Hybrids bill and pro-abortion ammendments

Action: please lobby MPs and raise awareness with these leaflets and so on. The disaster of the HFE Bill could go on getting bigger.

From John Smeaton's blog: Yesterday pro-abortion MPs tabled extremely damaging amendments to the Abortion Act via the HFE bill. It is critical that we act now to resist these amendments as strongly as possible.

The committee stage of the bill has now been completed and pro-abortion MPs have tabled abortion amendments to de-restrict abortions up to 24 weeks, and to empower midwives and nurses to perform abortion. Further amendments may be tabled to seek to extend the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. More babies will die if such amendments are passed.

I know that many people have worked very hard in the fight against this bill. But today we must make a final push to stop these amendments being incorporated into it. Please order a quantity of our new leaflet "No to more abortion" http://www.spuc.org.uk/hfeabort.pdf and distribute them door-to-door, in the street and at churches. Order the leaflets by emailing lizfoody@spuc.org.uk or by phoning SPUC on 020 7091 7091. The new leaflet complements the recent one "How should human life be treated" http://www.spuc.org.uk/hfeleaflet.pdf which is still current, and both leaflets can be distributed separately or together.

Please make it your top priority to distribute as many leaflets as possible in the coming week. The bill's report stage may start at the very beginning of July, so we have to act straight away to have an impact.

It's essential for people to contact their MPs to ask them to vote against amendments extending abortion. MPs can be contacted in writing at House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA, or by email. If you have internet access you can contact your MP (and find out your MP's name) via http://www.spuc.org.uk/mps Please copy any replies you receive to Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, either by email at political@spuc.org.uk or by post to SPUC HQ.

If you share my belief in the power of prayer, please pray for the defeat of the bill and the abortion amendments. 'Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.'

From SPUC: If the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill is passed it could permit cloned human embryos to be implanted in a woman after minimal further parliamentary discussion. This assertion has been made by Dr Evan Harris, a leading proponent of embryo research. Dr Harris says that Parliament is unlikely ever to approve placing cloned embryos in the womb, and suggests that the law should be more tightly drawn. The bill repeals the 2001 Reproductive Cloning Act which bans implantation of clones. [Times, 14 June] Those in favour of cloning often try to make a false ethical distinction between cloning for research and letting such embryos be implanted. Cloning brings a new person into being, whatever is subsequently done with him or her. Commenting on Dr Harris' statement, SPUC General Secretary, Paul Tully, said: "Dr Harris's intervention appears contrary to his usual approach. We have long argued that the present cloning rules are invidious - allowing the creation of 'second class' embryos who may only be used for research, and then must be destroyed. Allowing cloned embryos to be created for transfer to the womb would also be wrong but Dr Harris would not share our rationale for that."