Organisers of the annual Keswick Convention have distanced the Christian gathering from an anti-abortion ‘public education’ display that arrived in the town centre on Tuesday.
It featured a large billboard showing the image of a nine-week-old foetus in the womb and it was prominently on display Main Street near The Bank Tavern.
The same billboard was the cause of upset when it appeared in town during last year’s Keswick Convention. It had been put up by a limited company called Brephos which is a project of the wider organisation Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform UK (CBR UK), that exists to challenge the way society is thinking about abortion.
Immediately staff at the convention were made aware of the public education display, a statement was issued expressing disappointment at its timing and emphasising that Brephos has no affiliation with Keswick Ministries.
The statement read: “We are aware that Brephos, an organisation not affiliated with Keswick Ministries, are taking part in a ‘public education’ event in Keswick town today.
“We are saddened by this approach to targeting Keswick Convention visitors which we recognise also impacts others within the town.
“We would like to emphasise that this group has no affiliation with Keswick Ministries. As soon as we were aware that this activity might be a possibility, we contacted the organisers and requested they not use their public display in Keswick.
“Keswick Ministries are delighted to work closely with the police who we have made aware of the situation.”
There has been an increased police presence in the town during the convention and officers reacted. A statement from Cumbria Constabulary said: “This afternoon, (July 24), officers facilitated a protest in the Keswick area. Our utmost priority was to ensure the safety of those involved and the public.
“The public may have seen an increased police presence in the area as a result.”
Keswick Town Council clerk Vivien Little said that the mayor, Cllr Louise Dunn, was out engaging with those who had set up the billboard and members of the public, in an attempt to get them moved on, She said the town council had been contacted by a number of people complaining about the billboard and the police and Cumberland Council had been contacted.
“It has caused a massive amount of bad feeling in Keswick,” said Vivien. “We have had phone calls from people who have thanked us for helping as much as we could, and have also had complaints from people who were being filmed. “All the Brephos people had body cameras on, and would not stop filming even when asked to.” said Vivien.
Protesters opposing the erection of the billboard put up a warning sign on a king-size dust sheet with the words “Trigger warning. Pro-life content”. It was held aloft by Claire Peat and Vickie Mallaghan.
Dave Brennan, of Brephos, said CBR UK, of which Brephos is the church-facing arm, exists to challenge the way society is thinking about abortion.
“We do this through educational work, namely displaying the beauty and wonder of life in the womb with large-scale, high-resolution imagery, as well as unveiling visually the horror and violence of the procedure that is usually obscured by the euphemism ‘abortion’ – though on this occasion in Keswick we are showing only the living imagery.
“How is it that people can be upset by a beautiful image of a living baby in the womb – a stage each and every one of us passed through on our development?
“The dignity, value, and equality of all human beings – to which our culture still pays lip service – finds its basis in the Christian world view wherein each of us is made wonderfully in the image of God. A secular world view provides no basis for the worth of human beings – if we are just bunches of cells thrown together by chance, no-one can claim any special moral value for anyone or anything.
“The reason people are upset by a beautiful image of a living baby is that it instantly shatters the lie that what’s in the womb – the ones we are destroying to the tune of a quarter of a million a year in this country – is just a bunch of cells, and therefore it convicts us that what we are perpetrating, or tolerating, or justifying, is nothing short of a genocide. This realisation is painful.”
