Gordon Brown

Current status: background briefing.

In a letter to this week's Catholic Herald, Anthony Ozimic, political secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), writes : 'Sir - Mary Kenny (Comment, September 29) claims - without citing any evidence - that: 'On other social issues such as gay rights or abortion, [Gordon Brown] may not approve, privately, but he consigns the matter to the personal conscience of each individual.' Hardly. In 1990, Mr Brown voted no fewer than 16 times with the pro-abortion lobby: three times for abortion up to birth, including for disabled babies; twice for abortion on demand in early pregnancy; once each to extend the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland, for selective foeticide in multiple pregnancies, to facilitate RU486 and to suppress information about abortions on disabled babies; and seven times for other pro-abortion positions. As Chancellor, Mr Brown cut the rate of VAT on morning-after pills from 17.5% to 5%; and launched the International Finance Facility to raise money for the Millennium Development Goals, which the British government interprets as including a universal human right to abortion on demand. Prior to their marriage, Mr Brown's PR consultant wife Sarah did marketing for EMILY's List, which raises funds for female Labour candidates who support (among other things) abortion on demand. Regarding the unborn outside the womb, Mr Brown voted five times in 1990 to promote destructive embryo experimentation, and has recently backed the UK Stem Cell Initiative which funds embryo killing. The last thing Catholics need, already surrounded by the culture of death, is to be told that politicians who support the destruction of the unborn at every available opportunity are 'personally opposed' to it'. [Catholic Herald]