Policies - Respect for the Human Person 2010 General Election Manifesto

“Let us make man in our own image.” Genesis 1:27

Christianity has given to our British culture the concept of respect for the unique identity of each individual as a person made in the image of God. It is no co-incidence that the further the United Kingdom departs from its roots in Christian faith and practice the further that human dignity and the sacredness of every life are reduced.

The approach of the Christian Party is distinctive. We want a compassionate country that values relationships and the dignity of every individual above material possessions and materialism.

The Christian Party is unashamed to declare its commitment to the principle of respect for life. The overriding moral principle is none other than the commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself. ” God values everyone equally. Every human being from conception to natural death deserves the protection of the law. Our objective is to develop a caring, pro-life ethic to end all forms of violence, whether gun crime, domestic violence, the abuse of children, sexual exploitation, people trafficking, slavery, abortion, cloning, embryo experimentation and cruelty to animals.

The most dangerous place for a child is the womb. In Britain 25 per cent of babies in the womb are aborted. The language of human rights is often heard in the British Parliament, but rarely that of the most basic human right – the right to be born, nurtured and protected without fear of violence in utero. Some have sought to extend abortion so that it becomes even more readily available. Christian Party MPs will oppose moves to impose abortion on Northern Ireland. They will also oppose the too easy illegal access to abortion in the rest of Britain, which has led to increased exploitation of women instead of their ‘liberation’. Abortion violates the dignity and integrity of women. It leaves a trail of anger, guilt, resentment, depression and loss of self-respect. Abortion is also incompatible with the vocation of doctors and nurses, and can cause psychological trauma to healthcare professionals.

In the just and caring environment that we seek, abortion will cease to be an alternative which any decent person will want to consider. Nobody has a right to bring about the death of an innocent human being and killing can never be part of a just policy of care.

We also seek to end the conception of human beings for destructive experimentation. With regard to embryonic stem cell research, there are other ways of finding stem cells for medical research that are not morally and ethically questionable. Our aim is to end the intentional conception of human embryos purely that they may be killed for their parts. Medicine, especially gynaecology and obstetrics, has been corrupted as it has moved away from the age-old principles of Hippocrates.

The United Kingdom, which proclaims a commitment to equal opportunities for disabled adults, often ignores the duty to afford equal protection to disabled human beings in the womb. The United Kingdom has adopted a double standard: on the one hand providing more support and protection for those born disabled than ever before; on the other devising ever more ruthless techniques for seeking out and destroying the disabled in the womb. We will use our voice in Parliament to challenge these primitive prejudices and fears concerning disability. Negative, defeatist and deeply insulting to those born disabled, eugenic abortion also causes trauma to the mother.

This compassionate Christian approach also requires that we speak up for those who, because of age or infirmity, are perceived by some to be a burden on others. This attitude is reflected in the grwing support for euthanasia and assisted suicide. These are symptoms of a growing utilitarian mentality in the United Kingdom. Only by holding fast to Christian ethics can we prevent the emergence of a ‘duty to die’ culture in Britain.

Christian Party members will wake up the United Kingdom Parliament to the reality of the demographic consequences of an anti-life culture. With the birthrate falling dangerously below replacement levels, we now face major economic and social problems associated with an ageing population. The issue of live birthrate in turn has implications for the question of migration. For more than forty years Britain has been killing its unborn and now the missing workforce is replenished through immigration with inevitable issues relating to integration.

Much western aid to developing countries is ruthlessly anti-life, with tens of millions of taxpayers’ money being spent on promoting abortion in China, Bangladesh and elsewhere. The Christian Party deplores such ‘aid’ programmes and rejects the use of abortion as a means of contraception. Promoting abortion overseas does not provide solutions to poverty, but merely exports our ‘culture of death’.

Ensuring that the interests of children are paramount requires that the traditional notion of the family is not undermined by the emerging ‘rights’ culture. The Christian Party will therefore uphold marriage between one man and one woman for life as the best place for children to be raised, including those in adoptive relationships. We will encourage efforts to support wider family networks, especially through strengthening the rights of parents to time off from work at the earlier stages in a child’s life.

In the United Kingdom Parliament, we pledge ourselves to a country in which the family is reinforced as the bedrock of social structure, where motherhood is once again respected, and where we use with wisdom the fruits of new scientific discoveries.

Christian Party Members of Parliament will:

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