Abortion pill judgement condemned as failure to protect unborn life

London, 18 April 2002--The decision of the High Court to allow the abortion-inducing morning-after pill to be sold without prescription has been condemned by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).

The case was brought against the government by John Smeaton, the Society's national director, after drug licensing law was amended in December 2000 to permit the drug to be sold.

This decision rests on a distinction between the legal meaning of pregnancy and the reality of conceiving and bearing a child. The case focussed on the status of the newly-conceived embryo, and the judge (Mr Justice James Munby) decided, in essence, that a mother is not pregnant until the embryo implants in the womb. Before that, although an embryonic child is present, she is not legally pregnant the judge said.

Commenting on the case, Paul Tully, General Secretary of SPUC said: "It is a sorry day for justice when the courts fail to protect unborn life at its most vulnerable.

"One of our key objectives in bringing this case has been to stop the systematic deception of women who have been told that the morning-after pill is simply a contraceptive. What the government, the drug company and the pro-abortion lobby have not been able to deny is that the early developing human embryo is killed by this drug.

"We want to see today's judgement challenged in the Court of Appeal, and before the bar of public opinion. Our campaign to inform the public about the truth of how the morning-after pill works will continue.

"We will also extend our efforts to alert people to the medical risks and the social dangers created by the widespread use of this drug. The government is providing it through schools to under-age girls, through pharmacists who have no access to their clients' medical records and now free to teenagers from supermarkets.

"With around 1,000,000 doses of the drug being issued annually, there is no evidence that the rate of registered abortions has been reduced by the morning-after pill. But the government is very deeply attached to this drug -- it is the core of its anti-teen pregnancy programme. This policy is based on blind faith in the morning-after pill as a means of reducing teenage pregnancy and registered abortions, but it does not work," concluded Mr Tully.

SPUC national director John Smeaton is to undertake a sponsored fast, taking water only for nine days in June, as a protest against the ongoing attacks on the early human embryo. The aim is to raise funds for the Society's efforts to oppose abortion of the most vulnerable of unborn children.