Pro-Life Stirrings Abroad -- Part Two of Two

As we close out the week, a peek ahead to one of the stories we'll be discussing Monday: the undeniable and much appreciated rise of pro-life sentiment in both Spain and Italy.

Today, in Part Two, we're talking briefly about the battles that rage in Russia and England.
Why bother? Besides the obvious--the death of a helpless unborn child overseas diminishes us no less than does the loss of an unborn child snuffed out at home--why am I writing more and more about the fight for life being waged overseas?

I'll explain that at length next week, but the Cliff Notes answer is two-fold. Some of these countries took that wrong fork in the road earlier than did the United States, others later. But why that happened is important to think about as we plot our own recovery. Second, there are rumblings of reform which, again, can teach us lessons.

I mentioned Russia. According to the Moscow News, legislation introduced in the Duma Monday "aims to limit abortion ads to specialized medical periodicals."

As bad as things are at home, abortion is almost pandemic in Russia. There are more abortions than live births!

The bill is an attempt to bring the number of abortions down. The newspaper quotes Sergei Kolesnikov, deputy chairman of the Duma Health Committee, who said the legislation has an "educational character," aiming to "remind people that the problem exists."

Measures regulating private clinics might follow, Kolesnikov said. According to the Moscow News he cited "another bill in the works that might ban abortions in private clinics altogether."

Kolesnikov told the newspaper, "Private medical facilities should start being lawfully regulated and forced to provide information about its services," adding, as of today, "there is no information about how many abortions are performed in [private clinics], and they do not give statistics."

We've written repeatedly about the upcoming battle in Great Britain, the first real head-on clash over abortion in nearly twenty years. The deadly irony is that although we know more and more about the unborn child--and are able to see her in living color in real time--pro-lifers are deeply concerned pro-abortionists will not only stave off attempts to lower the upper age limit, but make it even easier to abort. The legislative vehicle for all this is "The Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill."

Currently, in theory, 24 weeks is the uppermost date at which a child can be aborted in Great Britain. But the law offers a loophole big enough to legitimize the execution of babies essentially up to birth. All the child need have is a "severe foetal abnormality," which has and does include babies prenatally diagnosed with cleft palates and club feet.

In a piece that ran today ("Forty years on, abortion battle rages in Britain") Reuters explains how Professor Stuart Campbell's "groundbreaking three-dimensional moving images" has helped shape the debate.

"His video clips and photographs clearly show fetuses as young as 16 weeks sucking their thumbs, yawning and demonstrating behavior which suggests they are far more developed at this stage than was previously thought," Reuters' Kate Kelland writes at www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL2236728120080425?sp=true.

Campbell tells her, "I was astonished at how complex the fetus is."  A pioneer in ultrasound fetal diagnosis, he adds, "The pattern of behavior of its arms and its hands shows that it is just learning spatial awareness and about its surroundings."

But Campbell's bottom-line position illustrates the wall against which pro-lifers continually hit their heads. Even someone who has seen the miracles of prenatal life (so-called "walking babies"), he would still allow abortion through 20 weeks!

I'll keep you up to speed, both on next week's events marking the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act of 1968 and what happens on "The Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill."
Please send any thoughts you may have to daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

Part One