FAQs

This page is provided to answer questions which are frequently asked of the OUPS. If you have a question which you don’t see answered here, e-mail it to us and we’ll put up a response. For a general explanation of our society’s purpose, visit the Aims section of the website.

Doesn’t a woman have a right to choose?
Any civilized society restricts the individual’s freedom to choose whenever that choice will harm an innocent person. Some choices—such as ‘choosing’ to carry out child abuse, homicide, or other violent crime—are always wrong. Similarly, the right to life is universal and is not a matter of choice. Obscuring abortion as ‘choice’ does not alter its reality—without the right to life, all other rights are meaningless. No individual should have the power of life or death over another.
Isn’t a foetus just a blob of cells?
In a purely biological sense, we are all ‘just blobs of cells’. Zygote, embryo, foetus, baby, toddler, child, teenager, and adult are just words we use to describe different stages of the continuous process that is human development, starting at fertilization (see http://www.justthefacts.org/). This is not the first time in history that personhood has been denied to vulnerable groups in society by its more powerful members. Slave traders convinced themselves and others that their slaves were subhuman in order to justify their exploitation. Apartheid resisted on the belief that blacks were ‘less developed’ than whites and therefore inferior.
Surely “life begins at conception” is just religious dogma?
Untrue. Virtually every major medical textbook defines fertilization unequivocally as the beginning of human life. Many of the world’s major religions do indeed hold this belief, but this is as much a tenet of modern scientific research and medical knowledge as religious doctrine. Accusing pro-lifers of imposing their beliefs on others amounts to hypocrisy: who is it that ‘imposes their morality’ on the 180,000 British babies killed every year?
Didn’t backstreet abortions kill thousands of women?
Dr Bernard Nathanson, joint founder of NARAL in the US initially claimed that ‘backstreet abortion’ was killing over 10,000 American women every year. However, Dr Nathanson later changed his mind on the abortion issue and admitted in his autobiography that this statistic had been a complete fabrication: the true figure was about 200. In the UK before the 1967 Abortion Act there were no more than 30 deaths a year from illegal abortion (v. Legalised Abortion: Report by the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists, BMJ 2/4/66). What’s more, deaths were falling rapidly long before the Abortion Act was introduced (ibid.).
What about abortion in the case of rape?
“My biological father is a rapist. But I am still a human being and I still have a value. My life isn’t worth any less than yours because of the way I was conceived. And I did not deserve the death penalty because of the crime of my father. Someday I hope to meet my birth mother. She loved me enough to give me life, and then she loved me enough to give me the next-most special gift I was given, and that’s my family.” Pam Stenzel, speaker and counsellor. Rape accounts for less than 1% of all abortions performed.
What about abortion to save a mother’s life?
‘Abortion to save the life of the mother’ is not abortion—the definition of which is the deliberate killing of a preborn child. There are a very few medical treatments, such as for ectopic pregnancy, which may result in death of the preborn child, but the intention is to save the mother’s life, not to kill her unborn baby.
Shouldn’t a woman be able to abort if she can’t offer her child a good life?
Adoption provides an alternative that is in the better interests of the child than is abortion. In Britain, the number of potential parents waiting to adopt (especially at birth) far exceeds the number of children up for adoption.
Shouldn’t every child be a wanted child?
A child is not a unit of currency: an individual’s right to life should not be dependent upon how much she or he is ‘wanted’. Killing the child is not a solution to child abuse, cases of which have increased significantly since abortion was legalized, and not disappeared as was predicted. Instead of ‘every child a wanted child’, what the slogan is actually suggesting is that every unwanted child should be a dead child.
Doesn’t abortion protect the world from overpopulation?
The ‘overpopulation’ idea is not new—Plato worried about it in the fourth century BC! Poverty and overcrowding are caused by economic destitution, war, or oppressive regimes—not by having too many people. Growth rates have actually been in decline since the early 1960s—long before abortion was common in most countries. The overpopulation myth originated from the eugenics movement, which continues today int eh form of UN funding of forced abortions and sterilizations in China’s infamous ‘One Child Policy’ and other human rights abuses in developing countries. See the Population Research Institute website http://www.pop.org/.
Isn’t “post-abortion syndrome” just pro-life propaganda?
PAS, a variant of post-traumatic stress disorder, is a recognized disease, with over half a million women affected in the US alone. In fact, Planned Parenthood estimates that 91% of all women suffer some degree of trauma after an abortion. The American Senate has passed, uncontested, an amendment officially recognizing the existence of PAS and imploring the National Institute of Health to expand research into the area. For further information visit the Elliot Institute website.
Aren’t pro-lifers just violent extremists?
Every civil rights movement has an unrepresentative extremist fringe. A small minority of Suffragettes were prepared to use violence to further their cause, just as other civil rights activists in South Africa and North America resorted to terrorism in the fight for racial equality. Like the pro-life movement, these movements themselves were predominantly peaceful and their aims justified.
Isn’t pro-life counselling a manipulative ruse?
Much supposedly ‘non-directional’ counselling is undertaken by abortion industry leaders such as the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and Marie Stopes, who charge typically between £300 and £700 per abortion (depending on foetal age)—every mother who chooses to keep her baby therefore represents a lost sale. In contrast, most pro-life counsellors are volunteers and so by definition have no financial interest in the outcome of a mother’s decision.
Where in Oxford offers pregnancy help and counselling?
Life has a pregnancy care centre in Oxford, at 130 High Stret. Life counsellors are mature women who have undergone careful professional training. They offer free, confidential pregnancy tests, non-judgemental counselling for ‘crisis pregnancies’ and also post-abortion counselling, guidance on adoption, DSS grants and benefits, and will offer continued support to all women regardless of their decision. Counselling times are Monday and Tuesday 9.30 a.m.–2.30 p.m. and Thursday 10.30 a.m.–2.30 p.m. (other times by arrangement). The national helpline is 0800 849 4545 which is open from 9 a.m.–9 p.m., 7 days a week. Further details about Life’s work can be found at http://www.preghelp.org.uk.