SPUC Youth Conference: what did last year's attendees have to say?

Lucy Boyles

"Very informative; I feel far more confident in terms of people questioning me about pro-life issues."

Magdalene Soon

"Very informative and eye-opening to the reality of the culture of death. It is good to know there are support groups that are there to help you."

Imogen Fell

"For me, this weekend has enhanced my knowledge but also gave me a support system whereby if I were to make a point, I know I have a network for information I can access to back it up."

Sophie Lawes

"This weekend has revitalised me, and strengthened my resolve to fight for the rights of all vulnerable. Most importantly, it has highlighted to me further that it is not 'if' we can change views, it is 'when', and our coming together can only facilitate this. As a group, I feel we have bonded and are stronger. We are ready to take the next steps in Leeds to make our voices heard."

Annie Latham

"I have never been to any conferences of this nature before, and didn't really know what to expect, I thought it would be inspiring, but the quality of the talks and the depth which the speakers went into their subjects exceeded all my expectations. Pro-life issues were covered from many different perspectives, some of which I found particularly unexpected and thought provoking. An example which comes to mind is the talk given by economist Professor David Paton, who clearly showed that even when any moral or religious bias is taken out of the equation, statistics show that pro-life solutions have the most effective results in reducing teenage pregnancy and abortion. Aside from the serious business of listening to all these brilliant talks, we had the opportunity to meet some of the amazing young people attending the conference, including the group from Spain who picked up the guitar at every opportunity and serenaded us with their beautiful singing, as well as their impressive salsa dancing skills! Overall it was an incredible weekend, the challenge now is to go forward with this information and make a difference, in whichever way is best suited to our talents. Thank you to all who were involved in organising this brilliant conference."

Sam Forsdike

"Having been to many SPUC Youth Conferences this one stands out both for the intelligent level of debate throughout the weekend and the inspirational feeling of being amongst so many committed and like-minded young people from around the world. It was fantastic that all the speakers stayed on for meals, coffee breaks and the infamous SPUC's Got Talent so that there were opportunities beyond the lecture hall to speak with them.

Roger Crossland

"I learnt a great deal and learnt how to explain why I'm pro-life. For me the highlight of the weekend was when I asked why men don't have any legal right to any help. Thank to Sister Andrea, I now know there are people out there that can help men too."

Anthony Loader

"The atmosphere at the conference was spell-binding and I’m so glad we had the opportunity to attend such a life changing event! I was pleasantly surprised to find so many young people pulled together from all over the British Isles and even further in some cases! One group of talented musicians, dancers and singers had come all the way especially from Spain, showing off their talents at Saturday night’s talent show and landing themselves with the first prize. It was nice to meet people of similar ages and share serious opinions and experiences on the topic of pro-life. It created an unbreakable sense of unity and friendship between us all. The variety of different ‘walks of life’ that were evident in the personalities of the speakers really shocked me. We had religious leaders, doctors, a feminist, a journalist, an economist and a scientist; to say a few. I went with a small exercise book, with the intention of taking a few key notes, and I managed to fill the entire book! It has opened my mind to a whole new approach to pro-life and everything it stands to protect and defend. Thank you again to everyone involved who helped us go!! I really mean it. Without your hard work and support, the youth group leaders and I wouldn’t have been able to attend this life changing experience. Please find attached, a photo of me with the other youth leaders at the SPUC youth conference. Thank you.

Mike Forsdike

"Worthy of a Geneva setting and the attentions of a universal media bandwagon, the National Pro-life youth conference had to make do with the drizzly comforts of a hotel on the isolated outskirts of Rotheram. Represented by a host of weary arrivals from across the UK and as far a field as Spain and the Faeroe Islands, the pro-life movement was alive and kicking from the moment of signing in. Ice breakers of plucky individuals attempting their grasp of Spanish or trying to pin point the Faeroe Islands on the map made for a relaxed environment with everyone ultimately sharing the single desire to defend the sanctity of life. The most promising aspect of the weekend which was highlighted during the workshops were the intelligent and thought provoking questions posed by the youth"

Never been to a SPUC youth conference before?

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) will be hosting its 2013 youth conference at the beautiful Hayes conference centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire. As ever, we have put together an excellent line-up of speakers who are experts in their respective fields. We've also ensured that after a day of engaging and demanding talks there's some fun and entertainment in the evening - films, a bar, and Saturday night ceilidh. If you're a student or young adult, the youth conference is invaluable in making new friends, sharing ideas and hatching plans. 

Details of this year's conference and how to book can been seen here > Youth conference page

If you haven't been to a SPUC youth conference before, here's a video of the 2009 youth conference.

 

Useful quotes from the new director of the UN DESA Population Division

Professor  John R. Wilmoth has been appointed as the new director of the population division within the Department of Economic and social Affairs . You can read about what DESA is and does here. The Population Division provides support to intergovernmental bodies such as the Commission on Population and Development, monitors the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals in relation to reproductive health (which is used as both a technical term and a euphemism for abortion) and contraception, and publishes data and studies on population trends. It has a leading role in the global abortion lobby.  You can read more about the Population Division within DESA and it's reports here.

It was interesting to read the interview on the DESA website with the new director, as he made several comments on population that prolifers will find helpful to cite. Sadly there are many myths perpetrated in the media and by population control advocates, who seek to justify the imposition of contraception, sterilisation, and abortion upon economically poor developing countries by claiming "the world is overpopulated".

 

You have authored and co-authored a great number of scientific papers on population dynamics; were there any findings that you found surprising?

Demographers often make projections of future population trends and can be surprised when reality diverges from their forecasts – but that is the nature of this business. An earlier generation of demographers was surprised by the extremely rapid growth of populations in the decades after the Second World War, which was caused by the Baby Boom in industrialized countries and by very rapid reductions of mortality in the less developed regions. For my generation I suppose the two biggest surprises have been the phenomenal speed and depth of fertility decline, and the persistent increase of human longevity.

Fertility levels have fallen substantially in most regions, far beyond what most observers expected 50 years ago. As a result, population growth has slowed considerably in many of the world’s largest countries, especially in Asia (though of course much less so in Sub-Saharan Africa). In many parts of Europe and East Asia, fertility is now well below two children per woman, and some populations have started to shrink in size. Such low fertility accelerates the process of population ageing, with substantial implications for government budgets given the high costs of old-age pensions and medical care.

Mortality trends have offered surprises too. Fifty years ago many observers believed that human longevity was reaching an upper limit, since by then most deaths (at least in the more developed regions) were due to diseases of old age. Since around 1970, however, death rates at older ages in many countries have been falling at an unprecedented rate. Reductions have been rapid in particular for deaths due to heart disease and stroke.

I expect that demographers will continue to be surprised by trends that do not follow our prior expectations. It is for this reason that the Population Division has worked hard in recent years to be more explicit and precise about the degree of uncertainty affecting projections of future population trends.”

The important points here include rapid reductions in mortality, and an increase in human longevity. These are good things that have contributed to people living longer and healthier lives.

Wilmoth also speaks about the substantial decline in human fertility which has led to ageing populations and below replacement fertility levels resulting in shrinking populations.  Unfortunately, pro-abortion organisations remain intent on preventing children from being born by use of abortion, all the while claiming that there needs to be fewer children because of so-called over population.

SPUC has been running a campaign on maternal health since last year, which is closely tied in with issues of development and population trends. SPUC has produced a briefing and a talk on these issues.

Cameron and co continue to finance the culture of death around the world

financiers of the global abortion lobby

SPUC has previously drawn attention to the huge sums of money given to global abortion groups by the British government, normally through the government's Department for International Development (DFID). International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), Marie Stopes International (MSI) and IPAS are among the most devastating organisations promoting abortion throughout the world, in large part funded by the governments of the developed world, especially the UK, which is also home to the headquarters of IPPF and MSI.

Below is the parliamentary record (Hansard) of some questions recently asked by David Amess MP, precisely about British government funding of global pro-abortion organisations. The record is  below, and will give you some idea of just how much our government in the UK is funding the killing of innocent unborn children throughout the world, not just in the UK. The key figures are in red and underlined.

Mr Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what funding her Department plans to give to the International Planned Parenthood Federation for (a) abortion, (b) family planning and (c) other reproductive health services in the next 12 months; what assessment she has made of the value for money of previous such expenditure since June 2010; and if she will make a statement.

Lynne Featherstone: DFID will provide up to £8.6 million to International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in 2013-14 through a Programme Partnership Arrangement (PPA) to deliver high priority, safe family planning and reproductive health services for vulnerable women and girls. The Department for International Development (DFID) does not classify spending under the categories requested. All Programme Partnership Arrangements (PPAs) are expected to demonstrate value for money and our assessments to date show that the cost-effectiveness of International Planned Parenthood Federation is high.

Mr Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what funding her Department plans to give to Marie Stopes International for (a) abortion, (b) family planning and (c) other reproductive health services in the next 12 months; what assessment she has made of the value for money of such expenditure since June 2010; and if she will make a statement.

Lynne Featherstone: Marie Stopes International (MSI) will receive up to £4.35 million through a Programme Partnership Arrangement (PPA) for the period 2013-14. The Department for International Development (DFID) does not classify spending under the categories requested. All Programme Partnership Arrangements (PPAs) are expected to demonstrate value for money. An independent review has recently concluded that MSI show outstanding commitment to maximising cost-effectiveness and have been using funds in exceptionally cost-effective ways.

Jim Sheridan: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will consider increasing the Official Development Assistance to population and reproductive health

Lynne Featherstone: The health and rights of girls and women are front and centre of Britain's development programme. That is why the Prime Minister hosted the London Summit on Family Planning last July—to galvanize the global community to support transformational change for women and girls. The summit's goal was to provide voluntary family planning information, services and supplies to an additional 120 million women and girls in 69 of the poorest countries by 2020.

The UK committed £516 million ($800 million) over eight years towards the summit goal. This is part of the UK's broader commitment to double investment in family planning from an average of £90 million per year since 2010, to £180 million per year for the next eight years.

The UK's Muskoka Commitment, made at the G8 summit in 2010, is focused on saving the lives of women in pregnancy and childbirth, of newborn babies and on enabling couples to access modern methods of family planning. To support this the UK has significantly increased overall aid for reproductive, maternal and child health programming from around £490 million in 2008-09 to £860 million in 2011-12, a 75% increase over the period and above the commitment we made at the Muskoka summit.

Mr Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) what recent reports she has received on the uses of funding provided by her Department to the Government of the Philippines; whether any restrictions are placed on the use of such funding; and if she will make a statement;

(2) what proportion of aid provided by her Department to the Philippines was spent on reproductive health in each of the last five years; and how much her Department has allocated for such purposes in each of the next two years;

(3) whether she has received any reports of the use of funding provided by her Department to lobby the Government of the Philippines to change its laws on reproductive health; and if she will make a statement.

Lynne Featherstone: The Department for International Development (DFID) does not have a bilateral programme with the Philippines and is not providing direct assistance for health to the Government of the Philippines. DFID supports a multi-donor, global programme hosted by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) to improve reproductive health and reduce recourse to unsafe abortion, and a number of non-governmental organisations working on reproductive health issues in the Philippines have received funding from this global IPPF programme. DFID receives regular reports on the programme from IPPF.

DFID provides broader assistance to the Philippines through its attributable contributions to multilateral organisations. This can be viewed on the Statistics on International Development on the DFID website. Due to the nature of the multilateral contributions it is not possible to confirm what proportion of the funding should be attributed to health.

Mr Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much funding was provided by her Department to (a) the United Nations Population Fund, (b) the International Planned Parenthood Federation and (c) Marie Stopes International for expenditure in the Philippines (i) in total and (ii) on reproductive health issues in each of the last two years; and if she will make a statement.

Lynne Featherstone: The Department for International Development (DFID) provides United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with £20 million of core funding each year.

DFID provided £8.6 million to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in 2011-12 and £9 million in 2010-11 through a Programme Partnership Arrangement (PPA) grant.

DFID provided £4.35 million to Marie Stopes International (MSI) in 2011-12 through a PPA. MSI also received a £79,296 grant through the Civil Society Challenge Fund (CSCF) in 2010-11. DFID's funding to MSI is not earmarked for specific programmes. It is not possible to state what proportion of DFID funding to MSI was used in total or specifically on reproductive health issues in the Philippines in each of the last two years.

British newspaper The Independent on Sunday came over all pro-life for Christmas?

By now the world knows that Prince William and wife Kate are expecting a baby. prince Charles has spoken about him being a grandfather to the child. The media has reported it as such, rather than referring to the couple  expecting a "clump of cells", or a "potential life", formulations we only ever hear from pro-abortion types busy trying to justify and rationalise the killing of innocent children. Meanwhile the rest of the world breaths easy calling a baby "a baby", because that is exactly who is in the womb, a baby. I was pleasantly surprised to find another example of the media thinking and writing like normal people rather than sophists, when I picked up The Independent on Sunday  (a broadly left wing British newspaper).

Each year the paper picks a charity to raise money for at Christmas time. As part of its charity campaign it ran an article titled "When pregnancy spells lethal danger to a mum-to-be and her baby" by journalist Emily Dugan, about this year's chosen charity, Refuge, which helps pregnant mothers in domestic violence situations in the UK. Sadly, abortion supporters argue for abortion as a solution to domestic abuse situations. Instead, abortion can be used as a form of punishment on the woman by her partner, and used to cover up situations of abuse and allow them to continue, sometimes helped by abortion groups not reporting cases of statutory rape, for example. Studies in 2009 and 2010 by Dr. Priscilla Coleman suggest that abortion can lead to an increase in domestic violence compared to giving birth to the child. Pregnant mothers in domestic violence situations need proper help, not abortion. What struck me was the wording used in the article, which is uncontroversial and straightforward, yet would be dismissed as anti-abortion propaganda by pro-abortion groups:

Beth was eight weeks pregnant last year when her boyfriend, Jason, killed their unborn child.

The hours that followed are now a blur. One minute she was lying on the floor wondering if she and the baby were about to die, and the next she was in a hospital bed and Jason was in a police cell.

Beth's horror story is all too common. Expecting a child is ordinarily seen as a time of happiness and intimacy for a couple. But 30 per cent of domestic violence cases begin or get worse during pregnancy. There is evidence to suggest it could be the biggest killer of unborn babies in the UK.

 In my 30 years working in this area I've seen some appalling cases, including a woman six-and-a-half months pregnant who had been kicked so repeatedly in the abdomen that her baby was stillborn. Another woman had a baby who was born with three fractured limbs."

Beth holds Ben closer. "At first, they couldn't find the heartbeat and I thought I'd lost him. It's the worst feeling you could ever have – trying to find your baby's heartbeat and not knowing if he's alive or not. I had a fist mark on the side of my belly, marks all up the side of my back and arms but I was only worried about the baby."

Teaching health workers to detect the signs of domestic violence can save the lives of mothers and babies. NHS guidelines say midwives and other health workers are supposed to ask expectant mothers about domestic abuse as a matter of routine.

SPUC International Pro-Life Youth Conference 2013

What: SPUC International Pro-Life Youth Conference 2013

Where: Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, Derbyshire 

When: Friday 22 - Sunday 24 March 2013 

Cost: £100  (price includes room, meals, conference pack, access to all talks and workshops and evening entertainments).

Speakers

Professor Patrick Pullicino: Liverpool Care Pathway

Dr Lisa Nolland: Sex Education

Dr Helen Watt: Pregnancy

John Smeaton: Prolife Campaigns

Ira Winter: Natural Family Planning

Fiorella Nash: Maternal Mortality

Anthony Ozimic: Political Campaigning

Katherine Hampton: SPUC pro-life School’s Talk

Workshops to be announced.

Entertainment: Saturday night ceilidh with guest band Jig Abit, and of course drinks in the bar until late on Friday and Saturday evening.

Information about booking to follow very shortly. 

Auschwitz-Birkenau: Personal Reflections

In recent months this blog has been tracing the development of the ideology of eugenics. We have now reached the 1930s and the rise of Nazi Germany and the most concerted implementation of eugenic theories yet attempted . Over the next few weeks we will examine the most important elements of the Nazi ‘eugenic state’ in more detail; however before we do so I would like to share some personal reflections on my recent visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The famous entrance gate at Auschwitz I

A concentration camp was established at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1940 to hold Polish political prisoners but it became a central component of the Nazi eugenic programme especially after the Third Reich committed itself to the extermination of the Jews in 1942. It is estimated that at least one million people, mainly Jews, Poles, and Roma and Sinti gypsies, were murdered at the camp between 1940 and 1944. Nazi ideology, basing itself closely on the ‘science’ of eugenics (which I have previously discussed here and here and here), regarded all three groups as ‘untermenschen’ or subhuman.

Auschwitz-Birkenau consists of two main sites. The original camp, Auschwitz I, is now a museum while at Auschwitz II - Birkenau there are no exhibits or information boards and visitors are simply invited to walk around the complex which covers a total area of 140 hectares. The roads lead through rows and rows of barracks and other structures, of which for the most part only the foundations now remain. In two corners of the site are the ruins of the gas chambers in which so many innocent men, women, and children, lost their lives, being, for the most part, guilty only of possessing the wrong genes. After spending the morning at the museum at Auschwitz I we arrived at Auschwitz II at about four o’clock in the afternoon, just as it was beginning to get dark and as the evening mist began to form. There were not many other visitors and so we walked the ‘streets’ of Auschwitz almost alone. Despite these ‘atmospheric’ conditions it was still very difficult to comprehend the horror of what had taken place on the very ground on which we were standing. For myself I was most forcibly struck by the tragedy while waiting for the bus that would take us back to Krakow and thinking of the hundreds of thousands of my fellow human beings who must have longed to make the same journey but who were never able to do so.

'Subhumans' or human beings?

There were many other moments of unease as I explored the museum and site at Auschwitz. I felt unable to share in the common assumption that the 'Holocaust' is an event past and gone, which we can mourn over while comforting ourselves that we will never allow such things to happen again. As I walked through the galleries I became increasingly aware that the arguments used by the Nazis to justify their extermination of 'subhumans' were to a large extent indistinguishable both from the ideology of eugenics that I have been exploring on this blog and the arguments used to justify abortion and euthanasia in the present. The 'Holocaust' was simply one rotten fruit of the eugenics movement and the present mass-slaughter of the unborn is merely a modern manifestation of the same. There is even some degree of institutional continuity; we have already seen how a eugenicist involved in the Nazi sterilisation programme was head of the German affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation until 1984. We will be exploring Nazi eugenics in more detail over the next few weeks. I would like to conclude this post by simply stating a few of the parallels that struck me most closely as I walked through the museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

-         Both the Nazis and the modern abortion industry use dehumanising language and pseudo-science in order to deny the humanity of their victims. Advocates of abortion refer to the unborn child merely as a ‘foetus’ or ‘a clump of cells’ in the same way that the Nazis developed a ‘racial science’ purporting to prove that Jews, Gypsies and Slavs were ‘subhuman.’ In recent years the abortion lobby has even redefined pregnancy, contrary to all established scientific understanding, in order to deny that certain forms of contraceptive drugs have an abortifacient effect.

-         Auschwitz has become notorious for the experiments carried out on prisoners by Dr Joseph Mengele and his team. The justification for such crimes was that they would lead to medical advances and that it was legitimate to experiment on ‘subhumans’ if it brought medical benefits. This is exactly the justification used by those who carry out experiments on human beings at the embryonic stage of development. They relegate these human beings to a ‘subhuman’ status and then argue that it is necessary to experiment on them in order to find cures for medical conditions. In both cases it is human beings who are the subject of the experiments.There is no moral difference between the experiments carried out by Dr Mengele in Auschwitz and those conducted by scientists in modern labs.[1]

-         In the museum at Auschwitz one can see punishment forms filled in by German guards seeking permission to punish prisoners. These forms had to be signed and approved by senior officers. This is just one of the ways in which the horrors of Auschwitz were legitimised by formal procedures. Auschwitz and other extermination camps were extremely well run, with clearly defined goals, and conducted with the full support of the national governent. In the same way the abortion industry also hides behind its façade of legality and state support. By obtaining two signatures the taking of a human life suddenly becomes a legitimate and respectable procedure.

-         Legal formalities cannot however stifle the voice of conscience. There is always a secret fear of crimes being recognised for what they are. This secret guilt is clearly in evidence among the Nazis in their panicked liquidation of prisoners and destruction of the gas chambers as Allied forces approached the camps. It was also common for those involved in the ‘final solution’ to destroy any documents that implicated them. Despite their inward and outward self-justification they knew that they were guilty of an offence against the moral law and that this would be recognised once the full facts were known and freely discussed. The abortion industry receives enormous sums of money from national governments; they are given almost total support in the mainstream media and the abortion ideology reigns unchallenged in most of our institutions. Yet the smallest success by the pro-life movement, the smallest number of people holding peaceful vigil outside a modern day death-chamber, is enough to bring forth extraordinary expressions of fear and anxiety on their part. They live in fear that those actions for which their conscience now condemns them in secret will one day be condemned before the whole world just as the crimes committed secretly at Auschwitz were exposed openly at Nuremberg.

'Subhuman' or human being?

There may be some readers who remain unconvinced by the parallel that I have drawn in this post. I would like to end by reminding such readers that the Nazis also would have had no difficulty in responding to my post with a barrage of 'facts' and arguments that purported to justify their identification of certain races as 'subhuman'. Yet today we can see that this distinction is arbitary and their 'science' worthless. All those who support abortion, or any form of research or 'medical' procedure that leads to the destruction of embryos, are also making arbritary distinctions between human beings reducing certain categories to a subhuman status which leads to their deaths. I would urge you to consider upon what grounds you make these distinctions and whether your division of humanity has any more justification than that of the Nazis. 

Please help us to defeat abortion:

-         Join SPUC today

-         Learn how you can get involved

-         Keep vigil outside an abortion clinic (the modern manifestation of eugenic killing)

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[1] It is also interesting to note that after Mengele escaped justice and fled to Argentina he practiced medicine for a couple of years, during which time he reputedly ‘had a reputation as a specialist in abortions.’ (http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/11/world/mengele-an-abortionist-argentine-files-suggest.html)