Abortion Rights offer young people a bleak and nasty vision of life

On Wednesday 16 May the abortion-lobbying group Abortion Rights held a public meeting in the Houses of Parliament.

Much of the content of the eight speeches was made up of the same, tired pro-abortion rhetoric, with a particular emphasis on demonising the pro-life movement and its supposed adoption of Americanised tactics. In fact many of the speakers apologised at the beginning of their speeches for having no more to say than the previous speakers had said already. What was said, as you will see in this post, was both sad and disturbing.

Amidst the catchphrases and emotionalised calls for the so called 'right to choose', the pro-abortion lobby almost always say things that would make reasonable minded people's skin crawl. For example in September last year Dr Patricia Lohr, chief abortionist, BPAS, said that she finds performing abortions "extremely gratifying". In the same speech she told the audience that she performs abortions "as early as possible and as late as necessary", which in the UK means that she is prepared to perform abortions up to birth. How could she possibly find this extremely gratifying?

Speaking at the meeting were:

• Diane Abbott MP
• Emily Thornberry MP
• Kay Carberry, assistant general secretary, Trades Union Congress (TUC)
• Zoe Williams (pictured), journalist, The Guardian
• Clare Murphy, director of press and public policy, British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) - BPAS is the UK's largest private abortion provider
• Natalie Bennett, chair of Green Party Women
• Richy Thompson, education and faith schools officer, British Humanist Association
• Kat Banyard, founder of UK Feminista, author of The Equality Illusion

This time it was Zoe Williams, journalist for The Guardian, who revealed most clearly the disturbing philosophy of the abortion lobby.

She began by attempting to exonerate the doctors who were shown to approve sex-selective abortions. In February this year three British doctors were caught on camera approving sex selective abortions. This story was broken to the media by The Telegraph. These doctors have since been suspended from involvement in abortions and one of them was suspended from practising all together. Rather than distancing herself from the barbaric and brutal discrimination of these acts, Zoe Williams instead condemned the Care Quality Commission's subsequent investigation of abortion centres, and described the doctors as people who simply said: "we're not asking questions, we're just doing our job". She said "there is no way two years ago that The Telegraph would have done a sting on doctors who hadn't done anything."

In her speech Zoe Williams also contradicted the earlier comment of Emily Thornberry MP, who while advocating for abortion 'rights', conceded that "every abortion is a tragedy". Zoe Williams said "it is not always a tragedy to have an abortion, it can be a happy event". These claims were met by cheers and claps by the gathered crowd of over 100 people.

Not content with describing abortion as a potentially "happy event" Zoe Williams went on to suggest it was an inevitable event. After citing evidence from Marge Berer, the veteran abortion campaigner, she concluded that "if you reach the end of your life without having had an abortion, you are either a man or you haven't been laid much." This claim was again met with cheers, clapping and laughter from the gathered crowd.

But how many of them stopped to think about what had just been said to them? Zoe Williams' message was essentially thus:

If you've had an abortion - Great! Lets celebrate! Did you say you don't feel great about it? What nonsense! Abortion is a happy event...

If you haven't had an abortion - Listen up girls, right now you're a bit of a loser who obviously isn't having much sex. But cheer up! The chances are that at some stage in the future you're going to arrange for a medical professional to kill your baby get an abortion.

Serena Rowe, a supporter of SPUC, has given us her reaction to this claim:

"This is so patronising. This woman is saying that women are either at the mercy of their sexual urges or inadequate if they haven't had enough sex to have an abortion. She claims women are unable to live above their basic urges, unable to make moral decisions for themselves when in the position of having an unwanted pregnancy. I am deeply insulted and unspeakably angered by this."

In another section of her speech Zoe Williams took extra care to leave the audience in no doubt about the vulgarity of her message. She revealed that when watching a pro-life campaigner speak on the BBC's show The Big Questions that she would have liked to have put faeces through his letter box. This admission was met by general laughter throughout the room.

Pro-lifers are used to being maligned, sworn at, spat on and generally harassed, but this is the first time I've heard somebody suggest delivering faeces through the front door.

Zoe Williams concluded her speech by saying that "we should take more pride in abortion". But what is there to be proud about a procedure that kills babies and wounds mothers? What sort of message does this send to women who understandably regret the loss of their child?

While it is always shocking to hear what the abortion-lobby really think, it is important that we do not demonise them as they do those who oppose abortion. It is important to remember that everybody involved in abortion is affected negatively by it, that everybody involved with abortion needs forgiveness, and that for everybody involved in abortion there are people who can help.