February 11, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Pro-lifers in Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, held a rally with a host of international speakers last week in preparation for a referendum next month on whether or not the territory will accept new abortion legislation.
Abortion remains a crime in Gibraltar under Section 162 of the 2011 Crimes Act of Gibraltar and carries with it the sentence of life imprisonment. That being said, no woman has been sentenced under this provision.
In July 2019, the Gibraltar Parliament voted to allow abortion before the 12th week of pregnancy where the mother’s mental or physical health is deemed to be at risk, and later in pregnancies when the unborn child suffers from an undefined “abnormality.”
Crux reports that a pro-life petition signed by over 6,000 people convinced the parliament to hold a referendum on the new law. That referendum will be held next month on March 19.
Gibraltar Pro-Life Movement (GPLM) organized a rally last week with speakers including abortion survivor, Claire Culwell, who spoke at last month’s March for Life in Washington, D.C., and British politician and member of the House of Lords David Alton.
Rally-organizer Stephanie Yeo told Gibraltar News that she believes “that the truth isn't being represented properly in the law.”
“The bill is quite difficult to read and obviously for people who aren't legally minded,” she said. “And so what we want to bring is just that information, so people when they go in to vote, they go in to vote with facts and with truth of what it stands for, what the bill stands for and what this means for Gibraltar.”
Culwell, who survived an abortion that killed her twin sibling, told the rally: “I am a twinless twin in the name of choice.”
“I am one of many survivors of abortion,” she continued. “There is a domino effect to abortion. Not just the woman and the child, but it is generation after generation that we see missing in the name of choice. You can do something about it here in Gibraltar. You can vote NO on 19th March. Please keep up your work and thank you for your commitment. You are fighting for the lives of people like me.”
Lord Alton told the rally that “science teaches us that life begins at fertilization. And science has moved on dramatically since abortion was legalized.”
“When the U.K.’s obsolete limits were being set, we didn’t know what was happening in the womb,” he said. “We do now. This is a law which flies in the face of science and humanity. Today we know so much more about the undeniable humanity of the child in the womb.”
Patricia Parody, chairperson of GPLM, said the rally showed the “energy and momentum within the pro-life side.” She said she was confident that when the people of Gibraltar are fully informed of what the proposed law means, they “will opt to save babies and support mothers on the 19th of March by voting No.”
Dr. Anthony McCarthy of the U.K. pro-life group the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) told LifeSite that “the proposed changes to the law make it clear that abortion on demand is the real goal.”
The people of Gibraltar are faced with a momentous decision to protect or withdraw protection from young human lives. The proposed changes to the law make it clear that abortion on demand is the real goal: an aim that has nothing to do with medicine or the welfare of mothers and their unborn children. We know from bitter experience what happens when “grounds” for abortion are used to make the practice more palatable and how social abortion becomes the norm, together with explicit lethal discrimination against any unborn child with disabilities.