DIY abortions: what’s been happening?

Dave Brennan, of Brephos UK, a church project of CBR UK, breaks down each of the talks given at the recent online seminar for church leaders, ‘DIY abortions: what’s been happening?’

On Tuesday 10 November the lid was lifted on the silent scandal of the last 7 months by Andrea Williams of Christian Concern, Kevin Duffy an ex-director of Marie Stopes International, and other national speakers at an online conference for church leaders hosted by Brephos, the Church project of Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform UK (CBRUK).

More than 110,000 babies have been killed in England and Wales since March as a result of the Government performing a double U-turn to allow DIY abortions at home under the coronavirus emergency measures. Two mothers have also been killed through these unattended, self-administered abortions.

Here is the recording of the whole conference, and below is an outline of the content with the precise timings for each individual speaker. We encourage you to catch up if you missed it, and share with others, especially with church leaders.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern: “DIY abortions: what’s been happening?”

(3:43 – 36:49)

Andrea gave us an overview of the history of abortion law and culture here in the UK, relating it to other life issues such as embryo research and artificial insemination as well as the weakening of marriage and the family unit, to help us to see how we have arrived at where we are today, before giving us a detailed run-down of that crucial week in March when the Government performed a double U-turn to produce the DIY abortion provision we have now to this day.

Christian Concern has been pursuing a judicial review of this decision by the Government.

One particularly enlightening and sobering perspective borne out of Andrea’s close engagement with this sequence of events was the power enjoyed by the abortion lobby to get things done through their allies in the civil service – even to the point of pressurising and overruling, effectively, Government ministers.

Kevin Duffy, ex-director of Marie Stopes International: “Behind the Scenes”

(37:00 – 1:01:40)

Dave Brennan, director of Brephos, then interviewed Kevin Duffy who shared his experience of having worked in the abortion industry at a senior, international level, and why he became disillusioned with it and came out, and is now helping the other side.

Kevin shared some shocking findings from a ‘mystery client’ campaign he helped to lead here in the UK over the last few months in which the abortion industry was happy to post powerful abortion drugs to women who weren’t even pregnant, or who said they wanted an abortion to preserve their “bikini body”, or who wanted the pills to give to someone else.

He shed light on why the abortion industry was agitating in the direction of self-administration, globally, and helped us to consider the grim reality behind the instructions of “when you feel the urge, sit on the toilet, push, flush, don’t look” that accompany the abortion pills.

Especially valuable for church leaders, Kevin told us from his professional perspective what “the one thing the abortion industry doesn’t want us to do” is.

Dave Borlase of Intercessors for Britain: “Biblical repentance: why and how?”

(1:02:45 – 1:43:20)

Next up was Dave Borlase with a talk rich in aptly chosen and ably handled scriptures, showing us the need for repentance on the part of the UK Church.

Dave showed us the seriousness biblically of the shedding of innocent blood and the impact it has on the standing of God’s people when it happens in their midst. We also learned about the significance of sins of omission, how we’ve not been a voice for the voiceless, and our corporate responsibility to confess our sins and reform our ways together before God.

Putting forward the case that what we are experiencing in our nation today is judgment from God, Dave shared a prayer that God would not take the pandemic away until he has changed our hearts.

We then went into a time of prayer together.

Aisling Goodison of CBRUK: “Voice for the voiceless: effective pro-life apologetics”

(1:51:00 – 2:04:12)

To help us to think through how to “be a voice for the voiceless” effectively, Dave Brennan then interviewed his colleague at CBRUK Aisling Goodison who trains people to make the case for life persuasively.

Aisling talked us through the science and the philosophy behind the basic case for life, and went on in a staged dialogue with Dave to show us how to initiate a conversation and how to help people to rethink their own position on abortion, through finding the common ground, using powerful analogies, and asking good questions.

This was a taster of Aisling’s excellent apologetics training which forms part of the Brephos training pack for pro-life teams.

Dave Brennan of Brephos, CBRUK: “Moving to action”

(2:04:12 – 2:09:42)

Dave Brennan finished by exhorting church leaders towards three simple actions in response to all that we had heard:

1. Teach our congregation on abortion sufficiently;
2. Have a special prayer meeting on the issue;
3. Encourage the formation of a “pro-life team” in our church.

The day concluded with 20 minutes of Q&A with a panel made up of all the speakers plus Dr Calum Miller from the Oxford Centre of Christian Apologetics (2:09:42 – 2:33:00).