News,

19 July 2010

Dear supporter,

Please help to counter an immediate threat to the unborn and mothers in Africa. From today (19 July) until 27 July the African Union is holding a summit in Kampala, Uganda. The summit will consider a number of documents that openly promote abortion in Africa. The greatest danger to the unborn comes from a review of the Maputo Protocol. The review promotes universal access to "reproductive health" services - codewords for abortion - and seeks to decriminalise abortion throughout Africa.

It is vital that we act immediately to counter this threat. If the summit approves the pro-abortion document, those texts will then be used repeatedly against all African countries that currently protect the unborn against abortion.

Please act immediately by contacting the governments we have listed http://bit.ly/93yv8I Please tell them that:

• you oppose the review considering the decriminalisation of abortion to be considered at this week's African Union summit in Kampala, Uganda
• maternal death rates are unacceptably high, but lowering them can and should be achieved without killing unborn babies
• evidence suggests that the best way to achieve better maternal health is by improving access to healthcare (e.g. antibiotics, drugs to prevent haemorrhage, blood transfusions, clean facilities, properly trained health professionals)
• access to legal abortion in countries where abortion is currently illegal does not achieve the desired goals and may lead to an overall increase in maternal deaths
• legal access to abortion conflicts with the existing international legal framework
• upholding the rights of women and of their unborn children is a consistent and complementary approach to dealing with existing weaknesses in health care systems.

More information in support of these points are at http://www.spuc.org.uk/campaigns/matmor20091202

Please forward any replies that you receive to political@spuc.org.uk

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