Yesterday, The Telegraph recapped events related to what is being called a double standard by members of both political parties. In an article entitled “Gender abortions: CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] accused of double standards after putting pro-life campaigners on trial,” The Telegraph explained that a string of charges have been systematically brought against pro-life activists who have used graphic abortion images, while two doctors who sanctioned sex-selection abortions (because the babies were girls) were not charged due to so-called “public interest.” According to the article:
There were growing calls for a judicial review of the decision, supported by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, not to charge two doctors exposed in an undercover Daily Telegraph investigation agreeing to arrange abortions because the babies were female.
The CPS confirmed this week that although there was enough evidence to charge Dr Prabha Sivaraman and Dr Palaniappan Rajmohan with a realistic prospect of conviction, it would not be in the “public interest” to do so.
The Telegraph reports that because the General Medical Council was ready to investigate the incident, criminal charges were unnecessary. Politicians in both parties were dismayed by the vague decision. The attorney general and health secretary are both seeking an explanation for the decision not to press charges.
Politicians and citizens alike are equally baffled by the decision, since it comes in the wake of a string of pro-lifers who have been criminally charged for displaying graphic images of abortion to further their pro-life efforts. Apparently, charges were brought against these activists because of the images’ likelihood to “cause harassment, alarm, or distress.”
It comes after a District Judge threw out public order charges against two Christian pro-life campaigners for displaying a graphic banner outside an abortion clinic in Brighton.
Andrew Stephenson, 37, and Kathryn Sloane, 21, were arrested by police and accused of actions “likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress” after unfurling 7ft banners showing aborted foetuses in 2011.
The CPS approved charges but when they went on trial, District Judge, Stephen Nicholls dismissed the hearing saying there was no case to answer.
Earlier Joseph Biddulph and Fiona Pinto, members of the ProLife Alliance, were placed on trial at Abergavenny Magistrates’ Court for displaying a graphic anti-abortion poster while campaigning for election to the Welsh Assembly. Again, the case was thrown out by magistrates.
But when Veronica Connolly, 56, a devout Roman Catholic was put on trial for malicious communications after sending pictures of aborted foetuses to chemist shops in Solihull, West Midlands, she was convicted. She later appealed but lost.
And two years ago Edward Atkinson, now 83, was given a suspended jail sentence for sending graphic anti-abortion material to his local hospital in King’s Lynn, Norfolk. He had earlier been placed under an Anti-Social Behaviour Order restraining his activities.
Following the logic of the doctors not-charged/pro-lifers-charged debacle, harassment, alarm, or distress must not have been factors that played into the aggressive death of baby girls in utero who were killed solely based on their sex as females.
Cross-bench peer Lord Alton said that the events are “worthy of Alice in Wonderland,” because of the double-standard that has led the CPS to prosecute people of goodwill who depict the “heartbreaking reality” of abortion, while simultaneously failing to take action against doctors who snub the law by committing abortions with the sole intent of “taking the life of a little girl.” The cross-bench peer summarized the lunacy of the decision, saying:
This is an incoherent and upside-down world which also violates a basic maxim of legal jurisprudence, that all parties should stand equal before the law. Holding different people accountable to different standards should not be the basis on which the CPS operates.
Andrea Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre, poignantly summarized the issue by pointing out the alarming nature of the fact that “public interest” is being established by politicians who determine what citizens can and cannot see, while they simultaneously turn a blind eye to sex-selection abortion in the name of the same “public interest.” Like Lord Alton, she concluded:
They seem to be applying one standard for those who oppose abortion and quite another for those who practise it.
We’re still waiting on international outcry from “pro-woman” organizations like Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Emily’s List – but we shouldn’t expect much.
