‘Women on Waves’ denies plans to fly abortion drones over Malta, could possibly visit by boat

Pro-choice group ‘Women on Waves’ has denied that it will be flying drones over Malta which drop abortion medication, as it did recently in Poland, but did not exclude visiting Malta on their infamous boat.

Women on Waves appropriately made waves after they flew ‘abortion drones’ from the border of Germany over Roman Catholic Poland, dropping abortion medication. The group considered it a success after it was found that two Polish woman had ingested the abortion pills.

“Just a few months ago the human rights committee [United Nations] had stated that making abortion illegal is a violation of women’s human rights, so Malta is violating human rights as well. They should start changing their laws to be in line with other European countries and legalise abortion,” said Dr Rebecca Gomperts, founder and director of Women on Waves.

A United Nations Committee on Human Rights ruled that in the case of a Peruvian women who was denied an abortion even though her child was sure to die within days of being born, her human rights were not respected and ordered the hospital in question to compensate her. This was a landmark case which “affirmed” the UN’s position that abortion is a human right, according to The Huffington Post.

The Amsterdam-based group describes itself on its online platform as:

“Women on Waves aims to prevent unsafe abortions and empower women to exercise their human rights to physical and mental autonomy. We trust that women can do a medical abortion themselves and make sure that women have access to medical abortion and information through innovative strategies. But ultimately it is about giving women the tools to resist repressive cultures and laws. Not every woman has the possibility to be a public activist but there are things we can all do ourselves.”

Medical abortions refer to ingesting medication that can induce abortion. This differs to surgical abortion, which tends to be done later at a more developed stage and involves an invasive procedure.

In Malta, if found guilty of having an abortion, women could face a three-year prison sentence, while carrying out abortions can land a person four years in jail, and a doctor could have his licence to practice medicine removed.

Dr Gomperts revealed that Women on Waves receives around 65 e-mails per year from Maltese women asking for assistance on unwanted pregnancies.

An article published in the Christian Post said that Women on Waves will be targeting Ireland and Malta next; however Dr Gomperts has denied this.

Asked why Malta will not see ‘abortion drones’ flying over its airspace, she said that “Malta is far away” and the drones do not have the reach to be sent from Sicily or Italy to Malta. She stressed however that the group does not exclude visiting the island again by sea. She also said that the group will continue to fly their drones.

“Basically Women on Waves always look for innovative ways to get abortion pills to women in need. We use the ship, the WOW online project; the drone is another tactic we are using to bring the medication to women,” she said.

Back in 2007, Dr Gomperts came to Malta and held a press conference at Castille. Her visit was met with opposition by a pro-life group called ‘gift of life,’ together with other conservative sections of society.

Many media reports had emerged at the time stating that Dr Gomperts’ pro-choice group would be visiting Malta by ship to provide women with medical abortions and counselling.

They would have remained in international waters in order to provide this service – however it was anticipated that due to their licensing requirements, which needed a regional hospital agreement, this could be an obstacle.

It was largely believed that no hospital in Malta or Gozo would agree to this; however it was reported that such an agreement with a Sicilian hospital could allow them to provide abortive services in international waters.

Ref: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2016-05-23/local-news/Women-on-Waves-denies-plans-to-fly-abortion-drones-over-Malta-could-possibly-visit-by-boat-6736158182

3rd Chesterton Conference in Malta – 10th June 2016

Chesterton & Eugenics – The challenge of our time is the theme of the third Chesterton conference in Malta to be held on June 10 at 7 pm at the CAK Conference Hall, B’kara.

Two distinguised speakers from Seton Hall University (New Jersey, USA): Fr. Ian Boyd and Dr. Dermot Quinn will be giving two short talks entitled “Chesterton and the Culture of Life” and “Chesterton and the Challenge of Eugenics“. This will be followed by a Q&A session.

The conference is being organised in collaboration with the Life Network Foundation Malta and GK Chesterton Malta. It is open to the public and entrance is free.

For further information please call 7959 1875

 

Chesterton Eugenics - Info

 

An interview with Fr. Ian Boyd

On August 27, Campaign Life Coalition interviewed Fr. Ian Boyd by telephone. Fr. Boyd, editor of The Chesterton Review, was a founder of Campaign Life in 1978. We talked to him about the pro-life movement over the past 35 years.

 

Campaign Life Coalition: 35 years ago, together with a group of other pro-life activists, you founded Campaign Life. Why did you come together to create this new prolife group?

Fr. Ian Boyd: There was a crisis, and that was the abortion law that had been passed by the Trudeau government (in 1969). We felt that ordinary people should take some strong measures to see what could be done to defend life, since their representatives weren’t doing a very good job in speaking up for the unborn. That is what motivated people, and it was an immensely popular, and truly grassroots, movement. We believed that most Canadians were on the side of life, but that unfortunately many of them were picking up very bad ideas from a corrupt culture. According to Chesterton, cultures need to be evangelized because ordinary people generally pick up their ways of thinking and behaving from the culture they are immersed in. Fifty years ago, when the culture was basically healthy, even the atheists were pro-life. Fifty years later, rather good people were wounded by a toxic culture and started mouthing ideas that their parents and grandparents would never have accepted. It wasn’t that people have become worse in those fifty years, the culture had become worse and it was having that bad effect on us.  It was a counter-cultural effort that the Campaign Life people were making, and I think that’s basically why we met.

 

CLC: You developed the first draft of the CLC Questionnaire. These questionnaires have been such an important tool in informing the public on where candidates stand on the life and family issues. In the past, politicians were more willing to answer them. Nowadays, they refuse to even address these issues in conversation. What are good ways to engage in dialogue with politicians, and how can we get feedback from them.

Fr. Boyd: It certainly is a serious difficulty. Politicians are terrified of permanently alienating any part of their electorate, and as long as the pro-life issue is simply one among others, then they will be reluctant to say anything. You must remind them that for a certain part of the electorate, it’s an issue that is so basic, that it will actually disqualify the candidate from consideration, regardless of his other good qualities. We need to tell the politicians that if they can’t see the need to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, then they simply do not deserve support no matter what other views they have. Pro-life voters must also be taught that like human sacrifice, matricide, etc., abortion is a disqualifying issue. Furthermore, the unwillingness to take a good stand on the protection of human life, whether it’s regarding abortion or euthanasia, and the refusal to answer is in itself an answer, and a very bad one. Even if we have trouble getting everyone to agree, we want a law in place to remind people, to teach people, and to help bring people to their senses about the wrongness of abortion. Of course we would like to end all abortions right now, but we are realists and we know that in a bad situation, this sometimes is a slow process, but we will not tolerate a politician or give our vote to a politician who refuses to protect life.

 

CLC: You once said that nowadays it’s more difficult to approach people from the head, now you have to do it from the heart. Can you elaborate on this statement?

Fr. Boyd: Human beings are not rational animals only, we are emotional animals, and we have to touch people’s hearts as well as their heads if we are to motivate them. That is why, for example, the recent scandal in Philadelphia had such a terrific effect: when the police stumbled on Kermit Gosnell’s office, suddenly people found out in graphic detail what was happening to these little children. They found out what “pro-choice” means. That was an appeal to the human heart. In our pro-life effort, it is important for us to remind people of the reality of abortion. It’s unspeakable, but we have to render a picture of it to people. The pro-life movement is prophetic in a way, and prophecy doesn’t mean, strictly speaking, predicting the future. It’s speaking the truth to people who have become deaf and blind to realities. You have to wake them up, and I think that’s the great mission of the pro-life movement. We are doing what our elected leaders have neglected to do.

 

CLC: Over the years, there have been many ups and many downs. How would you describe these years and can you share some thoughts about some of your experiences in the pro-life trenches? What would you say were some success and failures you were involved in?

Fr. Boyd: I find that the prolife movement has always been divided into two groups. One group, the principled people opposed to all abortions, that never would they agree to take the life of a single innocent human being no matter what stage of life they are at. I’m all together with them. The second group, I refuse to despise, they are also absolutists, but they say we can work towards that goal and in the meantime, we should do everything we can to cut down the number of abortions, even before we get rid of abortion absolutely. You feel unprincipled if you start talking about cutting down the numbers as if it makes it sound as you are willing to accept any, but we do want to cut down numbers, and we do want to do everything. We take into account the current situation and the way in which some people are slow learners, and we gradually teach them and we do what we can.

The other thing is the ecumenical dimension of the pro-life movement. People who do not agree about some doctrinal questions find themselves fighting together in the trenches of the culture war, and that’s bringing them closer together.

The pro-life movement should also get back in print, read again, and draw people’s attention to notable writers. Authors such as Chesterton and C.S. Lewis are writers who make a huge difference, and we should be instruments of God by putting good literature into the hands of people, especially young people. Chesterton’s prophetic writing about the pro-life issue is a constant, great help to us. From the beginning of Chesterton’s career, he predicted that we were going to face a culture war far more terrible than anything that had occurred in the past. He said: “before the liberal idea is dead or triumphant we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the world has never seen.” He predicted that the next great heresy would be an attack on morality, and especially on sexual morality.

In Canada, one of the heroes of the pro-life movement is George Grant, and was a great spokesman. Malcolm Muggeridge was another great figure. Fr. (Alphonse) de Valk is a national treasure. He knew the complete history of the abortion question in Canada, wrote a book about it, and kept a complete file of what politicians did.

Those great minds and writings should be remembered.

 

CLC: What words of advice would you offer to someone who wants to get involved in the pro-life movement?

Fr. Boyd: My first advice would be that we are always more effective in a community than as single individuals, to get in touch with Campaign Life, with a pro-life group, that it multiplies your effectiveness a hundredfold when you bring your talents to the group. Don’t remain an isolated individual. The other advice would be letter-writing. I don’t mean a form letter, I mean, especially if it’s a hand-written letter to your local politician, and not on some general question, but on some specific issue which has come up, and remind the politician that you don’t usually write letters, but there are a thousand people like you who feel strongly about this very issue. Politicians take a letter like that seriously, one that doesn’t come from the organization but comes from the individual.

For example, there was something on CBC television that I objected to. I wrote a personal letter, not to the producer of the program, but to the chairman of the corporation, Mr. Johnson. I put a post-script in the letter and said, I know that you will take this letter seriously because my brother in law Vince Dantzer, who worked with you years ago in Regina told me that you were an honourable man and that he thought highly of you. I told him we had Campaign Life, a pro-life lobby, and we raised money to send people to Ottawa to lobby the politicians. CBC Television paid practically no attention to the lobby, and only mentioned it, but they made a great deal of a little feminist group who was also there. Johnson personally wrote me back and said that he would set up a group to look into this matter and have them report back to him. I think that had an effect.

A move like that, how can I put it, chilled the enemy, when they get pushed back from people they are afraid of, or from people who are in charge of them. Make use of every personal connection you have, if someone knows a politician, if someone has worked for a party, anything, you know we are a connected people, so never despair. Quoting Chesterton, if you remember the battle of the white horse where he compares Christians to hares being chased by hunters, the hare says “though they hunt us like hares on the hillside, the hare has still more heart to run than they have heart to ride,” so you know we’ll keep on fighting and be cheerful too. We are people of hope, we are Easter people.

  

About Fr. Ian Boyd

A priest of the Congregation of Saint Basil, Father Ian Boyd is an internationally recognized Chesterton scholar and author. He was Professor of English at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan for many years. He was a founding member of Campaign Life Coalition (formerly Campaign Life) in 1978, and as pastoral advisor to Campaign Life, drafted the first CLC questionnaire. Father Boyd is the Founder and Editor of The Chesterton Review and the President of the G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture based at Seton Hall University. For more information about the work of the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture and its journal The Chesterton Review and to subscribe, please visit: www.shu.edu/go/chesterton.

For the full transcript of the interview go to www.TheInterim.com.

– See more at: http://www.theinterim.com/issues/pro-life/interview-with-fr-ian-boyd-observations-on-the-pro-life-movement/#sthash.ZHCAIJXq.dpuf

Eugenics and Other Evils

Eugenics and Other Evils  

by G.K. Chesterton

This amazingly prophetic book demonstrates how a poisonous philosophy of life would lead not only to Nazi Germany, but our own “Culture of Death.” Editor Michael Perry has added a great deal of contemporary articles and material by Chesterton’s opponents who were arguing in favour of eugenics and birth control. They are nicely indicted by their very own words.

In the second decade of the twentieth century, an idea became all too fashionable among those who feel that it is their right to set social trends. Wealthy families took it on as a pet cause, generously bankrolling its research. The New York Times praised it as a wonderful “new science.” Scientists, such as the brilliant plant biologist, Luther Burbank, praised it unashamedly. Educators as prominent as Charles Elliot, President of Harvard University, promoted it as a solution to social ills. America’s public schools did their part. In the 1920s, almost three-fourths of high school social science textbooks taught its principles. Not to be outdone, judges and physicians called for those principles to be enshrined into law. Congress agree, passing the 1924 immigration law to exclude from American shores the people of Eastern and Southern Europe that the idea branded as inferior. In 1927, the U. S. Supreme Court joined the chorus, ruling by a lopsided vote of 8 to 1 that the forced sterilization of men and women was constitutional.

That idea was eugenics and in the English-speaking world it had virtually no critics among the “chattering classes.” When he wrote this book, Chesterton stood virtually alone against the intellectual world of his day. Yet to his great credit, he showed no sign of being intimidated by the prestige of his foes. On the contrary, he thunders against eugenics, ranking it one of the great evils of modern society. And, in perhaps one of the most chillingly accurate prophecies of the century, he warns that the ideas that eugenics had unleashed were likely to bear bitter fruit in another nation. That nation was Germany, the “very land of scientific culture from which the ideal of a Superman had come.” In fact, the very group that Nazism tried to exterminate, Eastern European Jews, and the group it targeted for later extermination, the Slavs, were two of those whose biological unfitness eugenists sought so eagerly to confirm.

As the title suggests, eugenics is not the only evil that Chesterton blasts. Socialism gets some brilliantly worded broadsides and Chesterton, in complete fairness, does not spare capitalism. He also attacks the scientifically justified regimentation that others call the “health police.” The same rationalizations that justified eugenics, he notes, can also be used to deprive a working man of his beer or any man of his pipe. Although it was first published in 1922, there’s a startling relevance to what Chesterton had to say about mettlesome bureaucrats who deprive life of its little pleasures and freedoms. His tale about an unfortunate man fired because “his old cherry-briar” “might set the water-works on fire” is priceless.

That tale illustrates Chesterton’s brilliant use of humour, a knack his foes were quick to realize. In their review of his book, Birth Control News griped, “His tendency is reactionary, and as he succeeds in making most people laugh, his influence in the wrong direction is considerable. Eugenics Review was even blunter. “The only interest in this book,” they said, “is pathological. It is a revelation of the ineptitude to which ignorance and blind prejudice may reduce an intelligent man.”

History has been far kinder to Chesterton than to his critics. It’s now generally agreed that eugenics was born of a paranoia fed by evolution and by the “ignorance and blind prejudice” of social elites. But never forget that Chesterton was the first to say so, condemning what many of his peers praised.

The completely new edition of Chesterton’s classic includes almost fifty pages from the writings of Chesterton’s opponents to illustrate just how accurate his attacks on eugenists were. For researchers, it also includes a detailed 13-page index.

“The thing that really is trying to tyrannise through government is Science. The thing that really does use the secular arm is Science. And the creed that really is levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is proclaimed not in sermons but in statues, and spread not by pilgrims but by policeman–that creed is the great but disputed system of thought which began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics.” – G.K. Chesterton

6th Annual March for Life – Rome, 8th May 2016

Drs. Miriam and Mark Sciberras, on behalf of Life Network Malta, will once again be attending the March for Life being held in Rome on the 8th of May 2016.

 

Marcia per la vita

 
Dear Miriam Sciberras,

In less than two weeks-time the March for Life will be held in Rome.

The March unites representatives of pro-life movements, from all corners of the globe, in the capital of Christendom. The 2016 March will take place on Sunday, May 8th, starting at 9 am, departing from piazza Bocca della Verità, arriving at noon to St Peter for the Regina Coeli.

It is only through the firm commitment of public testimony, through standing up publicly to defend Life, that we will be able to fight today’s culture that, as stated by John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae, strives for hegemony, where a crime becomes a right. The battle for Life has taken center-stage in the court of public opinion; consequently, the support of each and every individual to this March for Life becomes critical to the survival of a society founded on Life, rather than Death.

As done with past Marches, also that of this year will be preceded by the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva on Saturday May 9th, starting at 8 pm.

We really hope you will be able to attend the March.

Looking forward to meeting you in Rome, we send you our best wishes.


March for Life – Italian Committee –  

 
Website: www.marciaperlavita.it – E-mail: info@marciaperlavita.it

Comitato Marcia Nazionale per la Vita – Piazza Santa Balbina 8 – 00153 Rome

Surrogacy, an affront to female and human dignity by Dr. Michael Asciak

A disgrace to the rights of all women to be induced to be used as bearing slaves and a negation of the rights of many children conceived through surrogacy to be brought up by their genetic parents. Just before we started our Easter holidays and while still in the throes of ‘Panamagate’, events abroad quietly gave the lie to another of the Labour Party’s progressive ideas. On the 15th March of this year in Paris, the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted against a report for a Resolution (Doc. 13562) lauding and accepting surrogacy (hired women’s womb) as a means for reproduction!

In December 2015, the European Parliament voted by a strong majority to forbid all practices of Surrogacy without exception, by a large majority. In its Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World and the European Union’s policy on the matter, the position of the European Parliament is very explicit: it “condemns the practice of surrogacy, which undermines the human dignity of the woman since her body and it’s reproductive functions are used as a commodity; considers that the practice of gestational surrogacy which involves reproductive exploitation and use of the human body namely of vulnerable women in developing countries, for financial or other gain, should be prohibited and treated as a matter of urgency in human rights instruments”.

The only solution is to ban surrogate motherhood on an international level, just as the sale of children is forbidden, and to plan for criminal sanctions for offenders, especially the intermediaries. It is eminently the responsibility of the Council of Europe to guarantee instruments for defending Human Rights, as requested by the European Parliament.

In Sweden, Justice Eva Rosenberg has just issued a report calling for a ban on both altruistic and commercial surrogacy as it puts undue pressure on women to become surrogate mothers both in Sweden and abroad and little is known how it affects the children themselves. In Sweden, the legal mother is the birth mother and one wonders what would happen if a surrogate had to change her mind about the pregnancy and refuse to deliver the child to the persons who commissioned the surrogacy?

Left wing Swedish journalist Kajsa Ekman wrote to the Guardian newspaper stating bluntly that, “Surrogacy may have been surrounded by an aura of Elton Johnish happiness, cute newborns and notions of the modern family, but behind that is an industry that buys and sells human life. Where babies are tailor-made to fit the desires of the world’s rich. Where a mother is nothing, deprived even of the right to be called ‘mum’, and the customer everything.

The West has started outsourcing reproduction to poorer nations, just as we outsourced industrial production previously. It is shocking to see how quickly the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child can be completely ignored. No country allows the sale of human beings – yet, who cares, so long as we are served cute images of famous people and their newborns”?

Surrogacy restricts women’s’ freedom by surveillance and contracts to tell them what they may or may not do, where they may go and even what they may or may not eat. Surrogacy endangers the life of mothers by increasing perinatal mortality especially in third world countries where many surrogates are contracted. Surrogacy exploits women’s’ bodies as they are used for their reproductive capacities and then literally forced to disappear from the child’s parentage at birth. Many poor women even as young as 13 years old, are induced to “volunteer” by the money offered by relatively rich parents of heterosexual or homosexual orientation.

Surrogacy gives rise to innumerable legal disputes especially if the mother carrying the baby changes her mind and wishes to keep the baby, or if abnormalities of the foetus are detected and the hiring parents want an abortion to take place with the result that patronage may be withdrawn and the hired mother left alone with a disabled child to care for.

Surrogacy breaks the parentage link with the child. The parentage of the child is deliberately split between gamete providers, the surrogate mother and the intended parent(s). Thus a child could have up to six parents: the genetic mother (oocyte donor), the genetic father (sperm donor), the surrogate mother, her husband (presumption of paternity) and finally the intended parents. This is contrary to a child’s right to know and live with his or her mother and father. (Art. 7, Convention on the Rights of the Child).

Surrogacy is dehumanizing for the surrogate mother and the child. Separating a child from the one who carried him is as much of a hardship for the child as it is for the mother who has to relinquish her child. Surrogacy transforms the child into an object to be sold or exchanged. The child is the object of a contract. Internationally, surrogacy prices vary between $25,000 to more than $100,000. The contracting parties claim ownership rights over the child. These types of “mafia” networks involved in the sale of children are not only reserved for developing countries. In the United States alone, in 2011, a network involving the sale of children was dismantled. It had been organized by lawyers who claimed that the children involved had been conceived for intended parents who subsequently changed their minds.

These children were sold for $100,000. Even if there were no financial gains at issue, the individuals suffer inevitable consequences, notably psychological ones. Neither can one ignore the consequences of such transactions on the other children of the surrogate mother. Surrogacy is an international booming market segment: hundreds of clinics, agencies and young women propose their services for this practice. The annual turnover for the reproductive market in India was estimated at $ 400 million in 2011, and is now $2 billion, and $6.5 billion in the United States.

Surrogacy is also highly contrary to human rights and international law. The 1926 Convention against Slavery states: “Slavery is the status or condition of an individual over whom any or all powers attributing ownership rights are exercised”. In the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 35 prohibits “the sale of or the trafficking of children for any purpose or in any form”. According to the Hague Convention, Article 1 has the particular purpose “to establish safeguards to ensure that international adoptions are carried out for the best interest of the child (…) and thereby prevent child abduction, the sale or the trafficking of children”.

Surrogacy is also incompatible with The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, adopted on December 18, 1979, which became operative on September 3, 1981. Article 6 requires that “State Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women”. Article 11f adds that States must ensure, “the right to health protection and to safety in working conditions, including the safeguarding of the function of reproduction”. This applies perfectly to the exploitation of the reproductive function of surrogate mothers.

No State which claims to respect human dignity should allow the official sanctioning of a legal contract the object of which is a human being in this case a child, and which involves a scheduled abandonment by the mother and a distorted and wilfully disguised parenthood of the same child.

Yet here we have it in our dear Malta, where our Minister for Equalities and the progressive Labour Government is earnestly considering legislation to allow surrogacy to become legal in order to ensure that male homosexual couples have the same rights to reproduce as female homosexual couples and male and female heterosexual couples. An inequality that does not actually exist as it does not compare like with like in functions or capacities.

I should remind the general public that in 2012, when the current Embryo Protection Act, was being enacted in Parliament by the PN and which makes surrogacy illegal, the Labour Party then too lobbied strongly in favour of the inclusion of surrogacy as a regular means of reproduction until they dropped their cause because of the impending general election and possible loss of votes. The moral chasm here was already wide and apparently visible for those who wanted to see and hear.

One should not be surprised now that we observe and hear of so many serious moral discrepancies in government by a governing body. Neither should we be surprised to see this government putting forward legislation with no moral qualms as to regulating against the true nature and true essence of man! After all, the end justifies the means and one wonders how a party which used to consider itself as having a social bearing, adopts a moral ethic that is so individualistic, existentialist and subjective in outlook!

Dr Michael Asciak MD, M.Phil, PhD, PGC in VET.

Ref: http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2016-04-03/newspaper-opinions/Surrogacy-an-affront-to-female-and-human-dignity-6736155736