The hypocrites

This adorable little boy, an innocent just 17 months old, died in north London in August 2007 after horrendous abuse amounting to torture inflicted by his mother and two men. His case has only recently hit the headlines.

Questions are being asked about why child protection services failed to prevent Baby P’s death even though he had received 60 visits from the authorities over eight months of his short little life and was known to be at risk.

The good people of modern British society are appalled and angry, and rightly so; Melancholicus shares their outrage.

Honourable Members are likewise expostulating, and stamping their feet. Melancholicus wonders why they bother. Are they blind, or merely stupid?

Because two years before August 2007, Baby P was alive, though not yet born. His mother could at that time have killed him—in a procedure amounting to torture—with the full backing of the law.

Had she chosen to do so, Baby P’s violent death would not have been a matter for the newspapers and for the good people of modern British society to wag their tongues in disapproval. Instead, he would have been a statistic unnoticed save by those who strive to defend the unborn from a brutal fate in the local abortuary.

Some of the more intemperate and less restrained members of the public have issued threats of violence against Baby P’s mother. Yet, had she killed her son two years before, it is likely that the same persons now calling for her head would have defended to the utmost her “right” to “choose”.

A sense of perspective is in order.

RTÉ suppresses politically-incorrect results of abortion poll

Communist: Comrade, you are oppressed!

Working man: What? No I’m not.

Communist: But you are! I am sure of this because I’ve read my political theory and you haven’t! Now stand back and I will liberate you!

Working man: Huh?

Communist: If you deny the truth, comrade, you must be a counter-revolutionary! If you’re not for us, that means you’re against us!

* * *

Earlier this week, Melancholicus linked to a poll on the RTÉ website which asked viewers whether it were time to overturn Ireland’s abortion laws. Melancholicus recommended his readers visit the site and vote No.

He had already done so himself, at which point most respondents were clearly in favour of NOT overturning this country’s prohibition on abortion—an encouraging result for anyone concerned to defend the lives of the unborn against the state-sanctioned slaughter that is legalised abortion.

Today Melancholicus was back on the RTÉ website, looking for coverage of an unrelated matter. While he was there, he noticed that the interactive poll on abortion laws had been replaced by one on property prices. Assuming the abortion poll to be now closed and interested in seeing the final result, he went to the poll archive page. There he found the results of a great many previous polls, even going back as far as March 2007, but this week’s abortion poll result was nowhere to be found.

What can we conclude, except that the final result of the poll displeased some pro-choice zealot at RTÉ and as most of those who voted were clearly in favour of maintaining Ireland’s ban on abortion, the result was quietly suppressed?

Those who run our media are all for public opinion when said opinion happens to coincide with their own, and they trumpet this agreement loudly in their newspapers, on the television and on their websites. They are all for democracy when it gives them the result they want. But when the public manifests a view that contradicts some aspect of politically-correct leftist orthodoxy, our dissent must be hushed, suppressed and swept under the carpet.

Is that what has happened in this instance?

It would be too much of a coincidence to think otherwise.

Orwellian society update: EU resolution in favour of abortion

Even though Oceania has until recently been at war with Eurasia, Ingsoc has decreed that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia and with no one else.

From Catholic World News:

European Council calls for end to abortion bans

Strasbourg, Apr. 18, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The parliament of the Council of Europe has approved a non-binding resolution calling for all European nations to legalize abortion.

By a vote of 102-69, the parliament passed a resolution affirming the "right to choose." Proponents of the measure argued that legal bans do not prevent abortion but merely drive the practice underground (an argument that American proponents of legal abortion have confessed they put forward without evidence). Gisela Wurm, the Austrian lawmaker who sponsored the resolution, said that laws against abortion are a form of violence against women.

Representatives of Ireland and Malta -- the European Union countries that maintain legal bars on abortion -- objected vigorously to the resolution.

Melancholicus supposes that the good news in this wretched matter is that the resolution is at least “non-binding”.

For the moment.

But who can say how long it will be before the Council of Europe shall have the power, granted it in law by the constituent nations of the EU, to overrule the laws of any and every member nation? The Treaty of Lisbon is set to go into effect by the end of this year, unless it be stopped (or at least stalled) by the Irish electorate and one of the effects of this impious treaty is to resurrect the Constitution of the European Union that was rejected in referenda by both the French and the Dutch in 2005.

This kind of interference by unelected and unaccountable EU councils and commissions in the internal affairs of sovereign nations is becoming more and more common. As the process of European integration continues to advance, how long shall it be before hitherto sovereign nations are reduced to little more than regional provinces within an over-arching European super-state, a state that shall have supreme legislative and executive power over its constituent “provinces”?

The reader may scoff at such a forecast, but it cannot be denied that this is the direction to which European integration is resolutely committed. How else can such a large, unwieldy institution as the EU, composed of such a multitude of incompatible and disparate parts, be in practical terms managable, except through increasing centralisation?

Is it not passing ironic that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights declares (chap. 1, article 2.1) that “Everyone has the right to life”, which would appear (in the plain sense of the words at least) to be a disavowal of abortion? Yet the Council of Europe is determined that the killing of the unborn be legally permitted in every constituent state province of the EU — unless of course the “everyone” of the Charter does not include those who have not yet been born, in which case the Council need not ride roughshod over its pretended commitment to human rights.

How much more of our sovereignty shall we Europeans transfer to these sinister institutions? For personal reasons Melancholicus is currently investigating the possibility of permanently relocating to the United States. If this Republic of Ireland continues to fritter away its hard-won freedom by transferring its inalienable sovereignty to a foreign bureaucracy, he shall have a further impetus to flee his homeland. Melancholicus has no desire to live in an Ireland that voluntarily renounces its own statehood and submits to the pitiless encroachment of what is little else than the Roman Empire redivivus. Moreover, in acquiescing in this state of affairs and in abetting the silent conquest of this nation, the Irish government is surely guilty of treason.

Did our fathers really spend all those years, with all their mayhem and misery and cost in lives, fighting against British occupation for nothing?

If you are an Irish citizen, gentle reader, please consider voting No to Lisbon in the forthcoming June referendum. How much more will we let them get away with before we will finally tell them Thus far and no further? With each successive diminution of our liberties, it becomes more difficult to draw a final, uncrossable line.

Where shall we draw that line?

Shall we even draw it at all?

BBC bias

The BBC seems to be constitutionally incapable of intelligent reporting when it comes to the Catholic Church, or to any agency or individual that stands opposed to the institutionalised leftism of the the contemporary social order.

This morning on BBC Radio 4, Melancholicus heard Cormac Cardinal Murphy O’Connor interviewed by either James Naughtie or the egregious Edward Stourton (I’m not sure which) regarding an open letter penned by the Westminster prelate and the Primate of Scotland, Keith Patrick Cardinal O’Brien.

Melancholicus was exasperated by the (deliberate?) obtusity of the interviewer, who (intentionally?) misunderstood the whole thrust of their eminences’ letter, and seemed to think (while knowing full well to the contrary?) that this letter heralded a ‘softening’ of the teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion.

Can it be that the BBC cannot tell the difference between a Church teaching and the manner in which said teaching is presented? The letter calls for efforts to roll back the easy availability of abortion by increments over a period of time. The interviewer did seem to be impressed by this pragmatic approach, but because the letter proceeds thus rather than urging an immediate and outright ban, he seemed to think it advocated a retreat from traditional Church teaching, even wondering aloud whether their eminences’ pragmatism would draw fire from the Vatican. The Cardinal, to his credit, was very patient in the face of all these foolish questions.

Later, this interview appeared in the ‘listen again’ section of the BBC Radio 4 website, bizarrely labelled Is the Catholic Church softening its position on abortion?

The good people at Broadcasting House may have completely internalised the culture of moral relativism and absolute autonomy of the individual, but Melancholicus can hardly believe they are stupid enough to really believe that the contents of this letter mean the Church is changing her position on abortion. On the contrary, it is not beneath the BBC to create the impression in the public mind that the Church is on the point of changing her teaching. Why would they do this? Simple. It plays into the hands of the liberal agenda. Conflicting public reports about the Church’s teaching on abortion only serve to make it more difficult for the Church to make her genuine teaching clear.

The BBC is not, and has not been for a very long time, an impartial and unbiased source of news and information on current affairs. The BBC is now little more than a mouthpiece of the culture of PC nuttiness, an organisation infatuated with Mohammedanism and buggery (strange bedfellows, those), the perceived grievances of minorities and deeply hostile to the Judeo-Christian foundations upon which western civilization is built. The BBC still has a formidable reputation in the world of media and communications; but the longer it continues to sacrifice its integrity in the relentless pursuit of the zeitgeist, that reputation will soon be lost and may well be impossible to recover.

More musings on attitudes to abortion in the UK

This just in from the BBC:

Public 'backs easier abortions'

Women should not have to gain the permission of two doctors to obtain an abortion in Britain, a slim majority of respondents to a survey have said.

Some 35% said one doctor was enough and 17% said permission should not needed at all, an independent poll carried out for the group Abortion Rights found.

A total of 83% of the 1,000 people polled saw abortion as a woman's right.

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the 1967 Abortion Act.

Under the terms of the law, a woman must obtain the permission of two doctors before she is allowed a termination, which can be carried out up until 24 weeks.

The poll, which was carried out over the telephone by the market research group GfK NOP, is said to be the first to ask the public their thoughts on the "two doctor" rule.

The findings mirror those of a Marie Stopes International poll of GPs published earlier this month.

Over half of family doctors questioned said they thought the agreement of just one professional should be enough for an abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

Both surveys follow a resolution at last summer's British Medical Association conference calling for abortions to be approved by just one doctor.

"The public clearly feels that the legislation is now out of date," said Anne Quesney, director of Abortion Rights.

"It is time for a law that trusts women to make the abortion decision and remove the need for two doctors' permission to access the procedure - a process that can lead to delays for women at a difficult time."

'Formality'

Broken down into age groups, the figures suggested that the youngest and the oldest have the most reservations about abortion, with 18% of 16 to 24-year-olds and 16% of the those aged 65 and over rejecting the right to a termination.

However, the majority in both groups supported abortion access.

Anti-abortion campaigner Josephine Quintavalle said the figures reflected the public's lack of understanding of what an abortion entailed.

"If there was more information and more discussion of the issues - a greater engagement with abortion - we would see attitudes change and numbers go down.

"The two doctors rule is frequently just a rubber-stamping exercise which no-one should support.

"We need to see doctors taking the time to talk through matters with the woman, not just signing off piles of forms before a patient's name is even written on the top."

This research may or may not be an accurate reflection of British public opinion on the subject of abortion. We are not told who the 1,000 persons interviewed are, or how they were selected. Neither are we given the details of the questions put to them, save for the question on the ‘two-doctor rule’. A skilled interviewer can extract the desired answers from any number of neutral subjects, simply by asking the right questions — or by asking certain questions in a particularly leading way.

But let us suppose that this research is accurate, and that 83% of a representative sample of the British public view abortion as a woman’s right. What does that tell us? Nothing, except that most Britons approve of the provision of abortion services. Of course in contemporary society, if the majority approve of a given premise, that premise is viewed as being ipso facto true. This fact — that 83% of the British public view abortion as a woman’s right — does not in itself make abortion morally licit. The notion that majority approbation renders any particular act morally good is completely erroneous, since what is false does not become true by virtue of popular consensus. Nor is the majority necessarily infallible. It simply reveals what we already know — that in the decadent and spiritually bankrupt climate of the modern west, most people are quite prepared to accept and even advocate barbarities such as abortion on demand.

If nothing else, this story proves the truth of the aphorism that if a lie is repeated often enough, most people will eventually believe it.

It is interesting, though not particularly surprising, that opposition to abortion should be concentrated among the elderly and among young adults. The elderly have had the benefit of living in a traditional, or at least a normal, society, in which basic attitudes to life and death issues had not yet been skewed by the leftism which has been so pervasive in social thinking since the 1960s. At the other end of the scale, the younger generation is beginning to react against the unrestrained permissiveness and social nihilism of their baby-boomer forebears. This reflects trends emerging in the United States, whereby the youth of today are more likely to be pro-life and pro-family in their outlook than their parents who grew up in the dislocation of the 1960s.

UK Commons Committee on Abortion Restrictions heavily biased in favour of abortion

From the redoubtable Hilary White, via Lifesite:

Committee decided to consider only science and medical subjects and avoid ethical questions

By Hilary White

LONDON, October 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Parliamentary committee examining Britain’s 1967 Abortion Act has come under heavy criticism by some of its own members. A member of the House of Lords warned that it has been “stacked” with pro-abortion members, as well as heavily favouring the pro-abortion view in its selection of witnesses.

The Catholic Herald quotes Lord Alton of Liverpool who said, “If you only call people who have your point of view, it is obvious what conclusions you are going to come up with.”

“I think that the distorting of public policy by loading of committees of people who hold a particular view is disgraceful. We are getting perilously close to a totalitarian approach to making public policy where hearing all sides of the argument has been replaced by shrill voices trying to drown out any alternative view,” Lord Alton said.

At the end of October, Britain will face the 40th anniversary of the passage of the 1967 Abortion Act that legalised abortion up to 24 weeks for healthy children and without restriction for those children deemed by a doctor to be potentially “seriously handicapped”. Since its passage, the Act has resulted in the deaths of over six million British children.

The Committee was initially to have called 18 witnesses to give oral evidence; of these the Catholic Herald reports, 17 have “liberal” views on abortion. Protests by MP’s led to the number of pro-abortion witnesses to be reduced to 13, with a total of five who are opposed to the practice.

Dr. Bob Spink, the Conservative MP for Castle Point, Essex, who criticised the Commons Committee membership, said that it is “very much to be regretted” that it is heavily slanted to the pro-abortion side, the position heavily favoured by the governing Labour Party.

Dr. Spink also criticised the bias of most of the witnesses: “I believe that it is either by design – because somebody has fixed the committee to be pro-choice – or alternatively it could be error because people just haven’t fully appreciated the position of some of the people who have been invited to give evidence.”

Spink named Jane Fisher, the director of Ante-Natal Results and Choices, who gave evidence on Monday: “Her organisation is a signatory member of Voice for Choice, an aggressive pro-choice campaigning organisation.”

The Committee is also being hampered by its decision to restrict its consideration to science and medical subjects and avoid the ethical questions of abortion. Madeleine Davies, writing in the strongly pro-abortion Guardian newspaper called the refusal to consider ethical questions a “disingenuous” and “futile” decision that has led to chaos in the Committee chamber.

“Bringing ethics into the equation may be messy,” she wrote, “but a meaningful inquiry into abortion law cannot be conducted without it”.

“To ask whether we need a definition of ‘serious abnormality’ with regard to abortions after 24 weeks, then request that the answer steer clear of morality or ethics, strikes me as futile at best. Ask what percentage of babies is able to survive at 24 weeks and you'll hear about the percentage that survive but with severe disabilities. What do we do with this information? How can we make use of it unless within an ethical framework?”

Six million abortions in Britain since 1967! What a veritable holocaust, and yet this very morning on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 we had the vicious Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, celebrating (yes, she used that word herself) 40 years of the murder of the unborn!

The proponents of legal abortion will always assert it as a woman’s ‘right’ to choose what she does with her own body. But when confronted with the appalling number of terminations carried out under this cherished legislation — 200,000 annually in the UK alone — even the advocates of abortion have the good grace to be embarrassed, yet will not retreat from their position. Inevitably, they begin to fall back upon highly emotive reasons why abortion should always be legally available. The ‘hard cases’ of rape and incest are invariably trotted out to silence their opponents. But can any advocate of legal abortion seriously maintain that all, or even most, of those 200,000 terminations carried out every year in British clinics fall under the category of such ‘hard cases’? Will they not admit that the number of abortions carried out for reasons of rape, incest, grave fear, etc. is very small, and that this horrifyingly high annual figure comprises a considerable proportion of abortions for reasons of convenience, selfishness, financial hardship or just sheer thoughtlessness?

40 years of infanticide in Britain: the pro-aborts are celebrating

Melancholicus has noted a glut of anniversaries lately, including the 40th anniversary of the execution of Ernesto Guevara and the 45th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

The image reproduced here is of a poster created by a group called Choice Ireland; their impious presence on the web can be viewed here. Their website is replete with links to Indymedia, which is a hard-line international socialist news outlet. That socialists and feminists would make common cause in such an issue as abortion need not surprise us; socialists have always been noted more for taking lives than saving them.

Choice Ireland is now busy organising a celebration of another anniversary, namely that of the legalisation of abortion in Britain in 1967. These posters have appeared everywhere throughout the humanities building in the university where Melancholicus earns his crust, so he decided to appropriate one of them for the benefit of his readers.

Melancholicus quite appreciates this poster, for he feels in its simple imagery it makes a point more eloquently against the abortionists themselves than any words of his could do.

The most prominent image on the poster is Venus’ mirror, the universally-recognised symbol of femaleness and femininity — but what is that object within the circle? To Melancholicus’ eye, it looks remarkably like a clenched fist. Already we have to do with violence. So abortion is about compassion, is it? Could have fooled me.

This poster celebrates 40 years of the killing of the unborn in Britain. Yes, that’s right: celebrates. We might also note, with a not displeasing sense of irony, the colour of the digits making up the number 40 on either side of the mirror’s handle.

Of what, in the context of ‘reproductive rights’, does the colour red remind you, gentle reader?

Yes, this is the actual colour that appears in the original: Melancholicus has not doctored his image of this poster to make the abortionists look worse than they are, but has displayed it as its designers intended it to be seen.

How ironically fitting.