Society for the Protection of Unborn Children
3 Whitacre Mews, Stannary Street
London, SE11 4AB, United Kingdom
Telephone: (020) 7091 7091
Fax: (020) 7820 3131
Email: information@spuc.org.uk

• abortion
  • Methods
  • Backstreet
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  • Saving mothers
  • Poverty
  • History
  • After rape
  • Disability
  • Morning after pills
  • Wanted children
  • Religion
• human cloning
• stem cell research
• SPUC Facebook group
• The Robin McNair Prize

Abortion and poverty/social exclusion

No woman should be driven to abort her baby through poverty or social exclusion. Abortion simply allows society to get away with ignoring the problems facing women in crisis pregnancies. The compassionate response is to allow women, whatever their background, the resources necessary to bring up their children.

Abortion discriminates against the poor. Margaret Sanger, the founder of International Planned Parenthood, the world's largest abortion provider, argued in 1922 that "all our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working classes." (Cited by Steve Mosher and Michael W Bird in their review of Margaret Sanger's The Pivot of Civilisation)

Planned Parenthood has argued that abortion is "cost-effective" because "for every $1.00 spent by government to pay for abortions for poor women, about $4.00 is saved in public medical and welfare expenditures incurred as a result of an unintended birth." (Bad Science in the Service of a Lethally Racist Ideology, Angela Franz. Cited on the nrlc.org website)

It is in the interests of governments to pay for abortion rather than providing housing and maintenance for women and children in need. In the UK, mothers in need can ask for state benefits and housing. The law requires fathers to contribute to the maintenance of the child. If a man fathers a child he
cannot simply run away.

Pro-life charities such as Good Counsel and LIFE offer housing and support to women in crisis pregnancies. SPUC will always respond to requests for help from pregnant women: there is no need for women to face a crisis pregnancy alone. Women in actual danger can request police protection and safe housing.

There are humane solutions to poverty and social exclusion. SPUC works to create a climate of tolerance and respect for life rather than promoting abortion as an easy way out.