A VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS

In Finland, around 9 000 children are aborted every year - that's about a school class of children every day. There are about 200 000 women in Finland who have had an abortion. Over the last 50 years, around 600 000 children have been aborted in Finland.

Science proves that a unique human being grows in the womb from conception. The right to life is the first human right and belongs to everyone, regardless of age, size, colour, sex or state of health.

The unborn child must have the right to life and bodily integrity. The Right to Life Association aims to safeguard the rights of the unborn child in Finnish society and legislation. The association also promotes a woman's right to support in cases of surprise and crisis pregnancies. The adoption of a child should be a socially valued alternative to abortion.

For many women, abortion causes serious trauma and increases the risk of depression and self-destruction, for example. Many women have also experienced pressure to have an abortion, either from their husbands or other close relatives. It is important that women are able to deal with the trauma of abortion.

Abortion also traumatises men in many ways. There are men who would have wanted to keep their child, but who lost their child through abortion. Men's voices are also needed in the abortion debate.

Talking about the rights of unborn children is now seen as an attack on women's rights. It is important to remember that many of the early activists in the women's movement saw abortion as a degrading injustice to women, a sign that women's rights were not being realised.

Women and families deserve better than the trauma and violence of abortion. Everyone should have the right to life, so unborn children should also be protected. The Right to Life Association defends the right to life from the womb for every human being. At the basis of all human rights is the right to life, but in our society this right has been taken away from children in the womb.