only recently.  We also believe that the Christian perspective on the value of each human person in his/her own right, independent of their economic productivity or physical ‘perfection’, is equally valid across all spectrums of belief and philosophy and has an important contribution to make to this particular debate.

We hope that you will consider our statement along with those published by organisations such as Care Not Killing, LIFE and dozens of others along with the countless individuals who view human life as inherently dignified and valuable beyond economic price.

Yours sincerely

So who are this lot then?

The first post on a new blog has to be the hardest to write.  In fact I didn’t really have a clue how to start... A cheery “hello” followed by a group bio?   Or should we introduce ourselves one by one?  Should I launch straight in there with an impassioned statement of our aims?  (Because we are impassioned about this topic.)  In the end I realised I didn’t have a clue so I’ve just started in, somehow or another.

We are, as the sidebar says, a group of parishioners from a church in the south of England who get together regularly to “do our bit” towards promoting respect for the dignity and sanctity of human life from conception until natural death.  This blog is a way of trying to reach out beyond the walls of our church hall, our houses and the town where we live and make contact with others out there who feel the same (or don’t feel the same but are open to discussing it).

“Pro life” is a big phrase.  It’s often interpreted narrowly as “against abortion” but actually covers so much more.  Being “for life” involves respecting the incredible, immeasurable value of each and every person, and that has ramifications far beyond the womb and far beyond what we normally define as being in the pro-life category.  So what does St John’s pro life group think it means...?

OK.  It means respecting that every human embryo, however created – in fact even every human blastocyst in its earliest stages – is exactly that, human.  Therefore the embryo has a right not to be thought of as raw material for scientific study, however well-intentioned the aims, and he/she has a right to live for as long as he/she is naturally able – for who is to draw the dividing line that says, “Now this is a person”?  The path of development from two cells to baby to pre-pubescent child to adult is a continuum.  Human being at each of the later three stages look, behave and feel very differently but we do not admit a right to terminate the lives of any of them.

It means respecting the value of each person whether or not they are able to walk, speak or be economically productive and however far from “perfect” their appearance is or however limited their range of obvious talents.  Importantly, it means helping people in all sorts of circumstances appreciate their own value.  It means giving the elderly and the ill a reason to live, not reasons to die.  It means realising that suffering and physical or mental limitations do not automatically preclude what we (sometimes rather nebulously) refer to as “quality of life”.  It means understanding that we are all in this thing (this amazing, wonderful, terrible, painful, challenging thing) called life together and that our care and our support can make life worth living for others.

It means caring about justice and peace and war and hunger and poverty too.  The respect for human life that motivates the pro-life campaigner is the very same respect that sends aid workers to war-torn regions and prompts us to give money to appeals for areas stricken by natural catastrophe.  We cannot advocate for the rights of our suffering brothers and sisters in Africa but ignore those of our brothers and sisters unable to speak for themselves because they are still in the womb or incapacitated by illness.

That’s probably a long enough post to be beginning with (I said we were impassioned!).  Each member of our group has their own story and some of us will share those with you, if you’d like.  We will update this blog with news and views on the latest pro-life issues and campaigns.  And we’ll try to keep it light from time to time, on the grounds that a simple smile can make the whole world look different...