LIFE (pro-life organization)



LIFE is a UK-based pro-life caring and educational charity (Registered National Charity No. 274144), founded in 1970 by Professor Jack Scarisbrick and his wife Nuala in response to the Abortion Act 1967, which introduced legal abortion to mainland Britain, i.e. England, Wales and Scotland (but not Northern Ireland).

LIFE National Headquarters is situated in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. The organisation holds a National Conference approximately every eighteen months, and publishes a quarterly magazine, Life News. LIFE has in the region of 30,000 members in the UK. Its patrons include well-known pro-life parliamentarians such as Lord David Alton and Jim Dobbin MP.

The work of LIFE
LIFE was founded to provide a compassionate alternative to those faced with a crisis pregnancy and the charity’s work is informed by the principle of respect for the lives of each human being; both born and unborn. The caring services are delivered for the benefit of mother, father and baby. LIFE was one of the first pro-life organisations in the UK to pioneer this two-pronged approach of opposing abortion yet also providing viable long-term alternatives.

More recently, LIFE’s daughter charity the Zoe’s Place Trust has opened two hospices for terminally ill children, one in Liverpool and the other in Middlesbrough.

Other areas in which the charity has expanded its work include its UK-wide Education programme, and the provision of fertility treatment that accords with the charity’s views on the status of the human embryo, while the 1990s saw the creation of a professionalised and centralised LIFE Housing department able to co-ordinate closely with local authorities and social services.

LIFE also has links to pro-life groups in other countries, notably Malta, Sri Lanka and the Republic of Ireland. Although access to abortion is heavily restricted in Northern Ireland – much more so than in the rest of the UK – there are a number of active local LIFE groups in the region. The possibility of the extension of the 1967 Act to Northern Ireland has long been a source of heated debate, although the British government has recently stated that there are no plans to amend the law in Northern Ireland.

Non-religious status
Although it co-operates with faith groups in some areas of its work, LIFE has no religious affiliations, and its views on ethical issues are grounded in principles of justice, anti-discrimination and human rights.

Ethical views
LIFE has an absolutist view on abortion – they believe that it is always wrong to intentionally take the life of an unborn child. However, following the Principle of Double Effect, LIFE does accept that in the small number of cases where the continuation of a pregnancy poses a direct medical threat to the life of the mother, it may be permissible for doctors to intervene in a way that ends the life of the unborn child, as long as the death of the child is a foreseen, rather than intended, outcome of the operation.

LIFE opposes all medical technologies that involve the destruction of human embryos. The charity is also opposed to all forms of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

In accordance with its charitable status, LIFE does not undertake political campaigning in its own right. Nevertheless, the organisation has been associated with the Alive and Kicking Campaign, an umbrella group of pro-life organisations pressing for wide-ranging abortion law reform, and the Care Not Killing Alliance, a coalition of anti-euthanasia campaigners from many different backgrounds, including pro-life organisations, parliamentarians, medical professionals, and religious groups.

LIFE Caring
LIFE’s nationwide Pregnancy Care Centres offer a sympathetic “safe space” where women can access free pregnancy testing and professional, confidential counselling. LIFE also offers information on pregnancy and abortion and provides practical and emotional support. For obvious reasons, the majority of those who visit Care Centres are women, but LIFE counsellors do sometimes find themselves talking to men. They too can be adversely affected by abortion, for example if their partner has an abortion without their knowledge or against their will.

Apart from these face-to-face services, LIFE also runs a National Helpline, staffed by experienced counsellors and skilled helpers. A more recent innovation is “Text-to-Talk”. This service allows clients to access LIFE counselling services with more complete anonymity.

The Zoe’s Place Trust
The Zoe’s Place Trust (Registered National Charity No 1092545) is a daughter charity to LIFE, and is responsible for the running of two specialist hospices for terminally ill children aged 0-5. One of these can be found in Liverpool, close to Alder Hey Hospital, while the other is in Middlesbrough. LIFE’s insistence on the unique and equal value of each individual human leads the organisation to view abortion for disability as a particularly serious and unfair act of discrimination. Abortion for disability represents about 1% of all abortions in the UK, with 2000 abortions of disabled unborn children each year. The Zoe’s Place baby hospices are intended to function as a highly visible and highly practical “positive alternative” to abortion for disability.

LIFE Housing
LIFE houses were originally opened in the 1970s as a response to requests from women facing homelessness if they continued with their pregnancies. LIFE supporters opened houses in various locations across the UK in order to provide a home for women who found themselves in this vulnerable position. Nowadays, LIFE Housing provides a support service to pregnant women, mothers of small children and families who are in need of support, so as to enable them to access independent living and successfully maintain their tenancies. They may not necessarily be living in a LIFE house. LIFE Housing receives a limited amount of government funding, and as such undergoes regular assessments and audits, and is regularly reviewed by the Supporting People Authorities. LIFE Housing operates in 30 local authority areas, and is funded by 23 Supporting People Administering Authorities.

LIFE FertilityCare
As noted above, LIFE is opposed to conventional in vitro fertilisation (and other assisted reproduction techniques that result in embryo destruction). However, in accordance with its ethos of providing alternatives to practices that it believes to be unethical, LIFE has its own Fertility Care programme, based on NaproTechnology and using insights from natural family planning methods such as the Creighton Model. These kinds of techniques involve identifying and then correcting the underlying causes of a couples' infertility, rather than bypassing problems by the creation of embryos in vitro. Nationally, on average, about 1 in 5 couples who use IVF treatment end up with a child. The Life Fertility programme has similar success rates, and has helped more than 60 couples to give birth since its inception in the early 1990s. Many of the people who access the programme have been through repeated unsuccessful IVF treatments.

The Fertility Care programme also offers counselling and advice for couples who are still unable to conceive after treatment.

LIFE Education
LIFE employs a number of Regional Education Officers (REOs), who spend most of their time visiting schools and universities. REOs give talks, presentations and conferences on a range of subjects of concern and interest to the charity: not just abortion, but also euthanasia, embryo experimentation, assisted reproduction, and sex and relationships education.

Speakers provide a clear and reasoned articulation of the charity’s principles. However, talks are not didactic and students are encouraged to ask questions and express their own opinions. The charity's speakers currently come into contact with around 50,000 students annually.

Sex and relationships education
LIFE’s interest in sex and relationships education (SRE) stems from their desire to promote lifelong monogamous marriage, on the reasoning that stronger and more permanent interpersonal relationships will ultimately lead to fewer abortions. LIFE also feels that helping young people to avoid damaging or exploitative relationships and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is a good end in itself.