The Association of Lawyers for the Defence of the Unborn
 |
| Newsletter No 24 (Newspeak edition) Winter 1984 |
Contents: Warnock Petition; BUPA; New Associations; Neo-Natal Killings; "Newspeak"; Post Coital Pill; Abortion and the Family.
The Association of Lawyers for the Defence of the Unborn
40 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, WC2E 9EN
Patrons of the Association: The Rt. Hon. Lord WHEATLEY; the Rt. Hon. Lord RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN
Editor: M. N. M. BELL, M.A. (Cantab.),
Winter 1984
Number 24
News and Comment
Warnock Petition
Our Winter 1984 Newsletter is being sent out rather earlier than usual because we wish to urge all our members to sign the enclosed petition. Its purpose is to provide Parliament with evidence of the widespread public anxiety felt about the recommendations of the Warnock Committee. The text of the petition has been agreed by all the main pro-life organisations, and some members may prefer to sign the identical petitions which the other organisations are circulating. If, however, a member wishes to use the enclosed petition the following points should be borne in mind: —
1. The first page of your collection of petition forms must be hand written, without erasure or interlineation, and bearing the signature and address of the person who is presenting the petition. The handwriting of the text need not be the handwriting of the person who signs it.2. The name of your constituency must appear in the space at the top of the form.3. The petition should be signed only by people who live in the constituency stated on the form.4. The petition must be presented to your M.P., preferably before the 14th December. The M.P. will then add his own name to it, and present it to Parliament.5. Any queries about the petition should be addressed to our Secretary at 29 Queen's Court, Hill Lane, Southampton S01 5RR.
In addition to circulating this petition the Association will be making a formal representation to the D.H.S.S. on the recommendations of the Warnock Committee. There is no reason, however, why individual members should not also write direct to the Minister for Health at the D.H.S.S., Mr. Kenneth Clarke Q.C., to make their views known to him.
********
British United Provident Association
At our 1984 Annual General Meeting the attention of members was drawn to the fact that B.U.P.A. runs a private abortion clinic. A.L.D.U. members who belong to B.U.P.A. may wish to point out to B.U.P.A. their strong objection to this activity. They may also feel that in view of this B.U.P.A. activity they would prefer to arrange their health insurance with some other organisation.
********
Finances of the Association
Our Treasurer wishes to express the grateful thanks of the whole Committee to those members who sent a donation in response to his June appeal. A.L.D.U.'s Constitution lays down that there shall be no subscription, but that all members will be expected to consider helping with donations. So if you have not yet responded to the June appeal, please would you consider doing so. A.L.D.U.'s bank account is at the Law Courts branch of Lloyds Bank (sorting code no. **-**-**), and our account number is: ******. If members wish to make a donation this can easily be done by a direct credit transfer.
********
New Associations
We welcome the formation of a German association with aims similar to our own. Their Secretary tells us that they have had this in mind for some years, and that our Spring 1984 Newsletter gave them "the last push". Fifteen lawyers formed the Association on 8th June 1984. German members of this Association should write to the Secretary as follows:—
Dr. W. Esser, Postfach ******, *** KOLN 1, den Komodienstrasse **.
We wish our German colleagues every success in their objectives, and we hope that lawyers in other European Countries will soon follow the good examples set by Belgium, Holland, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The defence of the unborn involves fundamental principles of justice, which should be the concern of lawyers in every jurisdiction. Are French and Spanish lawyers following suit?
We were also pleased to learn of the setting up of "Free Speech Advocates" in the U.S.A. This states itself to be
"an Association of pro-life lawyers who volunteer their time and talents to preserve and defend the First Amendment right to free speech for pro-life activists engaged in peaceful and lawful counselling on public property in the vicinity of abortion facilities".
Further details can be obtained from Professor Charles E. Rice, P.O. Box***, ***** ****, Indiana ******, U.S.A.
********
Neo-Natal Killing
A recent case in Canada emphasises again that the Courts will not tolerate the killing of new born handicapped children. This was a case in the Supreme Court of British Columbia (Re S D (1983) 3 W W R 618). A child who shortly after birth had suffered severe brain damage required remedial surgery in order to free a blockage in a device with which he had been fitted as part of life-support surgery. The parents of the child refused their consent to the operation, on the ground that it was not in the best interests of the child for surgery to be carried out, and that he should be allowed to die with dignity rather than continue to endure a life of suffering. It was, however, by no means certain that death would follow immediately if the operation was not carried out. The court held that it could not sanction the termination of life except for the most coercive reasons. It ruled that interim custody should be granted to the appropriate authority, and that the surgery should be ordered to be carried out.
********
Activities of the Association
A report by our Secretary
It is a particular pleasure to record that we were greatly honoured during the autumn of 1983 by the agreement of Lord Wheatley and Lord Russell of Killowen to become our Patrons.
One comment made at our 1984 Annual General Meeting was that the scope of the problems facing us had vastly increased in recent years. Whereas at the time of the Association's foundation in 1978 abortion itself (though on a huge and increasing scale) monopolised our attention, we have since then had to respond additionally to the wicked practice of starving and drugging newly-born babies to death, and more recently to the two new problems of the "morning after pill" and fertilization "in vitro". On the subject of killing the newly born, members will have been deeply moved by Professor Zachary's article in the Spring 1984 issue of "News and Comment". Some reports suggest that "death rows" in hospitals have become less numerous since the prosecution of the late Dr. Arthur (for which A.L.D.U. cannot claim the credit, though we felt the evidence fully justified the prosecution being brought, and we deplored the erroneous statement of law given to the jury by Mr. Justice Farquharson in his summing-up).
The "morning after pill" became the object of close attention early last year. Accepting the medical evidence that it worked, if it worked at all, not by preventing conception but by ensuring that any child who had been conceived should fail to implant in the womb and thus die, we considered that to administer the pill was to contravene s.58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, and we so informed the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General disagreed, basing his opinion on the spurious ground that the word "miscarriage" in common parlance in the Victorian age referred to a later stage of pregnancy than implantation, despite our distinguished member Dr. John Finnis having previously pointed out to the Attorney-General that all the nineteenth century medico-legal textbooks dealing with the issue adopted the other view, to which we continue to adhere. The appalling consequence of this defiance of logic and purblind misinterpretation of the law is that incalculable numbers of newly conceived infants are being killed simply because, in the absence of any judicial authority on the point, the Attorney-General's opinion is being treated as though it were an authoritative statement of the law.
The Attorney-General's opinion was also treated by the Government as answering legal objections which A.L.D.U. had put forward to the use of the drug Depo-Provera.
The vexed question of fertilisation "in vitro" has risen to prominence lately. Because in days gone by no-one ever contemplated the possibility of the generation of human life outside the womb, the laws against abortion were couched in terms of procuring the miscarriage of the mother. It is thus difficult to maintain that existing statutes protect the embryonic child conceived "in vitro". A.L.D.U. has therefore taken the view that legislation is urgently necessary to deal with this gap in the law. This was the purport of our evidence to the Warnock Committee. As the Report of that Committee does not recommend legislation adequate to prevent either the killing of young embryos or experimenting upon them in the early days of their lives, we are recommending, to M.P.s known to sympathise with us, legislation of a far stricter character.
It was felt to be a proper recognition of the growing importance of A.L.D.U. that we (along with other interested organisations) were invited by the Department of Health and Social Security to express our views on the Warnock Report before the Government reached its conclusions. We shall be presenting a detailed and critical response to the Report.
Members of A.L.D.U. who missed them may be interested to read the articles by our Committee member Mr. Gerard Wright Q.C. in the June 1984 issue of the Criminal Law Review, entitled "The Legality of Abortion by Prostaglandin", and by Mr. Anthony Hofler in the 6th June 1984 issue of the Law Society's Gazette entitled "Exposing Iniquity".
A.L.D.U. conferences were held in 1983 both in London and in Manchester. Committee members (particularly our Chairman) have continued to be active in addressing audiences all over the country, especially in the Universities.
We continue to encourage student membership, and with the start of the new academic year we again reminded University law faculties of our existence. We hope that they will respond favourably by attaching our blue folder to their notice boards and that this will have the effect of leading many new law students to join.
Our membership during the year has increased by over 200.
We have again fulfilled our policy of sending out four Newsletters during the year. We hope that members have found the articles contained in them to be of some interest. We regard the education of our fellow lawyers as one of our primary aims and the publication of our Newsletter as our principal method of achieving it, supplemented by our regular advertising in the legal press.
One of the most important ways of reaching a wider audience, however, is through letters to the legal and national press. Members of your Committee have writ^" ten a great many such letters during the year, a number of which have been published. We urge all our members to be assiduous in writing to their M.P.s and to the newspapers.
Christopher Fradd
********
Newspeak
One of the themes of George Orwell's book "1984" was that society could be transformed by "Newspeak", a technique of giving new meanings to old words. The purpose of this was to gain public approval for activities which, were they given their true name, would be seen by all to be dishonourable.
In general one does not find this twisting of words in legislation, because draftsmen and Governments know that euphemisms make laws ambiguous and difficult to enforce. The Abortion Act, however, is a supreme and almost unique example of "Newspeak" in our legislation. Words were deliberately used in this Act with the purpose of confusing the public as to what the law was intended to achieve. This alone would be sufficient justification for the repeal of this thoroughly bad Act. Unfortunately the technique proved to be so successful in achieving the objectives of those who promoted the Act that it has been increasingly resorted to since then. The purpose of this article is to look at some current examples of "Newspeak" and to focus attention on what the words conceal.
Termination of Pregnancy
The Abortion Act uses a phrase describing a respectable and lawful form of medical treatment, namely "termination of pregnancy". This was a term referring to inducing birth to improve maternal health or save the child's life. But the Abortion Act used it as a euphemism for abortion, that is, the deliberate killing of a child before birth. Life-saving or health-promoting medical activities were not what the promoters of the Act had in mind at all. What they wanted was to legalise the killing of children so as to reduce the population, and to ensure that mothers who wanted their children killed would not resort to unskilled abortionists. But to get it through Parliament the Act was phrased as if its intention was to improve maternal health.
In consequence, since 1967 abortion clinics who want to perform abortions have had to pretend that they are doing it because the mother's health is at risk and that they want to improve her health. In practice, whether or not the health of the mother is improved is of no interest to them. The patient's General Practitioner is very seldom informed when the operation is provided, so there is no subsequent monitoring of patients to see if their health has in fact been improved. The whole procedure of notifying the Department of Health of the "grounds" for the abortion is an elaborate farce brought about by the Newspeak of the Abortion Act.
Euthanasia and "Nursing care only"
Newspeak having been used to put a sugar coating on the deadly pill of abortion, the anti-population propagandists next turned their attention to sugar-coating the pill of murder. The term "euthanasia" is itself a form of Newspeak, for the word actually means a "happy death". But other terminology is becoming popular, and an area where Newspeak is increasingly used is in respect of the murder of new-born infants. A phrase like "nursing care only" sounds compassionate, but what it actually means is deliberate starvation with the intention that death should result, — i.e. murder. Another phrase is to say that "the baby is in the no treatment group". This means that if the baby needs routine but vital surgery, such as would be given to a normal baby without a second thought, the surgery will not be given. "It is ethical to terminate life", said Sir Douglas Black giving evidence at the trial of Dr. Arthur on 30th October 1981. Had he said that murder is ethical, there would have been a general outcry. Because he used Newspeak his statement went without comment in the press.
Equally sinister are the Newspeak phrases which are now being used to get rid of the elderly. We now hear phrases like "allowing the patient to die who wishes to do so". If this meant nothing more than not forcing a terminally ill patient to undergo operations which can be of no real benefit to him or her, there could be no objection to it. But we all know what lies behind the phrase "allowing to die". "Helping the patient to die who has no desire to go on living" gives a truer picture of the murder referred to. In phrases like "allowing the next-of-kin to authorise the machinery to be switched off", the responsibility for the decision has been smoothly shifted from the patient to a third party. We think at once of the "mother's right to choose" (which, incidentally, the Abortion Act did not grant and which does not exist in English law) advocated by abortionists.
Medical Confidentiality
Another example of Newspeak appeared in a letter from some 50 doctors published in the "Lancet" of 17th December 1983. The letter referred to late abortions, and described recent investigations into doctors performing these as a "threat to medical confidentiality". Late abortions, after a child is capable of being born alive, are and always have been illegal, and a doctor performing one can be sentenced to a very long term of imprisonment. "Medical confidentiality" is often the Newspeak term for allowing doctors to do whatever they want. If a doctor at the request of a patient commits an illegal act, "medical confidentiality" is invoked to protect him from prosecution. Medical confidentiality is above all else a patient's privilege and right, and it must not be allowed to be invoked successfully by doctors who murder new-born babies with parental approval.
Our profession is especially well qualified by training and experience to distinguish between what is a real defence, and what is a facade of words. The responsibility rests on us more than on any other profession to ensure that "Newspeak" is not allowed to take away from the individual his right to life, whether in 1984 or any other year.
Eugenic Abortion
Increasingly unconvincing is the attempt to justify abortion for eugenic reasons, that is the weeding-out of the handicapped from the population so as to produce a "master race". We have commented before on the doubtful legality of abortion for diseases which can be treated and cured. With the advance of medical science the number of such diseases is continually increasing.
For example, in a previous Newsletter (No. 12) we commented on the fact that abortions following diagnosis of thalassaemia were probably illegal, because this condition could not be diagnosed before the child was capable of being born alive. It now transpires that there is a further reason to doubt the legality of such abortions, namely, the fact that thalassaemia can now be cured. A report in the Times on 14th March 1983 confirms that complete cures can be obtained. How can a doctor possibly form the opinion in good faith that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from serious handicap when the only condition diagnosed by him can be treated and cured? We trust that abortion following diagnosis of thalassaemia is now unknown in this country, and we will report further on this when statistics become available.
********
The Post-Coital Pill
Controversy over the "morning after" pill continues. Some doctors, whilst admitting that the pill operates to prevent the fertilised ovum from implanting in the womb, say that this does not matter, "because 50% of fertilised ova do not implant anyway, due to natural causes". This is like saying that it is a trifling matter to kill someone if they have an illness which may be fatal. The law has never accepted this type of attempt to justify murder, and it is difficult to see how such a line of defence could ever succeed with a jury who had been properly directed on the law in a trial for procuring a miscarriage.
Another equally objectionable aspect of the new pill is that in some cases its use may damage the unborn child. Although of course it is better to be alive than dead, it must be hard for a handicapped person to know that the reason for his handicap is that his mother tried to kill him between conception and implantation but did not quite succeed in doing so. He is not likely to be much comforted by being told by the medical profession that at the time when the damage was done he was "not a human being anyway". Such a person would surely have a remedy, against the doctor supplying the pill, under the Congenital Disabilities (Civil Liability) Act 1976.
Other people argue that the post-coital pill is not a true abortifacient, because it can have a contraceptive effect. This Association is advised by Mr. John Kelly F.R.C.S., F.R.C.O.G., Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at the Birmingham Maternity Hospital, that the purpose and intention of administering this particular double-dose pill is to terminate a pregnancy which has already commenced; and that it does in fact have this effect.
One pill at present in use is known as "Schering PC4”, and the prescribing information for this pill clearly states that it is "primarily aimed to prevent implantation of the fertilised ovum". The prescribing information also warns that "it is possible that there will be a relative increase in ectopic pregnancy in patients who become pregnant despite the use of the Schering PC4 therapy". An ectopic pregnancy will, of course, result in the death of the baby and also carry very considerable risk for the mother.
The fact that this pill may incidentally have the effect of preventing the commencement of a pregnancy which would otherwise have commenced after the time when the pill was taken is immaterial in considering the question of whether or not the pill is an abortifacient.
It is quite clear, therefore, that this is simply another way of providing an abortion; and we contend that its use is completely illegal, because in the circumstances of its use there is no way in which the very strict conditions of section 1 of the Abortion Act 1967 can be fulfilled. We remind all readers of this Newsletter of what section 5(2) of that Act says:—
"For the purposes of the law relating to abortion, anything done with intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman is unlawfully done unless authorised by section 1 of this Act."
********
Abortion and the Family
by Michael Bell
The present Government, perhaps even more than its predecessors, claims to recognise the importance of the family as an institution essential to the survival of society. On the other hand, nobody in the Government appears to recognise that nothing is more likely to destroy the family than easily-available abortion. It is important, therefore, if we are to achieve the aims of this Association, that we should be able to demonstrate the threat to the family which abortion represents. We have been accustomed to concentrating on the threat to the unborn child represented by abortion, and perhaps we have failed to indicate sufficiently clearly the damage which abortion does to the family unit.
It is important to remember that 50% of abortions are obtained by married women, and it is impossible to overestimate the harm done to the family by these abortions. This harm becomes readily apparent when one looks at the purpose of marriage, which is to bring together a man and woman in the way that nature intended and for the purposes that nature intended, namely, to form a new natural entity, the family, in which a man and woman complete and complement each other and from their unity create new life.
An Act of self-destruction
The moment a child is conceived the family becomes extended to include all three of the human beings that make it up. All these three beings are essential to the family, mutually dependent, needing and helping each other, throughout the lifetime of the family. From his or her conception the child is one of the family. As soon as the parents are aware of his or her existence their attention becomes directed to his needs and welfare as much as to their own. For two members of the family deliberately to choose to destroy the third at any time represents a self-destructive act, which strikes at the very foundations of the family community.
To seek to justify this by saying that the child is, and will be in the future, an added burden, is to deny the whole basis of the family, which is mutual love. This mutual love means that if the father falls ill, and cannot support himself or the others, they will look after him. If any member of the family is at any time in need of help, the other members of the family will give such help as is needed, for as long as it is needed. Without such a commitment the family community is doomed.
A couple contemplating marriage should understand that a commitment of this kind is essential if the marriage is to succeed. To deny this commitment by contemplating killing one of the family when he or she is very small and helpless and is at that time carried in the womb rather than the arms of the mother, is to deny the very pre-condition on which the marriage is founded. This is equally true if the child is crippled. To kill the child on that account is just as repugnant to the marriage commitment as it would be to kill the wife if she were crippled by a motor accident. The special strength of the family is this commitment to support and defend each other.
Furthermore, abortion damages the family security, because it is a fundamentally unjust act. For the parents to embark on such an act against their own flesh and blood must necessarily create tensions between them, as each discovers that the other is capable of such hostility to their offspring. How can they love and trust each other as before, when each knows that the other is capable of such an act against their own child?
The Value of Creation
Furthermore, abortion inevitably undermines the self-respect of the woman, and her husband's respect for her, because it robs her of her dignity. It denies her unique role as sole guardian of, and provider for, the child in the first nine months of life. In this role she is carrying out one of the highest and most wonderful functions of which she is capable, a role which no man can ever fulfil. The creation of new life has been devalued in our society, and is often represented as nothing more than an often unwanted side-effect of sexual intercourse. In reality, nothing a man or woman can ever achieve in the realms of art or business or any other human activity can be more creative or more wonderful than the bringing into existence, and then caring for, another human being.
It is because this has been lost sight of that our society has permitted the devaluation of marriage, and has done little or nothing to discourage intercourse between couples who are not married to each other. Widespread intercourse outside marriage has inevitably led to an enormous number of pregnancies outside marriage. And a woman who conceives a child by someone other than her husband is under infinitely greater pressures than a woman who conceives a child within wedlock. That is why 50% of children conceived outside wedlock are aborted, compared with only 10% of those conceived within marriage.
Love means Sacrifice
One of the highest achievements of which a human being is capable is self-sacrifice for love of another. And this again is something which has been consistently denigrated and ridiculed in our society, and in particular in the media. In its place have been proclaimed, as the highest goals of the individual, self-expression and pleasure and the immediate gratification of every desire at no matter what price to those around us. But it is in fact the willingness to make sacrifices for the love of another which is essential to family unity. And it is because this, willingness is now so much less common that abortion has become so widespread.
By choosing the loving way the parents inevitably create new love between themselves, and the sacrifices which they make for a child who may initially have been inconvenient or even unwanted will in the future be a tremendous source of strength and joy and unity in the family.
More often than they are given credit for, politicians frequently speak out in favour of protecting the family. Let us be thankful for this. It is our task to make it clear to them that a politician who is unwilling to support legislation to outlaw abortion cannot be taken seriously in his or her claim to respect the family. Most members of this Association have at some time voted for a Member of Parliament. It is up to us to make sure that those to whom we give our votes understand these fundamental points.
The Association of Lawyers for the Defence of the Unborn accepts the undisputed finding of modern embryology that human life begins at conception. The Association accordingly holds that natural justice requires that the unborn child, no matter how young, should enjoy the same full protection of the criminal law as is enjoyed by his or her mother or father or by any other human being. The Association was founded by eight lawyers in May 1978 and already has well over 1000 members.
