Posted on 05/25/2016 8:38:53 AM PDT by Morgana
The job of a midwife is to care for women and their babies before, during and after birth, but the leader of British midwives group is pushing to add late-term abortion advocacy to midwives job descriptions.
Cathy Warwick, the chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives, has been facing heavy backlash ever since she used her role to push for late-term abortions for any reason up to birth, LifeNews reported.
Without consulting members, Warwick recently published a new RCM policy that supports abortion on demand, according to the UK Metro. She also got the midwives group involved in a campaign to push for the legalization of abortions for any reason up until birth, according to the report. The campaign is led by the pro-abortion British Pregnancy Advisory Service, and Warwick is the chairwoman of its board.
Currently in England, abortion is legal up until 24 weeks; late-term abortions are legal only in rare circumstances when the mothers life is in danger or the unborn child has a severe disability. The measure being proposed by Warwick and the BPAS would make British law similar to the U.S. after Roe v. Wade, allowing abortions for any reason on viable, late-term babies.
In a new interview with The Telegraph, Warwick said she believes midwives should support womens decisions to have abortions for any reason, at any time. Clearly defiant, she told the news outlet that she does not regret making decisions without consulting the midwives who she represents, and she will not back down.
Here is more from the interview:
In remarks likely to infuriate opponents of any relaxation of the law, she described abortion as being part of the role of a midwife. They should, she said, deal with the rough and the smooth rather than simply the enjoying the wonder and astonishment of bringing healthy babies into the world. The rights and wrongs of abortion should not be a consideration, she insisted.
The medical profession are, she admitted frankly, already interpreting current abortion law almost as loosely as possible to get around restrictions. Terminations should, she said, be viewed as part of the family planning jigsaw.
The fundamental reason, she argues, why neither members nor the board were formally consulted was that the decriminalisation of abortion, fits neatly with its long-standing policy to support choice for women.
For many, supporting choice might be one thing but is not sweeping away the current abortion law in its entirety a step further? At the end of the day: no, she replies. What were saying is women should have control over their own fertility and over their own reproduction.
Were not saying were pro-abortion, were not saying were anti-abortion, were saying lets give this to women to decide and lets put it in the general field of healthcare.
A petition calling for Warwick to resign has nearly 39,000 signatures. Hundreds of midwives also have signed a public letter of protest, according to The Telegraph.
But when asked if there are any cases where she would consider abortion to be wrong, Warwick answered with a plain, No. Nor did it seem to bother Warwick that she is advocating for a very unpopular measure allowing abortions on viable, late-term babies for any reason. From her remarks, it appears that she believes only the womans rights matter during pregnancy.
Paul Tully, general secretary of the British pro-life group Society for Protection of the Unborn Child, previously expressed his outrage at Warwicks radical position. He said the midwives group already is pro-abortion, and the latest news marks a radical shift that aligns with the pro-abortion lobby.
Midwifery is a caring profession, and most women training to be midwives do so because they care about babies and want to serve mothers and babies, Tully said. Abortion is a total contradiction of that. Abortion kills babies and harms women, sometimes fatally.
Most people strongly oppose mid- and late-term abortions. A 2016 Marist poll found 61 percent of Americans, including those who identify as pro-choice, support laws banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. An unofficial reader poll on the Metro showed 79 percent saying England should keep its current abortion limits and 21 percent saying the abortion time limit should be scrapped.
“You carry ‘em, we kill ‘em!”
“Murder is our calling.”
Good thing the ancient Israelites chief midwives weren’t like these gals.
We hired a midwife nearly 40 years ago, a former Army nurse. She told us she’d seen so much suffering and death during the Vietnam war, she now only wants to bring life and joy into the world.
She now midwifes at a Catholic women’s hospital in Seattle. The hospital is fighting the pro-aborts’ efforts to force them to perform abortions on demand.
My grandmother’s great-grandmother was a midwife in a village in Europe. (I only know about it from examining the parish records which are available online.) I’m sure she would have been horrified by the thought of someone deliberately killing a baby. At that time many of the babies died soon after birth—my ancestor was trained to baptize the children who weren’t likely to live long enough to be baptized by a priest.
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