Why Did 'Tibet Truth' Have To Blow The Whistle On Marie Stopes International?

So we come to the work of Marie Stopes International (MSI).

One of the most horrifying things to me is that MSI receives a grant from the Department of International Development (British tax payers’ money) for their overseas programme. Despite parliamentary questions in the Lords and the Commons, as well as Motions tabled by MPs and Peers in both Houses, nobody has ever denied (least of all, Marie Stopes) that the money from the British Taxpayer enables them to operate in China where the Government policy allows couples only one child. It is a policy which is imposed ruthlessly to the point that women are dragged from their homes to be forcibly aborted... and the men forcibly sterilised.

On the contrary, MSI arranged for a Parliamentary delegation of MPs and Peers to visit their work in China to show how well British Government money was being spent!

Even worse, MSI gave the red carpet treatment to Ms. Li Bin (see left), the Minister of China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission, when they invited her to this country as a Guest of Honour in April 2010. An Early Day Motion (EDM) tabled in the Commons by Labour MP, Jim Dobbin, drew attention to the visit (noting that MSI claimed to disapprove of force and to discourage it). The MPs called for Government grants to be withdrawn from the group and stated:

“… the one-child policy has caused untold suffering and misery to millions, including forced abortions and sterilisation with imprisonment for those fighting against the law... notes... a 20-day campaign in April in Puning County, where 9,559 adults were required for compulsory sterilisation with doctors working 20 hours a day to achieve the numbers... (and) some 1,300 people were confined by force because their relatives refused to submit to the surgery...”

A number of lawyers and civil rights workers have been imprisoned for seeking to defend women from compulsory abortion. In Shandong Province, in eastern China, Chen Guangcheng (see right), a blind legal expert who had spoken out against local abuses of population control policies was imprisoned for four years and three months. His lawyers complained that local officials had barred important defence witnesses as well as members of his family from the trial. When he finally emerged from prison he was kept under house arrest where he remains. Throughout the whole of his ordeal he and his wife have been subjected to violence from police and guards as is anybody who tries to visit him.

Ms. Li Bin’s red-carpet visit to Britain occurred at about the time Marie Stopes achieved huge publicity for its advertising campaign on prime time television deliberately aimed to reach the young (including under-age children). Yet, As the EDM noted, they were strangely and totally silent about their Honoured Guest. None of us would have known about the visit but for Tibet Truth, a human rights organisation protesting about the barbarities inflicted on the people of China and Tibet. You can read their report here. Moreover, MSI still remained silent – albeit that the bloodiness and cruelty of the Chinese policy might have seemed just a bit over the top even for Mrs. Marie Stopes (see left), their founder.

She was a dreadful woman. She was a racist and elitist. Marie Stopes and Margaret Sanger (see below, who set up International Planned Parenthood) loathed blacks, browns, Jews, Gypsies, the Irish, to name a few. Anglo-Saxons were, of course, acceptable... but only so long as they were not poor. They – that is the poor – were apt to be described as feckless, and it was made abundantly clear that everything possible should be done to stop them from breeding. 

Dear old Marie and Margaret actually visualised sort-of-benign concentration camps where all those groups (as mentioned above) they considered undesirable could be harboured if they insisted upon having children. Not surprisingly, they were both great admirers of Hitler and actually visited Germany to meet him and to show that they were great supporters of his fan club.

Like Hitler, they were both up to their eyes in eugenics and were utterly self-righteous about the elimination of the disabled – both before and after birth – with no questions allowed, let alone asked!

I am not suggesting that to-day Marie Stopes International workers drag women from their homes in China to forcibly abort them. Nonetheless they act in accordance with the Chinese Government’s Family Planning Programme to ensure couples do not have more than one child – unless of course they are among the elite in the Communist Party (“all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”). I have no doubt whatsoever that Marie Stopes workers are very polite about it. Nonetheless it is coercive abortion and sterilisation to ensure that couples do not have more than one child.

One thing we do not know is to what extent Marie Stopes is involved in Gendercide in China (or come to that in India) where there is a huge demand to destroy girl babies. In both countries there is no state old-age-pension and traditionally boys stay with their parents when they marry bringing their brides home. Thus parents are assured of being cared for in old age. If they wish to ensure that they do not die of starvation, couples (having to contend with the One-Child Policy) do all they can to have a boy. Girls are aborted, abandoned or put to death at birth. If they survived, by tradition, they would simply go to the home of the husband’s parents where they would be expected to care for them as they became more frail. It is not simply because the Chinese (and Hindu-Indians) are besotted with the idea of having boys – as we claim in the West. It is for the sake of survival that parents opt for boy children.

However the destruction of women will be disastrous for the future of the Chinese nation – which would be in keeping with the ideas of racists and elitists. In my young days, the Chinese were referred to as the “yellow peril” and exaggerated propaganda of couples “breeding” was continually peddled, terrifying some people. The fact is that the men now outnumber women by about 37 million. According to a paper in the British Medical Journal (add link) the overall sex ratio for China is 126 boys for every 100 girls. Nine provinces have ratios of 160 boys for every 100 girls.

In a speech to the House of Lords (June 9, 2010) on the issue, Lord David Alton of Liverpool said:

“The Economist described this as ‘Gendercide’. This gender imbalance is a major force driving sexual trafficking of women and girls in Asia.”

There is no hope of the Chinese building up their society for at least the next few generations or so. At the risk of being accused of regarding women as breeding machines, we have to face reality: you can have a hundred men – but if you have only one woman you will have only one baby each year. You need women to have babies – and if you have destroyed your women, you will have no babies to replace the generation.

Moreover, you would think that those who really care about women would consider the multiplicity of effects the Chinese one-child policy is having on individuals, quite apart from sex trafficking. It is a widely known fact (accepted by most people, excepting the pro-abortion lobby) that women who have had abortions are at a higher risk of self harm and committing suicide. To be subjected to coercive or even forced abortion must be absolutely devastating for the women involved. Suicides in China are extremely high and, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), China is the only country in the world where the rate of women committing suicide is higher than the rate for men. Wikipedia states when discussing the subject that:

“Suicide in the People's Republic of China is unique among countries of the world in that more women than men commit suicide each year: according to official government statistics, in 1999 the rate per 100,000 people was 13.0 for men and 14.8 for women... According to official government statistics the male rate (13.0 per 100,000 men per year) is lower than in many other countries, including some Western countries...”

The most recent World Health Organisation suicide table (giving the latest year available for different states as of 2009) gives the same rates for China per 100,000: 13.0 for men and 14.8 for women. Still the only country in the world with more women than men committing suicide.  The figures work out at approximately 500 women a day who end their lives.

As David Alton stated:

“This extraordinary suicide rate may well be related to the campaign of forced sterilisation and compulsory abortion.”

But nobody – least of all BPAS and MSI – seems minded to check.

BPAS and Marie Stopes: The Reality Behind the Rhetoric

Today,  and over the next few posts, let’s take a look at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and Marie Stopes International (MSI). We can begin with a brief consideration of their claims regarding the ‘counselling’ services they provide, and those of Pro-Life organisations.

For a start, BPAS should change its name. It does not ‘advise’ on pregnancy any more than the Mafia advises on “how to grow old gracefully”. It tells you how to get an abortion and where – largely directing you to the nearest BPAS or other abortion related service and almost nowhere else. Moreover, they tell you that their advice is non-directional, at the same time leaving out half the story – all the uncomfortable bits that might put women off the abortion.

They claim that pro-life counsellors lie about any possible sequelae following abortion, including psychological and physical, such as damage to the cervix leading to prematurity in a subsequent pregnancy, infection resulting in infertility, scarring of the lining of the womb which can cause subsequent prematurity, and the possible long-term increased risk of breast cancer. There is an abundance of evidence – but all is denied by pro-abortion groups such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International.

Both organisations also put forward the dream-scene that they do not encourage abortion. They put forward the facts, they say, so that women can make their choice... what is “right for them”!

Among others, I called Margaret Cuthill, who runs ARCH (Abortion Recovery Care and Helpline) to get an update on girls who call them for help and support following an abortion. Margaret has quite a personal history. She had two abortions and understands how women feel when faced with an unplanned pregnancy they definitely do not want... and what they experience after an abortion. She also understands how they feel after giving birth to a baby who was “unplanned”.

Her second abortion involved twins – when they killed one and accidentally left the other, a little girl, whom she named Pamela. It was when she saw the scan of Pamela that Margaret rejected the offer of another abortion to clear up the “problem”. It was also then that she fully realised exactly what abortion involved; “it” was not a “blob” (or some equivalent) as counsellors assured her and as they still assure women today.

Pamela (see right, on her Wedding Day, with Margaret) was most definitely an “abortion survivor”. She and Margaret had to face many difficulties and together they worked to overcome the abortion trauma from which they both suffered.

It is a well-known fact that the death of a twin, even in early pregnancy – whether from natural causes or by abortion – can have a devastating effect on the survivor. It can cause serious psychological problems including unresolved grieving. There is also a 20 per cent increase in the risk of cerebral palsy. For more information on this issue, see The Psychology of Twinship by Ricardo Ainslie – (preferably 1st edition – University of Nebraska Pres: Lincoln and London; 1985 or 2nd edition Northvale, New Jersey, U.S.A. Jason Aronson Inc.; 1997). See also The Lone Twin: Understanding Twin Bereavement and Loss by Joan Woodward (Free Association Books LTD; 1998), The Grief Recovery Handbook: The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death Divorce, and Other Losses by John W. James and Russell Friedman (Harper Paperbacks; 1998), “Lonesome Crowd: Loss of a Twin”, Chapter 9 from Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior  by Dr. Nancy Segal (Plume; 2000), and Living Without Your Twin by Betty Jean Case (Tibbutt Publishing Company, Inc, Portland, OR; 2001).

Margaret has been counselling girls suffering from post abortion problems for over twenty years now. When I asked about the latest image of their counselling put forward by BPAS and MSI, she subsequently wrote to me saying, “... of the women who come to ARCH for one-to-one counselling or those who phone the helpline for support, ALL say they did not receive any explorative counselling to identify their problems... to go into their personal emotional history... why they wanted an abortion... information on other options available to them than abortion...”  as well as the many other aspects which should be discussed.

She wrote further: “Very recently I spoke to a woman on the ARCH Helpline who had been ‘counselled’ over the phone. She said they asked brief questions, the first being can you cope? She said ‘no’ and they then spoke about the abortion, what methods she could have and what would be the quickest. Of course it was the medical abortion, so from telephone call to abortion it was only a matter of days and she couldn’t believe it was over... and then questioned herself, ‘What have I done?’”

Yet, BPAS claims: “… the charity does not exist to encourage abortion as LIFE encourages motherhood; BPAS exists to promote and enable a women’s choice. It’s all a matter of providing the information, and the space, to allow her to make the decision that is right for her at this time.”

How they must wish we all suffered from amnesia! 

I can assure you that when BPAS was launched they made it abundantly clear that their aim was to promote the availability of abortion to girls. It was unlawful (as it is still) for clinics to advertise to the public – so BPAS was set up “as a charity counselling service” to fill the gap. If abortion clinics had been able to advertise to the public, there would have been no need for BPAS – and very soon BPAS set up their own clinics so they could do the abortions for women who came.

Moreover, if today we offered prizes to girls for their stories, I do not think my front door would be broken down by girls or students clutching babies to their bosoms (or with good-sized bumps in front) to tell us how they had gone ahead with the pregnancy, taken their GCSE or degree, all because the counsellors from BPAS or Marie Stopes had told them how to arrange  for special tutorials or how to obtain grants... or housing... or which pregnancy advisory services (I mean real pregnancy advisory services) would provide the best layette. (Wouldn’t it be just too lovely to see BPAS referring girls to the Cardinal Winning Initiative so they could be guaranteed help and support!)

Instead they deride pro-life counselling services (no matter how impartial) claiming – as they have about LIFE – that “they tell lurid stories, show terrifying films about abortion” which is quite incorrect. As I have said before, LIFE in fact provides quality Relationship and Sexual Education, in addition to its work supplying BAPC-accredited non-directional counselling for women in crisis pregnancy and post-abortion, amongst a host of other services.

However, what BPAS and MSI most certainly do not do is to explain to girls – even if they ask about the development of the human foetus – the simple straightforward biological facts. And from my own experience (and from the experience of the many other people I know helping women through their distress after an abortion – sometimes many years afterwards) the fact which causes them the greatest grief is recognising the humanity of the infant they had aborted. Sometimes the realisation strikes them when they are expecting another child, sometimes it develops after seeing pictures, sometimes it is when they are unable to conceive or carry another child to term, sometimes there is simply no knowing what causes them to think of the child they felt they could not keep.