Passion For Life.

“Right To Life ran a strong campaign in the constituency and we have no doubt whatsoever that had Margaret Curran, the Labour candidate, been pro-life she would have held the seat” she continued.   “Moreover, both the Conservative and Lib Dem parties have been very ‘coy’ about the votes that their candidates attracted.   They were both strongly pro-abortion and supported the Human Fertilisaton & Embryology Bill. So far as the vote is concerned they did very poorly.    There was only one candidate who traditional Christians could support freely and that was John Mason, the SNP candidate, who overturned a majority of 13,000.

“The Catholic Church, in particular, was magnificent.    Both Cardinal O’Brien and Bishop Devine of Motherwell showed very strong leadership and the local priests responded with great dignity ensuring that parishioners were properly informed on the issues facing them.    Right To Life circulated twelve Catholic churches in the area and without exception every one displayed our poster giving the voting intentions of the candidates of the four main parties on abortion, embryo research and cloning.    The priests also spoke on the issue, stressing the responsibility of Catholics in using their votes.   They did not, of course, specify the candidate for whom parishioners should vote.  

“Catholics, however, were not alone. We also circulated about twenty non-Catholic Churches and we know from their emails that many of them either displayed our posters or included the pro-life issues and the by-election in other material. 

“I am not suggesting that the pro-life issues shifted a majority of over 13,000 votes. However, the examples of Cardinal O’Brien, Bishop Devine and their priests showed that Catholics and other Christians could no longer vote blindly according to their traditions.

“We are sure that there were many hundreds who quite deliberately did not vote Labour, Conservative or Lib.Dem because of the un-Christian attitudes of their candidates on the pro-life issues.