The first point I would make is that even though the mother goes ahead with the abortion, the help and information offered her may lead her to reject a further abortion in the future. But it is also wrong to assume that she will necessarily go ahead despite the information and help offered to her. Unfortunately, the great majority of women in this situation refuse help and have the abortion. But not all. Consider the experience of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants in their presence outside the abortion mill in Wellington Parade, Melbourne. They prayed there for over 20 years, and estimate that some 300 babies were saved in that time. They have been able to keep in touch with some of the mothers and children, who are forever grateful to the Helpers.
Unfortunately the new bubble zone regulations enacted by the Victorian State Government have made it illegal to continue this life-saving work outside the abortion mill. Parliament was told lies about the activities of the Helpers, and most of the parliamentarians refused to ascertain the facts. As a result, those who voted for the Draconian regulations have a share in the killing of pre-born babies, not only in the Wellington Parade mill, but elsewhere throughout Victoria. The argument put forward by the lecturer in the Catholic institute is simply unrealistic. It takes no account of the help and encouragement given to women in the tragic situation of being tempted to have their babies killed – help which sometimes results in the saving of a baby’s life and in the mother being saved from the anguish, usually lifelong, of knowing that she has had her child killed. I wonder also about the outlook of the person who could see this activity of pro-lifers as a violation of the moral law – instead of seeing it realistically as a humane and charitable act. Most people today, including those who should know better, have been brainwashed into a blindness about the reality of abortion.
It is the killing of a human being.
And it is carried out by the very people who should be most concerned with the saving of life – medical doctors. If a doctor were to kill a baby at, say, six months after birth, people would be horrified and the doctor could expect to spend many years in prison. But if he kills the baby six months before birth, he does not commit a crime in Victoria and most people don’t see his action as murder. But morally speaking it is murder, for it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being: and that is the definition of murder. The mother, of course, deserves our sympathy, because she does not realise the gravity of having her baby murdered and is usually under great stress. But nature can’t be violated without consequences, and so it can be expected that the mother will suffer psychologically in the years to come. There is great concern, and rightly, about the large percentage of deaths from heart disease and from cancer.
Over 40,000 people in Australia die from one or other of these conditions per year. But these are not the greatest causes of death. At a conservative estimate there are more than 70,000 surgical abortions in Australia per year. That is, the greatest cause of death in Australia is murder: the murder of pre-born children. The contention of this lecturer illustrates the strange phenomenon of a failure to see reality where the killing of the pre-born is involved. Only thus can be explained that an act of charity, with the possible saving of a baby’s life from destruction and a mother’s life from torment, can be condemned as immoral.
