FIFTY-FIVE YEARS OF FIGHTING FOR LIFE A conversation with John Smeaton John Smeaton, the chief executive of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, has been involved in the pro-life movement at the national and international level for the past 47 years and this year he will pass on his responsibilities to the next generation. At this special moment, Calx Mariae had the unique opportunity to ask him to reflect on the mission and purpose of the pro-life movement, and also on its limitations. John Smeaton studied English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and taught English at a secondary school. He became involved with SPUC, the first pro-life campaigning group to be established anywhere in the world, after graduating from Oxford. He became the national director of SPUC in 1996 and has been at the forefront of campaigns not only against abortion but also euthanasia and same-sex “marriage”. John Smeaton is the vice-president of International Right to Life Federation and a co-founder of Voice of the Family. He and his wife Josephine have four children and six grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
CALX MARIAE: Having dedicated 47 years, almost your entire career to working for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) at the national as well as at the international level, how would you define the pro-life movement? Why does it exist? JOHN SMEATON: The aim of the pro-life movement and the reason for its existence are to oppose and to defeat the idea, which dominates virtually the entire world, that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived; and to create a society in which God’s law “Thou shalt not kill” is not only written into national and international law, it is also upheld and energetically defended by our fellow-citizens. I must add immediately two further observations: the pro-life movement is part of a much wider and deeper historic crusade for the restoration of Christian civilisation; and, secondly, the aim of the pro-life movement is immeasurably beyond the capacity of the relatively small organisations in various countries which go under the pro-life banner to achieve on their own. Of necessity, in addition to abortion, we are opposing and seeking to defeat a wide range of related evils – from contraception and in vitro fertilisation, to euthanasia, same-sex “marriage”, relationships and sex education and attacks on parents as the primary educators of their children, all of which
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serve to undermine the inviolability and value of human life. These are evils rooted in a revolution, a rebellion against God and His Church, the seeds of which were planted many centuries ago. It’s a revolution which has waxed and waned historically around the world but which, universally, reached a new dramatic climax in the 1960s since when there has been a catastrophic collapse in Christian civilisation and in the recognition of truths universally upheld just a couple of decades before. The pro-life movement, therefore, is a counter-revolutionary movement and, in order to achieve its aim, its members must be prepared to become not only saints – which everyone is called to be – but martyrs, which opponents of abortion and evils related to abortion are called to be. And even without being martyred, we must joyfully embrace a spirit of sacrifice in order to work towards our goal. Alan Smith, co-founder of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) in 1966, understood the spirit of the age, what the newly-conceived pro-life movement needed to do and the spirit with which to do it. Two days after the House of Commons passed the Third Reading of the Abortion Act on 14 July 1967, he wrote to Elspeth Rhys-Williams (now Elspeth Chowdharay-Best), his fellow co-founder: CAL X M ARI AE
