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LONDON, January 13, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of Britain’s leading abortionist organizations, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), is launching a High Court challenge to allow women in the UK to self-administer the deadly abortion drug RU486 at home instead of in a medical clinic or abortion facility. Pro-life campaigners are calling the move just one more effort to break down the legal walls protecting unborn children and their mothers.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has applied to the court for intervener status and warns that do-it-yourself abortion, sometimes called “bedroom abortion,” is a threat to women as well as to the children killed by the drug.

BPAS head Ann Furedi said, “This is about making it as easy as possible for women who are entitled to an abortion to have that abortion, it does not make it easier for women to obtain an abortion.”

Paul Tully of SPUC disagreed, telling LifeSiteNews.com that the move will certainly make abortion “easier” and, therefore, that even more counselors and doctors will recommend it and more women will abort their children.

“Abortion is an appalling ordeal for women, as well as the killing of an unborn child,” he said.  “In taking this legal action BPAS is trivializing abortion and jeopardizing women’s welfare,” Tully said.
 
Furthermore, he said, the result would be a weakening of the law in Northern Ireland and ultimately in the Republic of Ireland where abortion of any kind is still illegal.

“Women could be given RU486 in English clinics and sent back to Ireland to take it at home. Taking misoprostol [the abortifacient agent] is, we would argue, clearly part of the abortion procedure and such usage is illegal in the Republic or Northern Ireland.”

“It is not like giving someone an antibiotic to take home for use in combating an infection after an abortion,” he added.

Bernadette Smyth, head of Northern Ireland’s Precious Life, told LifeSiteNews.com that her organization would be mobilizing Northern Irish supporters to lobby the Northern Irish MPs in Westminster.

The BPAS court challenge, she said, has nothing to do with benefitting women, and everything to do with advancing the abortionist “choice” ideology.

“Everything gets lost in the ‘choice’ rhetoric because that’s all they’re really about. It’s not about women’s health.

“The procedure itself is extremely horrific and is very traumatic for a woman. Even Ann Furedi said it would ‘allow the most traumatic part of the procedure’ to take place in the woman’s own bathroom. This clearly exposes the BPAS as being totally heartless, uncaring and insensitive towards women.”

The move, she said, “could lead to a backstreet abortion problem that we don’t have at present in Northern Ireland.”

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who is not pro-life but has opposed abortion in some circumstances, echoed these concerns, saying the plans will harm young girls who may already be socially isolated.

“They’re assuming that everybody who takes a second pill travels home to a clean comfortable environment where there will be a telephone and support, maybe a kind person to help someone through that procedure,” Dorries said. “That doesn’t apply to every case. Many of these girls will be very young, very frightened and very alone.”

The move by BPAS is only a small part of a larger effort of abortion promoters in the British government to make “medical” or chemical abortions more widely available. In May 2008, the Department of Health issued a report claiming that abortion facilities like those run by BPAS and Marie Stopes are as suitable as hospitals for women to use the drugs.

SPUC pointed out at the time that the DoH report, which was not an independent, peer-reviewed, journal-published study, was suspect because it was authored by known abortion-promoter Ellie Lee of the Pro-Choice Forum. BPAS also figured prominently in the 2008 report, with Ann Furedi as part of its advisory group.