Thank you!
Dear Friend and Supporter,
Today is Day 8 of SPUC’s 10 ten-day Advent Appeal.
With just 3 days remaining, you have donated a staggering £75,147 to defend our unborn babies.
I want to say a big “Thank you” to every single supporter who has responded so generously with a one-off or monthly donation.
What a Christmas gift this is for the unborn.
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This is why your support is critical …
- In 2011, a campaign paid for by SPUC supporters helped put an end to abortion adverts appearing on UK television screens.
- SPUC supporters backed the 7-year-long legal case of two senior pro-life midwives who refused to take part in abortions on their labour ward, culminating in a Supreme Court hearing in 2014.
- And an estimated 17,000 unborn babies' lives were saved because in 2018 SPUC supporters, like you, funded a major legal challenge to home abortions in Scotland. This delayed the implementation of home abortion in England and Wales.
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Notice a common theme here?
It’s ordinary people making personal donations who make it possible for SPUC to change hearts and minds and to save precious lives.
Government handouts and big corporate sponsors don’t figure in our financial thinking.
And that’s the way we want to keep it.
Why?
Because outside money always comes with strings attached.
SPUC will not put itself in a position where the interests of unborn children and their mothers play second fiddle to the interests of a third party, regardless of the financial benefits.
Supporters like YOU are the true heroes of our movement.
SPUC is unique in that everything is governed by its own supporters who populate SPUC’s National Council and Executive Committee.
This prevents any single person or political group putting their own special interests before the interests of unborn children.
SPUC has continued pushing back against the culture of death engulfing our country in 2020.
Fighting back in Northern Ireland
Around 4-in-5 respondents to the Northern Ireland Office’s public consultation on abortion said that they oppose abortion decriminalisation in the Province.
- SPUC has given this large, disenfranchised majority a platform to fight back this year.
- SPUC advertising in newspapers and on billboards situated around Belfast city centre is paving the way for abortion repeal in the Province.
You have seen how “censorship zones” at abortion clinics are silencing free speech and how Google, Twitter and Facebook suppressed the pro-life vote in the Irish abortion referendum.
Likewise, our opponents in Northern Ireland are furious that SPUC is using billboards to spread the unpleasant truth about abortion in such a glaringly public way and are demanding that they are taken down.
SPUC billboards with the slogan “ABORTION KILLS BABIES: Repeal Section 9”, have been displayed for much of 2020.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) mounted an investigation after receiving complaints from our opponents.
- Among the complaints, some challenged whether the use of the word “baby” was misleading “as they understood that this was not a medically recognised term in this context".
- However, the ASA ruled against taking any action against SPUC citing the Human Rights Act 1998 which defends the right to freedom of expression.
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The SPUC billboard the abortion lobby wants banned
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Fighting back in “cyberspace”
Social media is a vital tool for campaigning groups like SPUC. It is vital for reaching new support with our campaign messages. With over 44 million users in the UK alone, Facebook plays a bigger role in reaching people than any other network. In 2020:
- A record 3,838,404 users viewed SPUC’s Facebook posts
- People ‘following’ SPUC on Facebook grew by 27% from 12,962 to 16,441.
Fighting back in our schools
And in the 2019/20 academic year SPUC conducted:
- 171 presentations to 10,800 students up until the initial lockdown began
- Record bookings for the second part of the school year - our busiest time - would have seen us surpass the 211 presentations to over 15,000 students achieved last year
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SPUC Scotland's Director of Education and Outreach, Emmet Dooley (r), reported a record year for school bookings
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- Around 200 young people attended SPUC’s youth conference in Bedfordshire, the only one of its kind for young people aged 16-35 anywhere in the UK.
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It was good people like you who made all these achievements possible this year.
The true difference that you are making is difficult to measure because it is impossible to put a price on the life of an innocent baby.
If you’ve not yet done so, will you donate TODAY?
Another £24,853 would be enough to hit our Advent Appeal goal of £100,000 AND sustain SPUC’s critical Repeal Section 9 campaign well into the New Year.
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The next 12 months will prove vital.
We must bring pressure to bear on members of Northern Ireland’s Assembly if the democratic will of the people of Northern Ireland is to prevail.
We must hold the politicians accountable by making abortion repeal the hot button election issue at the May 2022 Assembly elections.
But that’s not the only reason.
Section 9 of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Act has spawned a radical abortion framework littered with anti-life, anti-family measures which our opponents desperately want to see exported to the UK. They include:
- Abortion-on-demand up to 24 weeks on grounds of vague non-medical reasons like a mother incurring financial difficulties or having relationship problems
- Pro-life medical workers, parents and schoolchildren are under attack too. Conscientious objection rights and compulsory pro-abortion sex education in classrooms are among the other radical steps
- Section 9 even opens up the grim possibility that abortions could actually be carried out on girls as young as 11-years-old whilst at school, without the knowledge of parents.
We ignore this impending danger at our peril.
I need your help to stop mainland Britain becoming subject to draconian measures like these.
Could you set up a monthly gift of £10, £20 or £25 a month to support SPUC’s Section 9 repeal campaign and help safeguard UK babies, pro-life medical professionals and parents whose respective lives, livelihoods and parental rights hang in the balance?
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I know you may not be in a position right now to make a commitment on that level with Christmas just around the corner.
One-off gifts of £10, £25 or £50 are immensely valuable and important too.
If everyone reading my email today chipped in at this level, it would even be possible to raise another £24,853 and meet our £100,000 goal by 7pm this evening.
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Every successful campaign is down to you. You are what makes SPUC different, you are what gives unborn babies and their mothers true HOPE.
Thank you.
Yours in defence of life
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John Smeaton
Chief Executive
PS: SPUC differs from many non-profits out there in that it doesn’t receive a single penny in government or corporate grants. Too few charities and non-profits are prepared to speak out and tell the truth because that entails risking the funding they have come to rely upon.
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PPS: The radical lockdown measures recently announced for large swathes of the country this Christmas are going to hit many vulnerable people hard. Remember that we can arrange for someone you know who is lonely and isolated to receive a phone call and to wish them a “Merry Christmas” from SPUC.
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