Pro-lifers reject Blair's abortion spin

Westminster, 7 July 2004 - The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), Europe's largest pro-life group and the world's first pro-life lobbying and educational organisation, has rejected as "spin" comments by Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and David Steel, abortion law pioneer, on abortion law reform.

Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, commented: "Both Tony Blair and David Steel are unrepentant promoters of ever greater access to abortion, and no one should be duped by their spin about their alleged re-think on abortion.

"David Steel's proposal is in fact a Trojan horse designed to enshrine a right to abortion for the first time in British law. David Steel's deceptively ambiguous comments about abortions after 12 weeks came with a explicit call for a legal right to abortion on demand before 12 weeks.

"Enshrining abortion as a fundamental legal and human right is the number one goal of the pro-abortion lobby.

"Any "restrictions" will be flouted in practice and undermined by the courts, just like the 1967 Abortion Act. It is unacceptable to trade the lives of unborn children before 12 weeks to be killed on demand for a "restriction" after 12 weeks. All human life is equally precious and equally deserving of the full protection of the law.

"Tony Blair's anti-life government has a massive majority in the most anti-life parliament in British history, and introducing in Parliament honest proposals which genuinely tighten the law would almost certainly backfire, leaving abortion law wide open to being liberalised even further.

"Tony Blair and David Steel's friends in the pro-abortion lobby are already working hard to liberalise the law to extend the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland and to get permission for nurses to perform abortions.

"David Steel's proposals would be a cue for the whole of Europe to create a Europe-wide right to abortion on demand. We warn pro-life parliamentarians and the public not to be duped."