Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The Guardian doesn't get it


Another article in The Guardian on George W. Bush’s policies on sex education, contraception and abortion, particularly with regard to foreign policy. As usual, it dusts down the all too well-rehearsed arguments in favour of sex education, contraception and abortion, using a fair amount of emotion and very little in the way of hard evidence. One particular complaint from the abortion-promoting agency IPAS came to my attention as it is such a common accusation posing as a question that pro-abortionists fire at pro-lifers. ‘Why do people who oppose abortion tend not to support contraception?’

Here are a few things to consider. Britain has unrestricted contraceptive use: it is available from doctors, nurses, family planning clinics, vending machines, chemists, supermarkets, almost every place I could care to mention. Contraception is thrown at young people via the classroom, advertising, magazines, youth groups, websites and various other forms of targeted campaigning too numerous to list. Britain also has some 600 abortions every day with no signs anywhere that the abortion rate in our contraceptive culture is likely to plummet any time soon.

Besides the fact that many contraceptive methods are abortifacient, i.e. induce a very early abortion rather than actually preventing conception, the pro-contraception lobby – for all its sound and fury on the subject – has been consistently unable to provide concrete evidence that contraception prevents abortion. On the contrary, the evidence from UK abortion statistics and contraception user rates overwhelmingly suggest that countries where contraception is widely available are likely to have higher not lower abortion rates than countries that do not. It is surely a little disingenuous for a western government to promote contraception as an abortion preventative in developing countries when it has clearly failed to prevent abortion among its own people.

As Humanae Vitae warned 40 years ago, contraception attempts to eliminate the procreative aspect of sexuality, meaning that when pregnancy does occur, it becomes a mistake to be rubbed out – by abortion. Rather than writing endless ‘why oh why’ articles lamenting the attitudes of pro-lifers to contraception, perhaps The Guardian ought to consider allowing a pro-life campaigner to pen an article answering that very question. They can contact me any time.