RAPE CRISIS CENTRE FURY AT GOVERNMENT

RAPE CRISIS & SEXUAL ABUSE CENTRE
OFFICIAL STATEMENT
28.01.08

The RCC today criticised the Department of Health & Social Services’ decision to fund the anti-abortion organisation LIFE.

Eileen Calder, Co-Director of the charity said: “This organisation describes itself as “inter-denominational”, it is clearly a religious group with a fundamentalist anti-choice ideology.

The DHSS should not be funding religious organisations to extend their propaganda, especially one who would force survivors of rape to give birth to the children of their abusers.

LIFE say they see 700 women a year – the RCC receives 3000 calls a year and yet the DHSS withdrew our funding.


If women want religious indoctrination dressed up as counselling – there is an over-abundance of churches available.

It is incredible that LIFE have the audacity to use the word “counselling” in relation to its work – this implies that their clients have choices – that is not the case.

LIFE have a history of trying to prevent women from making informed choices about unwanted pregnancy and have even criticised the use of the Morning After Pill and of IUD’s.

The RCC would defend the right of LIFE to put forward their moral beliefs to the public but the DHSS should be paying for the propaganda.

It is time women in Northern Ireland had equal access to health care as the rest of the female citizens of the United Kingdom and that the 1967 abortion act was extended to Northern Ireland.

EDITOR’S NOTES

• This statement is a response to a story in today’s Irish News, page 4, headline – Pro-life family planning body to get £78,000 grant.
• The Rape Crisis & Sexual Abuse Centre have campaigned for over 20 years for PRO-CHOICE, the ability for women in Northern Ireland to make their own decisions about abortion.
• The Rape Crisis & Sexual Abuse Centre had their government funding withdrawn for over two years and now survives on fundraising and the generosity of the public.