MPs condemn anti-abortion letter with plastic foetus

Campaigning for abortion rights in 1974. Photo: SPAARNESTAD PHOTO/NA/Anefo/unknown photographer

A package containing a plastic foetus sent to all MPs by fundamentalist religious organisation Civitas Christiana this week has caused “anger and disgust”, RTL Nieuws reported.

In a letter accompanying the doll, the organisation said the electoral success of Geert Wilders’ PVV is  “a clear reckoning” with what it calls a “revolution” attacking tradition and family values.

MPs should work to ban abortion and gender policies, stop Islamic asylum seekers from entering the country, and abandon climate measures, the letter said.

“I’m feeling a mix of anger and disgust. It’s nauseating,” VVD MP Sophie Hermans told the broadcaster. “The letter is a heap of subjects just thrown together, such as CO2, Zwarte Piet and abortion with a lack of nuance that completely ignores the conscientiousness with which we do our job,” she said.

Hermans was particularly upset about the plastic foetus. “Abortion is a hard-fought right, with carefully thought out conditions. I’m sick and tired of having to defend that every single time. And then you get a doll like this and you think of a colleague who perhaps can’t  have babies or has lost a child. It makes me sick,” Hermans said.

D66 MP Wieke Paulusma called the package “disgusting’ but said it was an extra incitement to “safeguard the right to abortion in the Netherlands and the rest of the world”.

Frans Timmermans, who heads the GroenLinks/PvdA alliance said he would “relish being the antagonist of anyone opposed to abortion, sex education and equal rights for transgenders,” he said in a reaction.

On the Civitas Christiana website founder Hugo Bos said the MPs “couldn’t stand receiving such a lovely little doll” and that his list of objectives gives the new look parliament “a flying start”.

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