The UK’s pro-life movement is calling on Catholic bishops to speak out more publicly and effectively against a culture that sees women being pressurised by medical staff to have abortions.
The move comes after two mothers ended their pregnancies following Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), one of the UK's largest hospital teaching organisations, mistakenly informing them that their unborn babies had serious genetic conditions.
“The Church must accept its own part in this terrible situation, in which clergy and lay faithful have failed to speak up – through fear, discomfort or ignorance,” Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a pro-life advocate and co-director for March for Life UK, <a href="https://www.osvnews.com/british-pro-lifers-urge-church-to-speak-out-in-wake-of-nations-worst-public-abortion-scandal/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">told</mark></a><em> OSV News</em>.
The <em>BBC</em> <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgljz4vve2o"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">reports</mark></a> that Carly Wesson terminated her pregnancy at 14 weeks after being told that her child had Patau's syndrome. The genetic disorder often results in miscarriage, stillbirth or the baby dying shortly after delivery. Ninety per cent of children born with Patau's syndrome die within the first year.
Ms Wesson told the <em>BBC</em>: “It’s the most impossible choice we’ve ever had to make. We thought the best option was to end the pregnancy because the baby was suffering.”
Six weeks after the abortion, Ms Wesson was called for a meeting at City Hospital, one of the trust's two hospitals, where they were told that the results had been a false positive. The doctor leading the meeting reportedly said: “Well, you could have miscarried anyway.”
Another mother was pressured into having an abortion by NUH after being told their baby had a life-limiting genetic condition. She was informed by the trust that she must decide within a day, as the pregnancy was approaching the 24-week mark, after which most abortions are prohibited by UK law. The mother described receiving a “frantic call in the late afternoon one day telling me we had to decide by the following day to terminate".
However, a post-mortem examination revealed that the child did not have the condition.
Another family were offered a termination after being told their child had a serious condition preventing them from emptying their bladder, which meant that they would either be stillborn or live a very short life. After arriving at the hospital to take the medication, the father insisted on another scan, during which the child emptied their bladder and thus avoided termination.
Ms Vaughan-Spruce, who gained public attention after being <a href="https://thecatholicherald.com/west-midlands-policewoman-demands-to-know-if-catholic-laywoman-is-praying-for-the-unborn-in-third-thoughtcrime-probe/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">arrested</mark></a> for silent prayer near an abortion facility, told the <em>Catholic Herald</em>: “This scandal is devastating on so many levels, and we need to give some honest thought as to how it has arisen.
“It is a consequence which is consistent with the relativistic value system which we have fostered in our country for decades – that life is only valuable if and when we value it.”
NUH is one of England's largest teaching trusts, collaborating with the University of Nottingham to train healthcare students. However, it has a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyr7em4323mo"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">history</mark></a> of poor antenatal and neonatal care, with the NHS paying out more than £100 million over failings at the trust's maternity centres between 2006 and 2023.
The revelation of these misdiagnoses coincides with a <a href="https://www.ockendenmaternityreview.org.uk/">review</a> of the care received by more than 2,000 families in the maternity units of the trust's two hospitals – Queen's Medical Centre and City Hospital.
The review, led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden and known as the Ockenden Review, is the largest maternity inquiry in NHS history. It is unclear how many of the cases may have involved incorrect medical information leading to abortions or how many instances involved medical staff putting pressure on patients to undergo an abortion.
Simultaneously, Nottinghamshire Police have been conducting a criminal investigation into the trust since September 2023. They have recently started to receive information from the Ockenden Review team, with more than 100 baby deaths and injuries under police review.
One of the main concerns of the UK pro-life movement regarding what has happened in Nottingham is that the mistakes aren't limited to that location.
John Edwards, pro-life coordinator for the Diocese of Nottingham, told <em>OSV News</em>: “The idea that such woefully inadequate care of newborn children is occurring only here in Nottingham is nonsense – it’s been picked up on here, but it’s clearly replicated across the country.”
He also called on the Church to do more, stating: “Leadership matters, and if priests and bishops said this was wrong, it would make a difference.”
While Mr Edwards says he believes that Bishop Patrick McKinney, the bishop of the Diocese of Nottingham, has shown support for pro-life causes, the pro-life coordinator feels that other Church leaders have remained quiet on abortion to “avoid confrontation or offence".
In 2022, according to the most recent complete <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2022/abortion-statistics-england-and-wales-2022"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">data</mark></a>, 251,377 abortions were carried out in England and Wales – the highest number since the Abortion Act was introduced.<br><br>Regarding her criticism of a culture in which "life is only valuable if and when we value it", Ms Vaughan-Spruce noted how this also relates to the ongoing debate around assisted suicide.
"We are currently discussing this [how life is valued] in regards to the elderly and terminally ill, but for over 55 years we have enshrined in law that the worth of a pre-born child is contingent on their mother's feelings," the pro-life activist said.
"Our whole society, including our medical and legal systems, must be based on the premise that all lives are equally valuable and that there is no such thing as a person not worthy of life and love."
<em>Photo: A general view of the Queens Medical Centre and University Hospital, Nottingham, England, 16 July 2009. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.)</em>
