SUNSHINE AWARD
We are proud to report that we are the recipient of the above award, awarded to us by Rhoslyn Thomas of Regazzegalese. Whether we deserve it is for others to decide.
In order to qualify for this great honour, we are required to meet certain conditions, the first of which is to tell 10 things about ourselves:
1. The founding spirit of ALDU was Michael Bell, a solicitor from Bournemouth who once said that the worst thing about being in practice in a seaside town is that half of one's potential clients are fish.
2. ALDU was born at a meeting of 8 lawyers who gathered at a flat in London in 1979.
3. In 1981 ALDU put a motion to the Law Society AGM, asking that the Law Society should draw attention to the fact that the abortion law was being "widely flouted"; this motion was opposed by a young female lawyer who provoked the only joke ever known to have been made at a Law Society AGM when the President of the Law Society pointed to the word "Vladivar" splashed across her T-shirt and asked "Is that your name?". In fact her name was, and is, Harriet Harman.
4. Members of all branches of the legal profession, including several leading judges, joined ALDU, our one time Chairman His Hon Mr David Poole becoming a High Court judge.
5. Members of ALDU represented Victoria Gillick, as solicitor and counsel, in her celebrated legal action against the provision of contraception to children without parental consent.
6. Members of ALDU also represented the father in the "Oxford Student" case - C v S [1987] 2W.L.R. 1108. Although the court gave permission for the abortion to take place, no abortion was carried out and the child was born and is alive today.
7. Unlike most other pro-life organisatons at the time, ALDU criticised the decision to introduce the David Alton (Abortion) Reform Bill 1989.
8. ALDU held conferences in London (several times at Middle Temple), Liverpool, Manchester and Bournemouth one of which was addressed by Enoch Powell following his Unborn Children (Protection) Bill 1985 aimed at protecting human embryos.
9. Between 1979 and 2006, 111 quarterly newsletters were published by ALDU.
10. In 1995 an ALDU member, Martin Mears, became President of the Law Society.
Another condition of the award is to award 10 other blogs; this is difficult for us because we do not spend a great deal of time reading blogs and, in any event, most of the blogs that we would have nominated have already been nominated by others but...
1. John Smeaton - Director Society for the Protection of Unborn Children
2. Thomas More Legal Centre
3. Why I am pro-life
4. Alison Davis [A new blogsite with few posts but please view the video in the post for 6th December 2013]
5. The Hermeneutic of Continuity
6. Abortion Recovery and Care Helpline
Er....that's it
Finally, we have recently started a new blog on which, over the coming months, we propose to post all the ALDU newsletters in order. This is quite a large task but we hope to make progress.
