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New Year Fundraising Appeal - Day 10
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Dear Supporter,
This weekend SPUC is staging its annual White Flower Appeal.
People often ask why our church appeal is called the “White Flower Appeal”.
The name was originally inspired by the work of the Weiße Rose (White Rose) movement.
White Rose was a non-violent, intellectual resistance to the Nazi Government at the height of the Second World War in Germany.
White Rose became known for an anonymous leafleting campaign (involving university students) that lasted for 8 months between 1942 and 1943.
In February 1943, siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, two of the group’s core active members were caught and arrested.
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Following interrogation, they were tried by the Gestapo and beheaded along with four others.
The Weiße Rose and Sophie Scholl have been the subject of a number of films retelling the story of their bravery.
I can’t help wondering what Sophie and her friends would make of the hostility being experienced today by pro-life students on UK campuses such as those at Exeter and Oxford Universities?
Like Sophie Scholl and her friends, their only “crime” was to speak up publicly against a grave injustice.
And just like them, young British pro-lifers are discovering to their cost that the right to free speech on campus is an extremely precarious one.
Pressured and coerced to keep silent or suffer the consequences – which include violent attacks and even death threats – these brave pro-life students are soldiering on.
Intolerance on UK campuses is growing by the year.
The disgraceful incidents that took place at Exeter and Oxford universities in October come on the back of similar attacks on pro-life students at campuses in Belfast, Glasgow, Cardiff and Newcastle.
And what would White Rose members have to say today about legal (often coerced) abortion?
Or about UK women taking pills to kill their babies and dispose of their tiny dead bodies at home – a policy fully endorsed by government?
Or official guidelines which don’t even consider it necessary to provide women who abort their babies at home with proper medical supervision?
Or that 1-in-17 women are being hospitalised with complications following medical (pill) abortions according to Freedom of Information data from 85 NHS Trusts recovered by the Christian Concern group.
- The Christian Concern data uncovered over 10,000 cases of post-abortive women needing treatment for retained products of conception (RPOC) since the government’s pills-by-post service began in March 2020.
And what would Sophie and Hans Scholl make of the extermination of the weak and vulnerable in a growing number of European and Commonwealth countries through euthanasia programmes like those pioneered by the Nazis?
Aktion T4 was a campaign of mass killing by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings.
- In December, Austria joined Spain and New Zealand as countries that have made the medical killing of the vulnerable legal in the space of 15 months.
What starts out with the right to “choose” the timing of one’s death inevitably leads to vulnerable people being euthanised whether they want to be or not.
This happened in the case of a 75-year-old Dutch woman with dementia who repeatedly said NO to being killed but was held down by family members as a doctor administered the fatal dose - conduct that was later fully endorsed by the courts.
I would like to think that Sophie Scholl and her friends would approve and give their backing to SPUC in 2022.
And I hope that you do, too, and that you will consider making a donation to support the 4 Key Aims of SPUC’s work this year, if you can?
The 4 Key Aims are:
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1. DEFEND pro-life speech
SPUC supports moves to provide legal protections for pro-life students on UK campuses contained in the Freedom of Speech Bill currently before Parliament.
ACTION: Promote widely SPUC’s new “Pro-Life Speech Petition” in support of UK pro-life students on UK campuses.
The petition counters one launched by Exeter pro-abortion students which calls for pro-life speech to be banned and which has over 9,000 signatures.
2. BLOCK efforts to introduce assisted suicide law
The threat of assisted suicide and euthanasia legalisation coming to Britain has never been greater.
MSP Liam McArthur’s proposed Assisted Suicide Bill in Scotland represents the most immediate danger.
ACTION: Mobilise SPUC’s network of grassroots branches and activists, and brief media and politicians against the McArthur Bill
3. Raise awareness of the HARM being done to women by abortion
The latest official statistics show that the use of medical abortions (pills as opposed to surgeries) has doubled since 2010 and now accounts for 85% of all abortions in England and Wales (it’s 97% in Scotland).
Yet a Finnish study of 42,600 patients found that abortion pills lead to as many as 4 times more serious complications than surgical abortions.
Coercion of all types is an enormous problem too. A WHO multi-country study found that women with a history of domestic abuse were almost three times more at risk of abortion.
ACTION:
- Expand SPUC’s campaign to END home abortions
- Commission top-level academic research to highlight the scale of abortion coercion
- Launch NEW campaign to protect women and babies from coercive abortion.
4. EXPAND pro-life outreach to the general public
Winning hearts and minds (especially of the young) is a battle that we must win.
In 2022, we are committed to funding three major outreach projects:
ACTION:
- Life Voice: A brand-new project deploying a professional acting company to deliver pro-life drama performances, with a workshop session and lesson plans for schools
- 2022 Youth Conference: Will be staged in Staffordshire in February. Going on past years, the event will produce strong and lasting networks that help young pro-lifers get active and spread the pro-life message in their own part of the country
- Pro-life missions: Another NEW project. SPUC staff will be travelling the length and breadth of the country delivering pro-life presentations to the public, schools, and religious leaders. Seven missions are scheduled for 2022.
January is always a critical month for SPUC’s work.
It determines how much funding will be available throughout the course of the year to help save unborn babies.
That’s why I am so very grateful to everyone who has contributed to our New Year appeal which has now reached a magnificent £47,973.31.
Our New Year appeal GOAL is £101,000
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every supporter receiving my email today who intended to give to the appeal - but as yet hasn’t - donated a few pounds so that all 4 Key Aims can be put into action?
If you are not a church-goer, or you do not come across the White Flower Appeal at your church this weekend, you can DONATE to help babies HERE.
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No donation is ever too small (or too big)
Every penny we receive during the month of January is vital - it moves us a step closer to making abortion unthinkable.
Meeting our fundraising target would ensure that we are in a strong position to defend life in 2022, especially where the attacks on life pose the severest threat, in particular:
- On campuses, defending pro-life assembly and speech
- In the Scottish Parliament, fighting assisted suicide
- And “everywhere we possibly can”, raising awareness of abortion coercion and other harms to women which abortion is responsible for today.
Will you consider donating £25 today to save a precious life?
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Gifts of this size are urgently needed.
You may possibly be in a position to contribute a larger gift of £50 - £100 - £500 - £1,000 or more?
No matter what the size, EVERY gift that we receive this month will give unborn children the strong VOICE that they deserve … in Parliament, in the mainstream media, on social media platforms, in our schools, and in places of worship across the UK.
The more funds that can be raised in January, the more lives can be saved over the course of 2022.
Thank you for your kindness and for your love for our babies.
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John Deighan
Chief Executive Officer
PS - The White Rose movement serves as a remarkable example of what can be achieved by standing up peacefully for what is right, even in the face of outright hostility and suppression.
Indeed, like the White Rose group, SPUC is fighting for a moral and political cause that is unpopular – despised, even.
I’m sure that people would have told Sophie Scholl and her friends that what they had set out to achieve was impossible, “unthinkable” even.
But in the end, they won.
They achieved the unthinkable.
Against all the odds.
So can we.
DONATE today, if you can.
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