LONDON, August 2, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Less than two weeks after the coalition government’s gay “marriage” bill was signed into law, a homosexual man has launched a lawsuit against a Church of England parish in Maldon for refusing him and his civil partner the lavish church wedding of their dreams. Barrie Drewitt-Barlow told the Essex Chronicle that he has launched the suit because, despite the law, “I am still not getting what I want.”

Section 9 of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which comes into effect next year, grants anyone in a civil partnership the ability to convert that partnership into a “marriage.” But the law contains measures specifically to preclude unwilling churches from being forced to participate.

Drewitt-Barlow said, “The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the church. It is a shame that we are forced to take Christians into a court to get them to recognize us.”

“But we don't want to force anyone into marrying us – it is supposed to be the happiest day in my life and that would make me miserable and would spoil the whole thing,” he said. “Aren’t Christians meant to forgive and accept and love?”

He added, “It upsets me because I want it so much – a big lavish ceremony, the whole works, I just don’t think it is going to happen straight away.”

Drewitt-Barlow is a high-profile homosexual campaigner who in 1998 went to court in the U.S. to force government for the first time to allow only him and his partner, Tony, to be named on the birth certificate of their twins, who were conceived with a donated ovum and carried by a surrogate in California.

The two have since acquired three more children through similar means and opened Britain’s first surrogacy business catering especially to same-sex partners.

The Christian Institute reported that Barrie Drewitt-Barlow has donated around £500,000 to groups lobbying for same-sex marriage.

“We are happy for gay marriage to be recognized – in that sense it is a big step. But it is actually a small step because it is something we still cannot actually do. We need to convince the church that it is the right thing for our community for them to recognize as practicing Christians,” Drewitt-Barlow told the Essex Chronicle.

“I am a Christian – a practicing Christian – my children have all been brought up as Christians and are part of the local [Church of England] parish church in Danbury. I want to go into my church and marry my husband,” he said. “If I was a Sikh I could get married at the Gurdwara. Liberal Jews can marry in the synagogue – just not the Christians.”

Legislators had insisted that churches and clergy would not be subject to legal harassment over the proposal. Equalities Minister Maria Miller unveiled a series of amendments, called the “quadruple lock,” that the government said would stave off attempts of this kind.

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Both the Catholic Church and Church of England, as well as legal experts, however, dismissed the government’s promises, saying that no law in Britain was safe from being overturned by the European Court of Human Rights. The Church of England, the nation’s established religion, warned that a successful legal challenge could make it impossible for the Church to continue its role conducting marriages on behalf of the state.

They called the government’s attempt to re-write the marriage law “divisive” and “essentially ideological.”

Aidan O’Neill QC had given evidence to the government’s hearings saying that, because the Church of England is obliged to marry any eligible person who lives in a parish boundary, the “quadruple lock” is “eminently challengeable” at the European Court of Human Rights.

Moreover, existing Equalities law could allow local councils to enact reprisals against religious groups who refuse to “marry” homosexual partners, including refusing them the use of community center facilities.

In June, an openly homosexual Government Justice Minister, Crispin Blunt, admitted to the BBC that the attempt to proscribe Church of England participation in “gay marriages” “may be problematic legally.”

The government’s proposal, he said, “is that marriage should be equal in the eyes of the state whether it’s between a same-sex couple or whether it’s between a man and a woman.” Thus, the opposition to the law by churches would fall under the provisions of the Equalities Act, the same act that resulted in the forced closure or secularization of every Catholic adoption agency in England and Wales.

“We’ll have to see what happens with that,” Blunt told the BBC.

NEW YORK, July 23, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – The Holy See is emphasizing its commitment to promoting life and family at the United Nations after a confusing statement the nunciature made in a negotiation on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) last month.

In a speech on June 22, Monsignor Joseph Grech, representing Archbishop Bernardito Auza, said the Vatican supports the goals and targets of the SDGs “verbatim.”

Pro-life advocates were alarmed at this because two of the targets call for “universal access” to “sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights” as well as “family planning” services, phrases that are typically used at the UN to include abortion and contraception.

The concern is compounded by what has seemed to be an unprecedented openness from the Vatican to the United Nations under Pope Francis, and a more muted criticism of the UN’s anti-life and anti-family agenda.

However, Msgr. Joseph Grech told LifeSiteNews that the Holy See had already raised its objections to the use of the problematic language when the SDGs were adopted by the General Assembly in 2014. He noted that the Holy See pointed to those objections again in the June 22 statement.

The Holy See “cannot and will never support … anything that can undermine the Family or the Right to Life from the moment of conception,” Grech said. “As Delegation of the Holy See we have always raised our concerns and our opposition on issues which undermine the Family and Life from the moment of conception.”

Veteran pro-life UN lobbyist Patrick Buckley, who was present for the “post-2015 development agenda” negotiations at the end of June when Grech read his statement, told LifeSiteNews there was “no scope for the Holy See to make any changes to the SDGs” because the UN body had already decided that the proposal agreed on last year would not be reopened.

Bearing in mind that the Holy See had already communicated its reservations on the text, he said it was nevertheless unfortunate that their statement gave such a “warm welcome” to the SDGs.

The sustainable development goals

Since the conclusion of the June 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the UN has been developing goals and targets for “sustainable development.” In January 2013, the UN General Assembly established an “Open Working Group” (OWG) to draft a proposal, and in July 2014, the OWG presented its report with a proposed 17 goals for “sustainable development.” In December 2014 the UN General Assembly adopted that proposal as the basis for developing its “post-2015 development agenda.” It is expected to be approved at the UN Summit in New York in September.

Two of the 17 goals are of particular concern to pro-life advocates: Goal 3, on ensuring “healthy lives”; and Goal 5, on achieving “gender equality.” The concern stems from the following two targets related to these goals:

• 3.7 by 2030 ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes.
• 5.6 ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the [International Conference on Population and Development] and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences.

According to the 1994 Cairo conference’s Programme of Action “sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights” means providing women with “modern contraception” for “family planning” and with “safe abortion” where it is legal.

Even in October the Holy See still said it ‘strongly disagrees’ with SDGs...

The Holy See presented its objections to the SDGs in October, registering its reservations along with other member states. These reservations were published in an addendum to the Open Working Group proposal, released in October 2014.

The Holy See’s statement said, “My delegation would be remiss in its duty … if it did not indicate several critical areas where it strongly disagrees with the text. My delegation’s participation in the consensus can be only partial because of several points in the document which are incompatible with what my delegation deems integral to development.”

The statement points to the objections the Holy See raised at the Cairo and Beijing conferences on the use of phrases like “sexual and reproductive health,” “reproductive rights,” and “family planning,” and notes the fact that the Cairo conference “rejects recourse to abortion for family planning and denies that it creates any new rights in this regard.”

The Holy See also raised concern about targets related to sex education, highlighting parents’ primary responsibility in the upbringing of their children, and insisted that the Vatican takes the word “gender” only to mean “male and female.”

…but nevertheless gives them a warm welcome?

After the General Assembly adopted the SDGs last year, the UN used them to produce a “zero draft” for its “post-2015 development agenda,” which is undergoing negotiations among member states in preparation for the upcoming New York UN Summit in September 2015, and will be used as the basis for the final document. The Holy See statement on June 22 came during one of these negotiations.

The statement said, in part:

We support the verbatim inclusion of the sustainable development goals and targets as in the Report of the [Open Working Group].

We would oppose the imposition of targets and indicators on countries and peoples whose laws and values are contrary to them. With this in mind, we would need to address how reservations of delegations contained within the Report of the [Open Working Group] will be reflected in the Outcome document.

…

We would strongly encourage the use and coordination of all sources of financing to achieve the SDGs and development in general.

Buckley, a veteran UN watcher, noted that pro-life advocates at the United Nations, including the Holy See, have been fighting for years to keep “reproductive health” language out of UN documents.

With that history in mind, he expressed surprise that the Holy See statement indicated “verbatim” support for the SDGs.

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Buckley explained that even in his current statement, the nuncio was essentially calling on the UN not to use the SDGs to impose abortion and other objectionable practices on countries that oppose them, and urging them not to leave member states’ reservations completely out of the final document, which some countries are attempting to do. “Clearly there are issues that they don’t accept” in the zero draft, Buckley said.

However, he added, “I’ve never before seen the Holy See declare verbatim acceptance of something this important, particularly when their previously stated reservations were not included in the Zero Draft document. There was no scope to change what was in the SDGs but acceptance of that fact could have been expressed in a less positive manner.” 

Battle over reservations

Stefano Gennarini, director of the Center for Legal Studies at the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), told LifeSiteNews it is no mistake that the Holy See’s reservations have been excluded from the “zero draft.” He said there is an “ongoing diplomatic battle” to exclude the reservations that countries, including the Holy See, have made to the SDGs adopted last year.

“The Nordics, Europeans and Americans that don't want the reservations clearly don't want the possibility that any state may claim that ‘sexual and reproductive health’ does not include abortion,” he said. “They are currently having the upper hand and don't even want a footnote to indicate that not everyone sees eye-to-eye on ‘sexual and reproductive health.’”

“Though the agreement is only political and not a legally binding one, this is just another example of the coercion that pro-abortion wealthy countries employ at the UN. They don't even want delegates, such as the Holy See, to be able to voice their concern for 50 million unborn victims of abortion every year,” he said.

If the Holy See’s reservations continue to be excluded from the “post-2015 development agenda” then the “Holy See will find itself in a very awkward position of being asked to support an agreement that includes abortion without reservations to qualify the term ‘sexual and reproductive health,’” he said.

Alarm over Vatican’s increased openness to UN

Criticism of the Holy See’s strong statement of support for the SDGs does not come out of a vacuum, but amid growing concern among many faithful Catholics about the Vatican’s seemingly increased openness to the United Nations under Pope Francis.

Some Vatican organs and officials have been heavily endorsing the SDGs, and not always making clear their reservations with the document under discussion.

Of particular note was a conference on sustainable development held by the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences (PASS) on April 28 before the environment encyclical’s release, where they hosted addresses by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and UN special adviser Jeffrey Sachs. Both advocate legal abortion and population control.

Following the conference, both the chancellor of the PASS, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, and the president, Prof. Margaret Archer, joined Sachs in signing a statement endorsing the creation of the SDGs, despite the current pro-abortion provisions.

The Pontifical Academy for Sciences will host Sachs for another conference promoting the SDGs from November 13-15, this time focusing on promoting them to children.

The Vatican’s cooperation with Sachs is all the more concerning for many pro-life advocates because Sachs himself has said “reproductive health,” in which he would include access to abortion and the promotion of contraception, is central to achieving the UN’s development goals.

In 2002, he said, “Reproductive health services are not just desirable in and of themselves – which they certainly are – but are absolutely critical tools for alleviating poverty, and in particular for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, which are the overarching international framework for trying to alleviate the suffering of the poorest people in the world.”

Moreover, the appearance that the Holy See was endorsing the SDGs at the UN without reservation was heightened by recent comments Bishop Sorondo made that appeared to endorse the SDGs’ objectionable language.

In a statement published by C-FAM on June 2, Sorondo said the terms “sexual and reproductive health” and “family planning” in the SDGs can align with Catholic teaching.

“The draft SDGs don’t even mention abortion or population control. They speak of access to family planning and sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,” he said. “The interpretation and application of these depends on governments. Some may even interpret it as Paul VI, in terms of responsible paternity and maternity.”

Sorondo clarified his remarks in a statement published by First Things on June 25, insisting that he and the pontifical academies uphold the Holy See’s stance, while he continued to affirm that the UN’s use of phrases like “reproductive health” and “family planning” can square with Church teaching.

‘Unconscionable’ to support SDGs as written

Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, took issue with high-ranking Vatican officials thinking they can interpret “sexual and reproductive health” in a way that squares with Catholic morality, which condemns abortion as murder and contraception as a grave violation of the sacrament of marriage.

He told LifeSiteNews that there is no question that “sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights” as spelled out in target 5.6 means access to contraception and abortion, especially when the document states that the phrase must be interpreted in reference to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICDP).

“The ICDP defines reproductive health care as inclusive of family planning services and abortion. Family planning services has come to mean, in practice, contraception and sterilization which is contrary to Catholic teaching, in particular Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae,” he said.

“For anyone in the Catholic Church to suggest the adoption of the SDGs in light of their inclusion of ‘sexual and reproductive health’ is thus unconscionable,” he said.

Mosher, who has worked on the ground in third world countries that push oppressive contraceptive and abortion agendas, said that while it is “certainly clear that a Catholic may use the term ‘reproductive health’ to exclude abortion, this is not the current understanding or usage of the term.”

“This is why we have fought battle after battle at the UN and other international forums to specifically exclude abortion, sterilization, and contraception. To continue to promote ‘reproductive health’ without first removing from the term its legal implication for the promotion of abortion and contraception is to be complicit with its present meaning and everything that follows,” he told LifeSiteNews.

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 22, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) - Planned Parenthood's legal counsel has responded to a Congressional investigation by hinting that future undercover footage may include the dissection and harvesting of an aborted baby.

The doctor caught discussing organ sales over wine and salad will also not be made available for testimony as requested, the letter, addressed by Planned Parenthood's Senior Counsel for Law and Policy, Roger K. Evans, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, adds.

Stone writes that, after the Center for Medical Progress released two videos following a 30-month-long investigation, the nation's largest abortion provider is "deeply concerned about the infiltration of Planned Parenthood and its affiliates."

CMP formed a fictitious, California-based LLC calling itself Biomax Procurement Services.

"At this point, we do not know the full extent of Biomax’s illicit conduct," Stone warned. "We believe that on at least one occasion a representative from Biomax was shown a highly sensitive area in a clinic where tissue is processed after abortion procedures."

He insisted that such bloody work "is standard and essential during any abortion procedure," but that filming that essential work "would be an extremely serious invasion of our patients’ privacy and dignity."

"We also believe that in at least one interaction at a Planned Parenthood facility, the Biomax representative asked questions about the racial characteristics of tissue donated to researchers studying sickle cell anemia, apparently seeking to create a misleading impression" that Planned Parenthood targets African-Americans for abortion.

Stone may have stonewalled on whether Dr. Deborah Nucatola would appear before the Congressional committee which, together with the House Judiciary Committee, is investigating allegations that Planned Parenthood illegally profited from the sales of aborted babies' organs and tissue.

"Your July 17 letter requests a staff briefing on one facet of Planned Parenthood’s efforts to improve public health: the tissue donation programs adopted by some of our affiliates," Stone wrote.

The initial letter from Committee Chairman Fred Upton "asks for the briefing no later than July 31, which is short notice given the number of questions raised," Stone complained.

He instead offered to send Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosley and promised "to consult with you to find a time that accommodates your staff and Ranking Member [Democrat] Frank Pallone’s staff."

Critics have said this move alone rebuffs Congressional investigators. 

"The House committee did not ask Planned Parenthood to make Nucatola available if they felt like it," Susan Michelle Tyrell wrote. "It requested she be available, period."

URGENT: Sign the petition demanding that Congress stop Planned Parenthood's illegal and inhuman practice of harvesting and selling baby body parts. Click here.

Dear Dr. Gatter,

Listen, I can’t promise you a Lamborghini. I can’t even promise you a used Ford Focus. But I can promise you something much more valuable…your dignity.

I think I know why you got into the abortion industry. You did it because you believed you were helping women. You probably thought that you were just helping to provide a safe abortion option. After all, without safe abortion, these women would be forced to seek out illegal abortion services. What would that look like for them? Unsterile instruments? Incompetent doctors? Negligent care? That would be absolutely terrible.

What you didn’t know was that your involvement in the abortion industry would mean that you would now be part of what you feared. Abortion clinics are being cited for the things you thought only happened in illegal “back alley” facilities. Legal abortion clinics are being cited for improperly sterilizing their instruments, putting hundreds of women at risk for potentially fatal infections. Clinics are actively participating in Medicaid fraud. Women are dying from legal abortion procedures because of negligent care. Former abortion clinic workers are speaking out about mandatory abortion quotas, botched abortions, and incompetent physicians. This is safe abortion?

Every day you go into work and begin your day. Maybe today is just first trimester abortions. Planned Parenthood says that you should perform each abortion in less than five minutes. Maybe you are always trying to challenge yourself. “How fast can I do this one?” When you first became an abortion provider, you used to introduce yourself to every patient. Now you find that to be a nuisance. The patients don’t care anyway. Now you just hope they are sedated by the time you walk in the room.

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You start the procedure by artificially dilating the patient’s cervix with dilator rods. You hear the woman complaining about the pain. What did they think? Did they think this wasn’t going to be uncomfortable? Once the cervix is dilated, you begin the actual suction procedure. You ask the technician to turn on the suction and you hear the familiar whir. You begin moving the suction machine in and out of the uterus. Small clumps of tissue are sucked into the machine. You are waiting for “the noise.” And then you hear it…a big “thump.”

That thump was the baby’s body slowly moving through the suction tube and hitting the glass container where it will be kept for later. You are finished. Another one down. Another $75.00 added to your paycheck. You get up and move to the next room, where a sedated woman is waiting for you to provide your “service.”

But before you walk into the exam room, you stop by the POC (products of conception) lab. You want to make sure that all of the body parts of your last victim are accounted for. You see them all there: two arms, two legs, a head, and torso. You sign the paper in the POC lab confirming that the “parts were accounted for” and then you move to the next room. Your next patient is waiting. Your next unsuspecting victim is waiting to be killed.

This is why you became a doctor?

I don’t think it is. I think you wanted to be a doctor who healed people. But somehow, you got involved in one of the most corrupt industries in history…the abortion industry. I know the money is good. The pay cut I took when I became pro-life was steep. But I would do it again without question because what I gained was invaluable. My dignity. My self-respect.

When I stopped taking life, I got mine back. I learned what it was to truly help women. I realized that in order to help the woman sitting in front of me, I couldn’t dehumanize her child.

I also got my humanity back. I realize now how dehumanized I had become. Of course I was. I had become part of a machine…a machine that casually takes life day after day. In order to dehumanize the baby we were killing, we had to dehumanize ourselves.

I want to help you find the humanity that has been lost. I wish I could explain to you the freedom and pure joy that you will feel if you leave the abortion industry. But it’s something I can’t really explain…it can only be felt. I believe that you are worthy of redemption. I believe in your inherent dignity, in your worth. Let us at And Then There Were None help you find what you have lost. We are here for you; individually, confidentially and unconditionally.

Call today at 888-570-5501 or email me directly at [email protected].