An Open Challenge To Those In Favour Of Retaining 24 Weeks

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This is nice and simple. I challenge absolutely anybody who is in favour of maintaining the limit on abortions to do the following:

1. Read this piece from yesterday’s Telegraph
2. Explain coherently why it would have been moral to inject Ellie-Suzanne’s heart with poison to kill her and then to dismember her before removing the body parts a day before her birth
3. Explain coherently why you would or would not view it as moral to to inject Ellie-Suzanne’s heart with poison to kill her and then to dismember her before removing the body parts a day after her birth.
4. If your answers to 2 and 3 are different, please explain the inconsistency

Watching as blood pulsed through tiny vessels made visible by the transparency of her daughter’s undeveloped skin, Beverley Fish knew the score. If she hadn’t, the medical and nursing staff would, with sympathy and gentleness, have made it clear to her.

Delivered at 23 weeks, one week under the legal limit for abortion, Ellie-Suzanne had a 10 to 15 per cent chance of survival. If she made it, a host of health problems - the legacy of her extreme prematurity - would, in all probability, overshadow her life and that of her family.

That bleak reality didn’t stop Mrs Fish and her husband, Dave, from clinging to hope. They had four healthy children already and, given the prognosis, it would have been entirely understandable had they hesitated in the face of a protracted battle for Ellie’s survival, which required them to consent to two brain operations.

But from the day she was born on September 3 last year, Ellie was part of their family and hope was all they had. While she has brain damage and "isn’t 100 per cent safe" according to her father, this week she was allowed home for the first time and the family is celebrating.

The human instinct to fight for and protect a life that has barely begun is not something that Health Minister Dawn Primarolo has much time for. She prefers the hard certainty of science in which statistics, rather than individual cases, dictate an outcome. Normally, I’d share this view. And yet, of all the many arguments ricocheting back and forth in the great abortion debate of 2008, Miss Primarolo’s contribution is among the least intelligent and helpful.

Amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, to be voted on by MPs next week, call for the abortion limit to be cut to between 12 and 22 weeks on the grounds that improving survival rates in very premature babies, and growing evidence of foetal sentience - that the foetus feels pain - make the present threshold unacceptable.

But Miss Primarolo believes that any reduction in the legal limit from 24 weeks would give false hope to parents of very premature babies.

"There is a danger of giving hope to desperate parents, who are in difficult enough circumstances anyway, that may not be there for them," she said, in a statement I suspect was rather more aimed at reassuring the pro-choice sisterhood than those parents she was speaking of.

And how patronising - and utterly illogical - is her stance. The fact that a small percentage of very premature babies - born at 24, 23 and even 22 weeks - are viable is well-documented. So rare are these "survivors" that they frequently make the headlines, as is the case with the "world’s smallest surviving baby", Amillia Taylor, born at 21 weeks and six days in October 2006.

It is also well established that, while a lucky few will grow into healthy children, others will have to cope with varying degrees of physical and mental disability. The public knows and understands this, and I do not see how reducing the abortion limit will fuel or diminish hope, false or otherwise, for those coping with the challenge of caring for a very premature baby.

Hope is not something that can be legislated for. Spend time in any neo-natal or special care baby unit and you will see parents standing guard over the fragile occupants of cots and incubators, desperate not to miss the slightest twitch or a yawn. They are busy squaring the reality - of which they will be well aware - with hope. And that is what Ellie-Suzanne’s parents will continue to do.

In the meantime, Miss Primarolo’s argument detracts from what is important; the opportunity presented by the vote next week to deliver an abortion limit in keeping with the pace of expected advances in foetal and neo-natal medicine. How many more babies born at 24 weeks or less will be surviving in 10, 15, or 20 years, when artificial wombs will be a practical reality rather than something from the realms of science fiction?

This is the first Commons vote on abortion laws in almost two decades. MPs should make it count.

Can you believe that line by Dawn Primarolo? It amounts to "Don’t bother saving human lives - your baby doesn’t really count".

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Embittered Women’s Masterclass

Written by two friends of mine!!

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10p U-turn Still Taxes The Poorest

Reuben and I couldn’t sleep, so we decided to go for a drive, pick up a Daily Mail and McD’s breakfast and see if that helped. On returning home, we read the frontpage of the Mail and decided to work out whether the Labour Party’s U-Turn really did help the poorest who were affected by the axing of the 10p band.

Proving that he has inherited his Papa’s hard sums genes, Reuben (with a teensy weensy bit of help) created the following spreadsheet to show the effect of Alistair Darling’s latest turnaround.

	2007	2008 Old	2008 New	Change on 2007	% Loss / Gain on 2007
5000	0	0	0	0
6000	78	113	0	77.5	1.3%
7000	178	313	193	-15.5	-0.2%
8000	345	513	393	-47.9	-0.6%
9000	565	713	593	-27.9	-0.3%
10000	785	913	793	-7.9	-0.1%
11000	1005	1113	993	12.1	0.1%
12000	1225	1313	1193	32.1	0.3%
13000	1445	1513	1393	52.1	0.4%
14000	1665	1713	1593	72.1	0.5%
15000	1885	1913	1793	92.1	0.6%
16000	2105	2113	1993	112.1	0.7%
17000	2325	2313	2193	132.1	0.8%
18000	2545	2513	2393	152.1	0.8%
19000	2765	2713	2593	172.1	0.9%
20000	2985	2913	2793	192.1	1.0%
21000	3205	3113	2993	212.1	1.0%
22000	3425	3313	3193	232.1	1.1%
23000	3645	3513	3393	252.1	1.1%
24000	3865	3713	3593	272.1	1.1%
25000	4085	3913	3793	292.1	1.2%
26000	4305	4113	3993	312.1	1.2%
27000	4525	4313	4193	332.1	1.2%
28000	4745	4513	4393	352.1	1.3%
29000	4965	4713	4593	372.1	1.3%
30000	5185	4913	4793	392.1	1.3%

 

The table is very easy to read. On each income row you can see what tax was paid in the tax year 2007-2008, then what the abolition of the 10p rate changed that to. The third colum of figures shows the change from 2007 to the tax bands announced yesterday.

The obvious conclusion is that this doesn’t help the poorest at all. The ones who still lose out under the new tax bands are those who earn between £7000 and £10000. After that, the new £600 increase in the threshold means that income tax payers on an income above 10000 now are better off than in 2007.

So to summarise so far - Between £7000 and £10000 - worse off. More than £10000 - better off.

"But don’t stop there", said Reuben (or gurgles to that effect). The last column shows the percentage loss or gain in terms of the individual’s income. This column demonstrates that as a proportion of their income, the Chancellor is still taking away from those who earn £8000 as much as he is giving to those who earn £15000.

This from a party that claims to want to lift people out of poverty.

At this point Reuben had had enough, similar to most of those struggling hard to raise a family on £10000 or less, and burst into tears only to be consoled by his mother and what he could get out of her. "Drink up", said Papa. "Mr Darling has milked all the most vulnerable in this country already and given it to those who are better off. You get as much as you can right now before the Chancellor finds another source of income to fund his latest nightmare".

Labour’s 10p debacle - If even a four day old knows it’s a disaster, what hope have they got of convincing the electors of the UK, let alone Crewe and Nantwich, that they deserve to stay in power?

Update - Dizzy has the musical version of the analysis above.

Popularity: 7% [?

Reuben Sleeps

Just a quick "thank you" to everybody who’s prayed for us over the past three days. Gayle’s milk has kicked in, Reuben is lapping it up and has done three nice long sleeps (2+ hours) without swaddling. All we need now is a nice browny yellow poo and we’ll know we’re on the way.

Do please keep praying, that Reuben would continue to grow in his sense of security and being, that he would be able to sleep longer (so Mama and Papa can sleep) and that when the midwife comes again on Thursday there’d be a huge thumbs up.

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Any Advance On A Hundred Pounds?

This delightful (and genuine) piece of irony via Guido.

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Two Days Old

My family!!! Reuben is sleeping well now, but wakes the moment you put him down.

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Yawn……..

Apparently, some newborns in their second or third night simply will not get to sleep. Welcome Peter and Gayle to "Baby’s Second Night…"

Who’s the patron saint of Baby’s Second Night parents? I need to know and need the collect right now!!!!

Update at half past stupid o’clock in the morning - If Papa takes Reuben in his arms to read some blogs, then Reuben will stay asleep and Mama can get some sleep.

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Reuben At Six Hours

This video will hopefully be shown at tomorrow morning’s services at Christ Church Ware. Enjoy!!!

Might do some photos tomorrow but then blogging will be light…..

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Behold, A Son!

Reuben Johannes Hugh Ould was just born! More info later!

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20 Weeks Campaign Formally Launches

Nadine Dorries MP will on Tuesday launch the official parliamentary campaign to reduce the upper limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 20 weeks when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is debated in the Commons later this month.

Nadine will be supported by consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Vincent Argent, former medical Director of BPAS, and Dr Peter Saunders, General Secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship at a launch press conference at the Commons. Ultrasound pioneer Professor Stuart Campbell will also be backing her campaign.

Nadine will publish a briefing paper, ‘20 Reasons for 20 Weeks’ outlining the case for cutting the present 24-week limit to 20 weeks.

Nadine will also unveil a new website www.the20weekscampaign.org dedicated to maximising public and parliamentary support for a sensible updating of the law, bringing it into line with advances wrought by modern medical science.

Nadine, who plans to table an amendment to the HFE Bill reducing the limit to 20 weeks, will say:

"Britain has 200,000 abortions a year or 600 a day. That is just too many. We must slow down on abortion.

"I respect a woman’s right to choose. But we are close to being the abortion capital of the world and it is now time to adopt a more moderate, commonsense approach to abortion.

"No one envisaged such a tally when abortion was legalised 40 years ago. There were 86,000 abortions a year in 1970 and 200,000 now. Abortion is now being used as a form of contraception. It is time to send a new signal about abortion, a less casual message, bringing Britain into line with the rest of Europe.

"With an increasing number of babies surviving at 24 weeks or below, we now have the absurd situation where doctors are battling to save premature babies in one part of the hospital and ending life in another part at exactly the same point of gestation."

Dr Argent, a former medical director of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, who carries out abortions, will say:

"I fully support and I am right behind Nadine’s 20 week campaign. I support a woman’s right to choose but I consider that this should be balanced by the majority public view about the unborn child."

Nadine will highlight some of the 20 reasons for 20 weeks:

• Public, parliamentary and medical opinion is changing on late abortion. 63 per cent of MPs, two thirds of GPs, nearly two thirds of the public and more than three-quarters of women support a reduction in the 24-week upper age limit.

• High profile cases of babies surviving well below 24 weeks like Manchester’s Millie McDonagh, born at 22 weeks, and the world’s most premature baby, Amillia Taylor , who was born a week younger, both in October 2006.

• High resolution 3D ultrasound images, pioneered by Professor Stuart Campbell, have shown babies in amazing detail ‘walking’, yawning, stretching and sucking their thumbs in the womb.

• In the best neonatal units, such as in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 80 per cent of babies born at 24 weeks and 66 per cent of babies born at 23 weeks will survive. A recent study from University College London has confirmed these data in a UK context and showed that the level of disability in premature babies is much less than is commonly believed.

• Recent research, such as that by Professor Sunny Anand from the University of Arkansas, has shown that foetuses are well enough developed to feel pain down to 18 weeks gestation.

• Stories of babies born alive after botched abortions, as young as 16 weeks, are increasingly common and have understandably shocked the public.

• The number of abortions carried out between 20 and 24 weeks has been rising in recent years. Lowering the limit to 20 weeks will save over 3,000 young lives per year.

• Britain has the most liberal abortion laws in Europe. A termination can be obtained up to 24 weeks of pregnancy - double the limits in France and Germany and six weeks later than in Sweden or Norway.

Works for me.

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Still Not Popped….

Read my t-shirt. It works on so many levels…

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Why Darling Should Cut Fuel Duty

Here in the UK (and I guess elsewhere if my friends in the US are anything to go by) the price of petrol ("gas" for you colonists) has shot up in the last few weeks. Only yesterday the price per litre for diesel was 120p at my local Tesco Garage. A search on petrolprices.com shows that I’d be lucky to find a price of 110p a litre for unleaded.

That’s an awful lot for a litreof petrol, so how is that price calculated? Well, here’s a rough guide to the cost of a 110p litre of unleaded.

• The raw petrol (as it were) costs about 34.75p
• On top of that the retailer has to make a living, so he takes a cut of aroud 8.5p, giving a total so far of 43.25p
• Fuel Duty is a huge whopping 50.35p, taking the price to 93.6p
• The Chancellor then takes a further bite through VAT (16.38p), taking the final price to 109.98p.

Now, you read that right - the Chancellor first puts a fuel duty on your petrol and then charges VAT on top. So if the fuel duty goes up by 2p, in fact the tax paid goes up by 2.35p. Bet you didn’t know that eh?

Just to be clear, and to help us in our calculations, the Chancellor takes 66.73p of your 110p litre of petrol. That’s a lot of money.

Now, the fuel duty went up in October, and at the time the cost of a litre of unleaded was around 95p. Let’s break that down shall we?

• The raw price per litre was about 22p
• Retailers took around 8.5p
• Duty was 50.35p, taking the price to 80.85p
• VAT added a further 14.15p, taking the total price to 95p a litre.

The key point ot note here is that the total taken by Alistair Darling was 64.5p.

Now, a little mathematics. 66.73p (what the Chancellor is now taking) minus 64.5p (what he took in September) is 2.23p. That means, that because of the increase in fuel prices in the past few months, Alistair Darling already has all the extra money he was hoping to gain by increasing the fuel duty again in the autumn. So is there any other argument for raising fuel duty?

• Perhaps Mr Darling wants to raise fuel duty to promote a switch to public transport. The problem with this line of reasoning is that the price goes up to make it more expensive to travel by private car, but we’ve recently had a 15p rise, not just a 2p rise. Adding another 2p onto the price of a litre of petrol is going to have a miniscule effect in addition to the petrol inflation of the past eight months. The environmental argument for a price rise is good, but it has already been more than achieved through the increase in raw crude.
• Could it be that the Chancellor just wants more money from us simply to help balance the Labour books? This can be the only reason, because if he was interested simply in bringing in a fixed amount of money through fuel duty he could actually cut fuel duty by 0.5p right now, today, and still be bringing in what he was forecasting to take from us when he proposed this autumn’s further rise.

In fact, look at it this way - Since the amount of tax per litre has gone up almost 2.5p since September, by cutting fuel duties by 1.5p right now Mr Darling would still be taking in 1p more in tax per litre than just a few months ago. Why doesn’t he do that? Because he needs to cover Gordon Brown’s back, the former Chancellor and now lame-duck Prime Minister who in a time of economic boom racked up a massive PSBR that now needs paying off.

One final thought - Those who are really affected by this high level of fuel duty are the same folks who have been squeezed by the abolition of the 10p tax rate. I can afford to put another £10 into my car every week on the income that I’m on (and the expenses I can charge for my parish mileage). For someone earning £15,000 a year, needing their car to get to work and to buy the groceries, an extra £10 a week is crippling. A cut in fuel duty would help out some of the least able in society, those who want to work for a living but find everyday costs escalating out of control. I wonder though, whether Mr Darling and Mr Brown don’t really care how they affect the low income earners in this country, and are about to sacrifice another tranche of their support on the altar of environmentalism?

Popularity: 18% [?

Civil Partnerships - Dead, Alive Or Spinning Round?

Here’s Pete Burns’ opinion:

When he flashed his engagement ring on the sofa with Richard and Judy, pop star Pete Burns told of his happiness at the prospect of becoming the latest celebrity to marry his male partner.

But now, just ten months after the big day, the singer has split from Michael Simpson, saying civil partnerships do not work and that he was happier being married to a woman.

Burns, 49, who was wed to stylist Lynne Corlett for 28 years, said gay relationships were a "commercial break" compared with the "full movie" of marriage.

He also claimed there were too much "promiscuity" in the gay community for civil partnerships to thrive.

Burns followed in the footsteps of Sir Elton John and Little Britain star Matt Lucas in using the new civil partnership laws to announce his public devotion to his lover.

He dressed as a geisha girl in a kimono for the ceremony in London on July 7 last year.

He told The Mail on Sunday he had been "optimistic" about his civil partnership, but now he says: "I learned the hard way. It’s a total joke."

Burns accused Simpson, 40, of being unfaithful and admitted he felt disillusioned. Burns added that some gay couples had "open marriages" where the partners could be unfaithful.

He said: "There’s a lot of promiscuity in the gay community. I don’t understand why they take that union. How low is their self-esteem?

"One’s on Hampstead Heath meeting men, the other one’s hiring rent boys. "Surely marriage is throwing anchor and saying, ‘This is where I’m staying, I’ve made my choice and this is all I want because I’ve been on the up and down escalator, through the revolving door and I want to stand still.’ That’s what I expected."

He added: "I don’t know what goes on in many heterosexual marriages but I know mine was 28 years.

As far as I was concerned that was for ever, and it would have been, but she needed to find her own life.

"She was the best ‘husband’ I ever had. You sometimes meet a person who you completely love. We’re still really, really close. It’s not about sexuality, it’s about the person."

Since the Civil Partnership Act came into force in December 2005, there have been 18,000 gay marriages in Britain.

Burns said: "I view marriage as a sacred institution. I think two men naturally are predators. Gay relationships are a commercial break, not a whole movie.

"The relationships I’m aware of, apart from one … it’s as though there’s some kind of emotional inadequacy or narcissism, where they feel emotionally inadequate and need more validation, from either a father figure or a mirror image of themselves. "I’m not condemning it, I think it needs researching and help."

Burns and his band Dead Or Alive had a No1 hit with You Spin Me Round in 1985, but his career went into decline until he went on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006.

He met Simpson at Joe Allen restaurant in Soho in 2003. They announced their engagement on Channel 4’s Richard & Judy Show in 2006.

Last week, police launched an investigation after Burns alleged that Simpson had assaulted him at home, breaking his collarbone.

Burns said he wanted to file for divorce. He added: "Would I get married again? If somebody knocked me on the head with a nine-inch nail-studded plank or drugged me with benzodiazepine … No, no, no."

Derek Munn, of the gay rights organisation Stonewall, said: "Civil partnerships have brought joy and fulfilment to thousands of lesbian and gay couples.

"Just as with marriage, some relationships may fail."

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Website Vanity

April 2008 was the best month ever for An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy with 9,316 visits from a staggering 5,438 unique visitors.

Must be something in the water….

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