WESTMINSTER, September 5, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Plans outlined by British Prime Ministser Tony Blair to identify those who might be a “menace to society” before they are born will lead to even more pressure upon health and social workers to provide and promote abortions in schools and elsewhere, warns the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).
Last week, Blair justified his intervention, even pre-birth, into the lives of children saying, “If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early, then there are children that are going to grow up in families that we know perfectly well are completely dysfunctional,” Mr. Blair said, “and the kids a few years down the line are going to be a menace to society and actually a threat to themselves.”
Anthony Ozimic, SPUC political secretary, commented: “Mr Blair’s plan in practice means a concerted effort by the Government to impose abortion as the solution to teenage pregnancy rates. His mention of “better access to contraceptives” is only the tip of the iceberg – fast-track secret abortions for schoolgirls via school nurses is part and parcel of the Government’s policy.
“Mr Blair’s language echoes the discriminatory language used by Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes before the Second World War to promote the elimination of those deemed socially undesirable through abortion and/or other forms of population control. SPUC agrees with commentators who have described Blair’s plan as “eugenics”, “teetering on genetic determinism”, “Orwellian” etc.
BBC News quotes Anastasia de Waal, of the think tank Civitas, condemning Blair’s suggestion. “It is teetering on genetic determinism this kind of saying that before children are even born they are labelled as problematic,” she said.
SPUC suggested that the government funded teen pregnancy centers which promote contraception rather than abstinence prior to marriage are part of the problem rather than a solution. SPUC agrees with David Paton, professor of economics at Nottingham University Business School, who was quoted in The Telegraph earlier this year saying: “The taxpayers’ money spent by the Teenage Pregnancy Unit seems to have had no impact. The Government should look closely at the unit’s future. Closing it should be seriously thought about.”
“Far from combating social exclusion, Blair’s policies are based on social exclusion – exclusion of the unborn from society,” concluded Mr Ozimic.