Stomach-wrenchingly abhorrent news from The Guardian:

A Vatican official has said the Catholic church will excommunicate a medical team who performed Colombia’s first legal abortion on an 11-year-old girl, who was eight weeks pregnant after being raped by her stepfather.

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, said in addition to the doctors and nurses, the measure could apply to “relatives, politicians and lawmakers” whom he called “protagonists in this abominable crime”.

Why on Earth does Middle England complain so much about Islamic society when Christianity – the religion at the heart of Middle England – does as many things which are at least comparably terrible on a daily basis? I don’t get it.

Perhaps it’s because Middle England don’t know that these things happen – after all, a story like this would never feature in the Daily Mail, as to do so would be to cast doubt upon the beliefs and values of it’s readership. Far better that they reinforce the prejudices by using dubious research to convince it that the 2% of the population that have an Islamic belief system pose an immediate threat to the future of the UK.

How can anyone justify forcing an 11-year-old raped by her step-father to carry her child to term?  That is evil.  And that is the decision of one of the most senior people in the Catholic church, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, who will almost certainly oversee the conclave to select the next Pope.  This is not some crazy parish priest in some far-flung land.  This is a crazy senior priest in the highest echelons of the Vatican.

Just, for a second, imagine the uproar if these were the words of an Imam.  Yet, because this is apparently based in Christian “truth”, nobody blinks.  I just wish the world could, for once, look past religion, with it’s ifs, buts, excuses, corruption, out-dated teachings, and evil actions, and work towards true, universal, morality.

This afternoon, I have opened my inbox to be greeted by a one-line email from the UK Life League, an anti-abortion group, presumably in response to things I have written on the subject previously. This is the group of which one member was jailed last month for mailing anti-abortion literature to NHS practitioners. It read:

Simon, this is abortion.

Attached were two photographs of aborted foetuses, clearly intended to be disturbing. I won’t reproduce them here, not because I shy away from the reality of abortion, merely because I wouldn’t carry images of any surgery both out of respect for the patient and on grounds of taste and decency. This site is not the place for images like that.

I have also chosen in this post not too link to their website, though it is easy enough to find, as they seem to employ scare tactics to prevent people from having abortions. If a woman is considering aborting a foetus, she surely deserves to hear reasoned, factual arguments for and against. I don’t begin to claim that all women do hear this as a matter of course – even though I strongly believe they should – but they’re not going to find such a debate on the website of the UK Life League anyway.

People are entitled to their own beliefs in this area. I’ve made my views known on here in the past, and I’ve made it known that I have no problem with others’ opinions. I do have a problem with people forcing their opinions on others, as it appears this group have attempted to do with me.

My reply?

Thanks for that.

As someone in medicine myself, I have seen abortion. I know it’s not pleasant. It certainly isn’t legally murder, whether or not it’s morally murder is not for me to dictate. I’m happy for people to have their own views – you’re clearly antiabortion, and I hold no problem with that point of view. Why do you hold a problem with me having the opposing view?

And if it’s a moral argument you have, then when do you feel it appropriate to send unsolicited images of abortion to people whose background you do not know? Would you send pictures of decapitated murder victims to those opposing legislation banning the sale of knives? Or images of sexually abused children to those opposing mandatory life sentences for paedophiles? Or images of surgery in frank detail to those undergoing tumour removals?

I agree with your point that abortion on demand shouldn’t be carried out under the guise of protecting the mental health of the mother. That is not how the legislation was intended to be interpreted, and I guess from that point of view, it is bad legislation.

This kind of action, however, merely weakens your arguments by making you look radicalised and unmeasured in your actions. When you’re ready to have a reasoned debate, I will be ready to listen – if not necessarily agree.

Regards,

Simon

Update: 28th June 2006
They’ve replied!

You miss the point, UK LifeLeague is not interested in reasoned debate. Abortion is wrong. We have seen some of your comment on your blog regarding abortion. If this is what you mean by reasoned debate then you can keep it.

Killing baby’s and those who support such barbarism are beyond reasoning with.

They don’t want a debate, they just want their way. They can’t even pluralise ‘baby’ without error. I hate to say it, but I don’t hold out much hope for their cause.

I’m sure my past correspondents at the VES would vehemently disagree with the following, but I found Dr Kathryn Mannix’s letter in yesterday’s Guardian to be considered, interesting, and well-argued:

I am a consultant in palliative medicine and over my 19 years in this area I have been asked about euthanasia by patients many times, but only three patients have ever asked me to provide assistance with their deaths. Patients usually ask about euthanasia as they consider all the future possibilities of dealing with a progressive and incurable illness. But it is a measure of the ability of human beings to cope with situations previously considered unendurable, so few requests for euthanasia actually arise. However, a small number of people continue to consider that they would prefer to be dead, and for them and their supporters the current law is the cause of much criticism.

The bill to legalise assistance with dying, currently before the House of Lords, arises from the argument that to deny assistance is to deny the autonomy, or right to choose, of an individual. Proponents describe this denial as dehumanising, as though exercise of autonomy alone is the mark of human personhood. The humanising aspect of choice is its potential for nobility: as humans, we can reflect on our being and on the consequences of our choices. The right to choose to die with medical assistance, when placed in this context, must be weighed against the nobility of relinquishing this right if its commission would damage other, possibly more vulnerable, members of our society.

The person who is more vulnerable is the person with a terminal illness who acknowledges that the part of their life that is without suffering is over, but who is now afraid that other, powerful people may assume that they would prefer death to continuing to live in this way.

The current law presumes that life should not deliberately be ended. This protects thousands of dying people from any anxiety or uneasy self-doubt that they may be selfish not to opt for euthanasia and relieve their loved ones of a burden of care. It protects doctors from the accusation that we act to end life as we carefully adjust the doses of sedatives that are sometimes needed to control pain for terminally ill people.

To change the law so that euthanasia is permissible would immediately remove these protections, for the benefit of a small but vocal number of patients who would value their own autonomy above the protection of those even more vulnerable than themselves. This bill is clearly grounded in compassion, but it is compassion without clear vision. For the sake of the human dignity of those most vulnerable in our society, legalisation of assisted dying should not be permitted.

This is certainly one argument I haven’t really considered in detail before, but, on balance, I don’t think it radically alters my personal position on the issue; but that’s not to say that I can’t be swayed.

Another letter states that

Recent correspondence was summarised in the current issue of the British Medical Journal as showing an overwhelming response against physician assisted suicide.

This raises a further important question: If the majority of doctors are against the idea of physician assisted suicide, then presumably a majority will choose not to do so, even if given the power, on ethical grounds, in the same way that many doctors refuse to carry out abortions, or directly refer their patients to abortion clinics. Who, then, is to carry it through? Are we to blindly create a new speciality of killing patients? And if so, are these really the best doctors to judge the situation, or would it not be very difficult for a doctor who has never previously met a patient or assessed them over time to truly judge whether a patient is ready and actively wanting to die?

Clearly, there’s a lot of suffering that could be relieved through the legalisation of euthanasia, and I don’t think anyone can deny that. Therefore, it’s difficult to do anything but support the idea in principle. But then, communism works in principle. Reality is often a very different kettle of fish, and hence I can see no other choice than to oppose the proposed legislation.

I must thank Tom Reynolds for his Guardian piece which reunited me with the almost fatally depressing ‘Brick’ by Ben Folds Five. I can’t think why I’ve come across it before, but I have, and it still retains the same sense of hopeless tragedy that it did the first time I heard it. But then, I guess it’s difficult to write a cheery song about getting an abortion.

Here’s what Mr Reynolds had to say about it (complete with corrections presumably added after he wrote the original):

(NB: Many listeners, including me, first assumed Brick was about a relationship ending. We discovered later that it’s about a couple getting an abortion. The following is based on the first scenario. Therefore it’s all wrong.) A gloomy piano-and-voice song about a couple breaking up (wrong), Brick tells of a guy who picks up his girlfriend, bitches, takes her someplace, bitches, waits for her, bitches, then brings her back home, referring to her as a “brick” (this is true). We never learn what’s transpired in between (this is wrong). All that’s certain is the couple wants to split up (this is wrong). Brick offers the same pleasure that comes with dropping one on your foot (this is really true).

He only rates it as number 13 in the most depressing songs ever. I think it’s far worse than that.

I know editors have it tough when there’s not much to report, but today’s Mail is so unintentionally hilarious that I feel the urge to share it with you.

Page 2 has a big mug-shot of Littlejohn (apparently not a recent one), and a report that he is rejoining the Mail. Somehow, they completely fail to mention that he’s joining them from The Sun. Clearly, they don’t want to be seen as a newspaper that accepts The Sun‘s castoffs.

Then we have ‘Complaints may force a change in the weather’, a bit of a moan about the BBC Weather, that contains no real news, but just a rehash of last week’s articles, even repeating the syndicated quote by Bill Giles, as if it is fresh. And a complaint about ‘digitally generated rain’ – so presumably they want us to go back to magnetic symbols.

Next, we learn that the word ‘cost’ has finally disappeared from the Mail lexicon, with the headline ‘Delays that rip off customers to the tune of £370m will go, eventually’. Unfortunately, that particular headline is wrong on so many fronts as to be completely false, and contradicts the article completely. That’s one subeditor that needs firing, then.

Then there’s an article by some moaning teenagers who think they’re hard done to because they go to private school, are predicted three A-Level ‘A’ grades, and yet have still been rejected by all their chosen universities. Apparently, they feel like they are being treated as second-class citizens. Have they not considered that A-Level grades aren’t the only thing that is considered when applying to university? Frankly, if they moan as much as they do in this article, I wouldn’t want them in my university either. One of them is a propective medical student, who applied to three London colleges and Brighton and Sussex. Everyone who applies to the London colleges has, at bare minimum, three ‘A’ grades. That’s the very least you’d need. So to find he’s been rejected should not come as a surprise, particularly as he’s only studied two sciences. And he thinks people should be chosen purely on grades. Well that’s probably exactly why he’s been rejected.

The Mailscience reporter Robin Yapp files a report on ten questions that find whether you’re blessed with that special charisma magic. Including, of course, the predictable picture of Diana.

There’s a fascinating double-page spread on pop stars who look a bit like rock stars. Amazing. Oh, and then there’s the equally amazing story of a small person who – get this – had a small flat! Hilarious! Followed swiftly with another double-page spread about Jamie Oliver’s wife’s experiences of giving birth. How much did she get paid for that?

A ‘leading doctor’ – by which they mean someone who no-one’s ever heard of who works in that world-famous Leicester hospital – suggests that parents should not be told the sex of their babies before they are born in case they decide to have an abortion based upon that knowledge. Except that’s almost certainly not what he said.

‘I had surgery to pin back my ears. Then one fell off.’ You couldn’t make these headlines up.

And the depressing thing is that I feel I’ve had to pick-and-choose from the ridiculous stories, otherwise I’d be sat here all day. So, if you want a laugh, go and buy today’s Mail. Or check the website; current top story: “I let my girl have sex at 11, admits mother “.

An amazing revelation from today’s Independent:

They enjoy quiet nights at home and view their parents as friends. Welcome to the world of today’s “mild child” teenagers.

It turns out that not all teenagers are binge-drinking antisocial idiots, but that the vast majority are normal, reasonable human beings.

Perhaps someone should tell the Daily Mail (current top story on their website: Posh and Becks fail to smile whilst strolling through St Mark’s Sqaure surrounded by paparazzi), who prefer quotes like “Teenagers [posess] pea-sized brains”, “Teenagers are mentally challenged” and “Oral sex drive for teenagers”. That’s when they’re not talking about teenage pregnancy, and simultaneously criticising those who have abortions and those who don’t, and thus become teenage parents. And they say Labour has no coherent policies on anything.

Me, last Sunday:

I agree with Mr Blair on this. I’d perhaps go slightly further than him, because he’s left himself open to attack over women who aren’t in ‘very difficult circumstances’ but still obtain abortions, but he’s in a pretty solid position. For the first time in this not-quite-an-election-campaign, I can say: Well done, Mr Blair!

The Guardian leader, today:

It was Tony Blair who put it best in answer to Cosmopolitan. Nobody likes abortion, he said, but it is wrong to criminalise those who, in very difficult circumstances, make that choice.

They should give me a job right now, I think!

This would appear to be good news, though it’s noticeable that the North-East still has a much higher rate than the rest of the country:

These rates are clearly still high, but at least they’re moving in the right direction. Clearly, someone’s forgotten to point that out to the Daily Mail, who are reporting that

The number of teenage girls getting pregnant has risen, new statistics show.

The difference is that the Times take the logical approach of reporting the pregnancy rate, whereas The Daily Mail choose to report using the raw figures, which it is clearly absurd to compare year-on-year. But they have done. So either they’re bottom of the maths class, or they just want to scaremonger. You decide.

More controversial is the bit tagged on to the Times article:

Abortions are at an all-time high, reaching 18.6 per 1,000 women in March last year. The number aged 30-34 having abortions doubled between 1976 and 2003, to 14,600. The total number of all ages having abortions in 2003 was 190,700.

I don’t have a problem with this, but I’m fairly sure someone will have. And to think, the Daily Mail wouldn’t have needed to fiddle the figures if it had just gotten its knickers in a twist about this.

From The Grauniad, Friday December 3 2004, page 14….

Washington funds false sex lessons

Gary Younge
in New York

The Bush administration is funding sexual health projects that teach children that HIV can be contracted through sweat and tears, touching genitals can result in pregnancy, and that a 43-day-old foetus is a thinking person.

A congressional analysis of more than a dozen federally funded “abstinence-only programmes” unveiled a litany of “false, misleading and distorted information” in teaching materials after reviewing curriculums designed to prevent teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

There are more than 100 abstinence programmes, involving several million children aged from nine to 18, and running in 25 states since 1999. They are funded by the federal government to the tune of $170m (£88.5m), twice the amount when George Bush came to power.

The money goes to religious, civic and medical organisations as grants. To qualify they may only talk about types of contraception in terms of their failure rates, not about how to use them, or the possible benefits.

The survey was conducted by the staff of congressman Henry Waxman of California, a longstanding Democratic critic of the Republican administration’s approach to sex education. His team concentrated on the 13 programmes that are most widely used, and found only two of them were accurate.

“It is absolutely vital that the health education provided to America’s youth be scientifically and medically accurate,” Mr Waxman said. “The abstinence-only programmes reviewed in this report fail to meet this standard.”

Other “facts” include that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, half the gay male teenagers in the US have tested positive for HIV, and condoms fail to prevent transmission of HIV in 31% of heterosexual intercourse. US government figures contradict all of these assertions.

AC Green’s Game Plan — a programme named after a basketball player who said he would not have sex before marriage — teaches: “The popular claim that condoms help prevent the spread of STDs is not supported by the data.”

Mr Waxman told the Washington Post: “I don’t think we ought to lie to our children about science. Something is seriously wrong when federal tax dollars are being used to mislead kids about basic health facts.”

But government officials said Mr Waxman’s report rehashed old anti-abstinence prejudices for political purposes. Alma Golden, the deputy assistant health and human services secretary for population affairs, said it took statements out of context to present programmes in the worst possible light.

“These issues have been raised before and discredited,” Ms Golden said. “One thing is very clear for our children: abstaining from sex is the most effective means of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV, STDs, and preventing pregnancy.”

Mr Waxman also criticised some programmes for reinforcing sexist stereotypes to children. One — Why Know — says: “Women gauge their happiness and judge their success by their relationships. Men’s happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments.”

Another programme, Wait Training, says: “Just as a woman needs to feel a man’s devotion to her, a man has a primary need to feel a woman’s admiration. To admire a man is to regard him with wonder, delight, and approval. A man feels admired when his unique characteristics and talents happily amaze her.”

Originally posted on The LBSC

I’m off to a Pharmacology Party tonight. This basically means I’m going to a friend’s house to do some pharmacology, but the ‘party’ suffix makes it sound more exciting.

My house is coming along nicely, the new windows are in, the kitchen is in, and a lot of decoration has been done. Unfortunately, the bathroom hasn’t been built yet, but I suspose that’s a relatively minor issue. We have requested some seating for outside, which should be nice, and a barbeque (which should be interesting, at least). The weird walls in stupid places have gone, and the burglar alarm is in. It will be nice to be able to sleep in a double bed.

Due to me being a penniless student, I’ve had an HC2 certificate through today to give me free NHS prescriptions, dental care, wigs (!), sight tests, travel to and from hospital and so on. Paradoxically, the bank have increased my credit card and overdraft limits, and Egg are sending me a credit card.

Should I want to, I could go out tomorrow and spend more than £3000 of money I don’t have. And I’m already £3000 in student debts, soon to be £6070. So my financial status is…erm…well…poor.

I have exams next week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, about 16 hours altogether. This is fairly scary, as I barely know enough to fill one hour. I have put in for Mitigating Circumstances though because of my ears (which have now recovered), so perhaps I’ll be alright.

On the flip side, I finish for summer a week tomorrow, which means that (other than one or two small commitments) I will be off until October. Which means I’ll have to get some kind of employment, which is a depressing thought. Maybe I should pretend to be JRC and nick his jobs. No-one will notice, we look so alike. Any suggestions for jobs that won’t make me want to resort to physical violence?

I’ve developed an unhealthy liking for coloured pens, with much of my work now being done in either felt tips or colourful gel pens.

I now have The Day Today on DVD, which is really excellent, and also Look Around You, which I also think is fantastic. “Eating Turkey at Christmas Like Nailing an Egg to the Cross Says Bishop” and “Headmaster Suspended for using Big Faced Child as Satellite Dish” a-go-go.

Eurovision Semis last night. I laughed so much that someone who phoned me thought I was crying.

And so to tomorrow: The last lectures of my first year. I’ll be half way to being hospital-based. With just one more year of knowledge, the ill and diseased people of the North-East (anywhere from Stockton to Tyneside to Hartlepool and everywhere in between) might meet me. Tee hee.

So some woman wants the law changed because her daughter had an abortion without her knowledge. Has she not perhaps asked herself why her daughter didn’t tell her? Perhaps the problem begins at the family level, rather than in the letter of the law. And personally, I think it’s quite right. In every interview I’ve seen, the mother has said that she had to sign two consent form for an appendectomy, and yet wasn’t consulted on the abortion. Perhaps in the twelve months between these operations the girl may have, well, matured? These things happen, and her daughter is clearly no longer a child.

The family solicitor is claiming that the girl changed her mind and now regrets the decision because she ‘might’ have not been told something that she later found out and which changed her mind. Does she not think that in this particular case the doctors involved will have done their very best to stick to the guidelines as closely as possible, explaining everything to the best of their ability?

To me, this seems to be a case of a mother taking legal action against the health service for her poor relationship with her daughter.

On another topic entirely, Eddie Mair was clearly the right choice for the new 7 O’Clock News on BBC Three. He’s very good. And so’s the show.

Yesterday I was forwarded a copy of the full video of Nick Berg’s beheading, and frankly, I wish I hadn’t been. It’s really not something I wanted to see, and it made me feel quite ill. I realise that we’ve done some terrible things in Iraq, far more terrible than even this, but that doesn’t make either action right.

And as for the Mirror, who have published some truly dodgy photos, accept no argument that they did this to highlight any kind of abuse. After all, they paid £5000 for the photos…and then charged everybody who reprinted them… £5000. Thanks for highlighting this so selflessly, Piers.

Originally posted on The LBSC