The man who wants to lead a sensible debate on abortion
They are the sort of tactics that work best in the US, where a large proportion of the populace appear to "do God", but it is going to be interesting to see how the tactics of the 17,000-strong Life League plays out in the British mainland.
Anti-abortion campaigners are ready to launch a US-style cultural war against the 40-year-old law that allows women in the UK to choose to terminate unwanted pregnancies - with politicians who are also practising Roman Catholics as their first targets.The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, is proposing to write to every Catholic MP demanding that they give a clear statement that they support the Church's stance on "life" issues. Those who fail to do so will be spied upon to see if they attend mass.
MPs and other elected representatives who attend Mass but have not taken a hard line against abortion will be targeted by activists who say they should be disowned by the Church.
This entire campaign has been inspired by a fiery sermon from O'Brien who has described abortion as "an evil crime" and controversially compared it with the massacre of schoolchildren in Dunblane 12 years ago.
"I urge politicians to have no truck with the evil trade of abortion," he told a congregation at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh, later adding: " We are killing in our country the equivalent of a classroom of kids every single day. Two Dunblane massacres a day in our country going on and on. And when's it going to stop?"
Whilst all of us remain of the opinion that abortion is something that should be avoided if at all possible, many of us accept that there are circumstances in which a termination is unavoidable. However, Cardinal O'Brien appears to be attempting to overturn David Steel's 40 year old abortion law.
There has been a proposal by MP's from all three main parties - put forward by the Tory Ann Winterton - which would compel women seeking an abortion to see a professional counsellor.The activists' next move will be to use Cardinal O'Brien's comments to force Catholic politicians, such as the Home Secretary John Reid and the Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, to choose between religion and politics.
"If we see MPs taking communion knowing that they have a pro-abortion voting record, including those who have abstained, we're going to make it public," Mr Dyson said.
His remarks will add to the political storm that broke after Cardinal O'Brien questioned whether Catholic politicians who backed abortion could remain full members of the Church.
"They must consider their own consciences and whether or not they can approach the altar to receive Holy Communion. It's not up to me to judge them, I'll leave that to God to judge them." He added: "It's far beyond time that the present Abortion Act of 40 years ago was re-examined."
Mrs Winterton insisted yesterday that the Bill she will introduce to the Commons on Tuesday is not about personal morality, but about protecting women's health although she is a lifelong campaigner against abortion.
The Bill would compel women who seek a termination to have counselling first so they can be warned about the risk to their mental health and be made aware of the help available should they decide to have their babies. It is backed by the Labour MPs Jim Dobbin and David Drew, the Liberal Democrat Paul Rowen, and 10 Tories, but has little chance of becoming law without the Government's backing.
But the Liberal Democrat MP Sandra Gidley, a member of the Commons Health Committee, said: "This is one of the most dreadful ideas I have ever heard. Once a woman has made this decision, which women find very distressing, she doesn't want to be told she has got to go on a waiting list to see a counsellor."
I suspect that the reason this is dominating some of our papers is because the tactics these people are employing are so quasi-American as to be newsworthy, not because the country is ready to have another abortion debate.
And I am also suspicious of anyone who wants to "counsel" women before they have abortions as I suspect all they want to do is provide them with pictures of foetuses in the womb and generally attempt to talk them out of it.
I do not believe that anyone comes to a decision to terminate lightly and think that forcing people who want to terminate to subject themselves to "counselling" from a group of people who are strongly opposed to abortion as a form of harassment.
It seems bizarre to me that such a campaign should be being waged in Britain in 2007, as this is the kind of issue that dominates the US political scene which is much less secular than the UK.
I am sure that the entire issue will, in time, fade; but it is interesting that O,Brien has managed - by threatening to "out" Catholics who fall short of his Church's stance on this issue - to force it into the headlines.
I presume that he is supposing that many people take the decision to abort lightly, and it is on this supposition that I think he is wrong, which is why I think his campaign will ultimately fail.
No-one likes abortion. All of us would like to see it avoided, but it does not follow that we should all accept the Catholic Church's teachings on this. After all, if we did, the next thing we would have to condemn is contraception, which would only increase the amount of cases of unwanted pregnancies. Unless, of course, we were all to engage in abstinence; which is what the Church ultimately wants us to do.
O'Brien can get many people debating the rights and wrongs of abortion in the 21st century, but what he can't claim is that his Church have come up with a solution that suits most people in the new millennium.
We can all agree that abortion is best avoided if at all possible, but for O'Brien to be honest about what he really believes would mean that he should set out the Catholic alternative for all to see.
A banning of contraceptives and an embracing of abstinence outside of marriage. Who, in 21st Century Britain, would sign up for that package?
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