COURSE OVERVIEW
In this course, John Smeaton draws on five decades of experience as a principal leader in the pro-life movement, considering the most important human rights issue in the world today, the right to life, in the light of natural reason and two millennia of Catholic moral teaching. He is joined by Dr Greg Pike, who contributes his own insight as a neurobiologist and bioethicist, presenting evidence from the best peer-reviewed studies, as well as acute analysis of the pseudo-medical narrative bolstering the immense ongoing scandal of the establishment’s toleration of legalised abortion. They are also joined by prize-winning author, Ann Farmer, who will be presenting her own extensive research into the role of the eugenics movement in the worldwide abortion revolution.
The reality of human development before birth, so richly explored by scientific researchers in recent decades, and the brutal facts of abortion provide the foundation of this course in an authoritative presentation from Dr Pike. Dr Pike also explains the abortifacient nature of various contraceptive drugs and devices, and the enormous destruction of human embryos in IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) procedures. He returns in the penultimate lesson to expose the truth behind the medical establishment’s narrative that abortion is a relatively safe procedure.
John Smeaton explores how Church teaching and the natural law reveal to mankind the horrifying evil of abortion, which is without precedent in human history. He explains why the chief responsibility for putting an end to abortion falls to Catholics at every level of the Church.
Ann Farmer will be discussing the central role that the eugenics movement played in the legalisation of abortion and showing that the same agenda is pursued in the policies of many countries today. Other tactics and arguments used to bring about a worldwide abortion revolution are also explored, before John Smeaton concludes the course with a review of some of the leading figures, key events and cultural forces which have shaped, and continue to shape the battle on abortion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These include: Bernard Nathanson, Mother Teresa, the British parliament and the US Supreme Court, the historic impact of the Frankfurt School, along with the role of the United Nations, the Irish Abortion Referenda of 1983 and 2018, and a growing movement in the US to protect unborn children conceived in rape.
Join us for this eye-opening course, the fruit of long examination and practical experience combatting the single greatest massacre in human history. The course will also form the starting point for future webinars, which will explore many of the moral implications of abortion in greater detail.
IN THIS COURSE, YOU WILL LEARN
- The scientific, philosophical and theological reality of abortion
- How revolutionary movements have spread abortion tyranny worldwide
- Arguments and initiatives to put an end to one of the greatest evils in history
COURSE
AVAILABLE NOW
PRICE
FREE
THE COURSE INCLUDES
- 6 lessons
- 1 hour each
- with Q & A
- and revision notes
- available on demand
- completion certificate
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- WATCH PREVIEW
Course programme
In the first lesson, Dr Greg Pike shows that, from a scientific point of view, abortion is the killing of a distinct and individual human brought into being at the moment of conception. He goes on to explain how abortions are carried out, including those brought about by so-called contraceptive drugs and devices, and through in-vitro fertilisation procedures, involving the destruction of over seventeen human embryos for every child born alive.
DATE: Thursday 13 October 2022
TIME: 18:00 (UK time)
THEN ON DEMAND
In the second lesson, John Smeaton explains how both Catholic teaching and human reason demonstrate that legalised abortion is one of the most profound moral evils in the whole of human history, and one which Catholics especially are called by God to combat and defeat, not only by their prayers and sacrifices, but by their words, actions and example.
DATE: Thursday 20 October 2022
TIME: 18:00 (UK time)
THEN ON DEMAND
In this lesson, award-winning author and researcher, Ann Farmer explains how the agenda and legacy of the eugenics movement gave rise to the worldwide abortion revolution; organisations founded by advocates of eugenics like Marie Stopes and Margaret Sanger have become leading providers of abortion worldwide. The legalisation of abortion in the West was partly intended to limit the birth of disabled children, while strong eugenic motives have driven population control programmes in China and underdeveloped nations.
DATE: Thursday 27 October 2022
TIME: 18:00 (UK time)
THEN ON DEMAND
The abortion revolution is rooted in a rebellion against God and His Church. One of the first tactics of abortion revolutionaries is to undermine Catholic doctrine regarding the inviolable right to life of every innocent human being from conception to natural death. Diverse strategies, from subtle manipulation of language to outright lies, are used to dehumanise unborn children and attack marriage, the family and the innocence of children.
DATE: Thursday 3 November 2022
TIME: 18:00 (UK time)
THEN ON DEMAND
In this lesson, Dr Greg Pike presents rigorous peer-reviewed research into the physical and psychological impact of abortion on women. He will be unpacking many of the findings of his own paper, “Abortion and women’s health: an evidence-based review for medical professionals of the impact of abortion on women’s physical and mental health“.
DATE: Thursday 10 November 2022
TIME: 18:00 (UK time)
THEN ON DEMAND
John Smeaton examines some of the leading figures, key events and cultural forces that have shaped the battle on abortion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries — including Bernard Nathanson, Mother Teresa, Marie Stopes, Margaret Sanger, the US Supreme Court’s decisions on abortion and the (British) Abortion Act 1967, the historic impact of the Frankfurt School, the role of the United Nations, the Irish Abortion Referenda of 1983 and 2018, and a growing movement to protect unborn children in what are considered to be “hard cases”.
DATE: Thursday 17 November 2022
TIME: 18:00 (UK time)
THEN ON DEMAND
John Smeaton
John Smeaton is vice-president of the International Right to Life Federation and co-director of Voice of the Family, an international lay initiative formed to defend and promote the Catholic teaching on the family. He was chief executive of the UK's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) from 1996 until 2021 and SPUC general secretary from 1978 until 1996. John Smeaton and his wife, Josephine, have four children, seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Dr Greg Pike
Dr Gregory K Pike is the Director of the Adelaide Centre for Bioethics and Culture, Senior Research Fellow at the Bios Centre in London, and former Director of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute. He has a research and teaching background in neurobiology at the University of Adelaide and University of Pittsburgh and undertook clinical trials in laparoscopic surgery at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He has also served as Manager of Research Integrity at two Australian Universities.
In the late nineties his research interests shifted to bioethics, and in particular its relationship with public policy. He has worked on ethical issues related to illicit drugs, stem cells, cloning, abortion, reproductive technology, genetics, and end-of-life decision-making. He has published in these areas, participated in public debate, and engaged widely with policy makers and the community.
He has also served on several government consultative committees and been a member of the Australian Health Ethics Committee, a principal committee of the Federal Government’s National Health and Medical Research Council.
Ann Farmer
Ann Farmer is a writer, poet, illustrator and researcher. She has authored Language of Life: Christians Facing the Abortion Challenge (1994), Prophets & Priests: the hidden face of the birth control movement (2002), By Their Fruits: eugenics, population control, and the abortion campaign (2008), The Five Wounds (2012) and Chesterton and the Jews: Friend, Critic, Defender (2015); she is also the author of a chapter in Swimming Against the Tide: Feminist Dissent on the Issue of Abortion edited by Angela Kennedy (1997).
She has a master’s degree in Jewish-Christian Relations from the Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations in Cambridge and was awarded the 2000 Jewish Christian Relations Essay Prize.
She has written for various Catholic journals and is a contributor to The Conservative Woman, Mercatornet and The Imaginative Conservative. For many years she contributed homilies, articles and cartoons to Redemptorist Publications, and research for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children.
Ann lives in Woodford Green in the UK. She and her husband have three children and five grandchildren.
FURTHER READING
Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, Everything you need to know about abortion (2021)
Available from SPUC Pro-Life, 3 Whitacre Mews, Stannary Street, London, SE11 4AB, UK
Pius XI, encyclical Casti Connubii (1930)
Voice of the Family, Fighting for life: a conversation with John Smeaton on the mission of the pro-life movement (Calx Mariae Publishing, 2021)
Anthony McCarthy (editor), Abortion matters (Philos Publications, 2018)