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Displaying items by tag: motherhood

"Ten years later, I think about my abortion with sadness, but not regret. I will never regret my decision. I have done so many things and had so many opportunities that I may not have been able to do with a child."

Published in Abortion
Wednesday, 06 March 2019 10:12

Children Go to the Back of the Queue

That the West has a schizophrenic view of children and their wellbeing is an understatement. We go on and on about not separating children from their parents, as in debates over refugees and asylum seekers, but we extol as a human right the slaughter of unborn children.

Published in Feminism
Tuesday, 22 January 2019 14:24

If masculinity is 'toxic' then what is feminism?

It seems that belittling men has become an international pastime, with the media, politicians and special interest groups continuing to put put men down for simply being men. The now-infamous Gillette ad has created a huge backlash against this fashionable trend which simultaneously degrades men while elevating women to something which they are not. (Here is a comparison of old vs new marketing from Gillette.) Sure, men have certain weaknesses that they need to reign in. Back in the day, that was called Self Control - something that is sorely lacking in most schools and homes in this sophisticated age. But now are lives are all about The Feels - and how feminine is a society that is based purely on emotion? Well, it's obviously quite dysfunctional. The cognitive dissonance abounds when society (via feminism) thinks all men are scum but also believes that women are equal to men.

Published in Feminism
Tuesday, 21 August 2018 15:53

Misinformation Driving Legislation

When we allow dominant discourses based on misinformation to drive legislative change, nobody wins. Abortion advocates in Queensland are again pushing for decriminalisation based on a lot of myth and very little fact.  The way in which the media allows this inaccurate portrayal of abortion is a sign of how low we’ve sunk in completely dismissing the evidence and the actual experiences of women. This article highlights a few of the very misleading tactics of the pro-abortion lobby in pushing an agenda that doesn’t serve the needs of women at all.  

Published in Right to Life

Abortion activists are at it again, attempting to introduce bubble-zones around New South Wales abortion facilities. As stated many times on this website, these so-called 'safe-access zones', also known as exclusion zones, are designed to stop advocates for life from offering assistance to desperate women who feel pressured to abort their children. They also hamper the freedom of political communication which should exist in a free society like Australia. Exclusion-zone law, very similar to that being proposed in New South Wales will be under the scrutiny of the High Court of Australia this year due to our legal challenge. Any politician who is realistic about the fiscal and time constraints that apply to our parliamentary system wouldn't dream of introducing legislation that has a constitutional cloud hanging over it.

Published in Catholic
Saturday, 14 April 2018 09:43

5 Medical Reasons to Avoid Contraceptive Devices

All sources used in this article are either medical or secular, so there can be no accusation of a pro-life bias. Abortion providers and advocates are very eager these days to push Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives (or LARCS) onto their patients. There have been more than a few studies on their use and uptake, with an abundance of advice for practitioners on how to increase their sales. It's been of particular interest to me, to note that abortion providers are very keen to fit women with LARCS right after an abortion.

Published in Contraception

Before exclusion-zones were introduced, the Melbourne Helpers of God's Precious Infants were able to help many women choose life for their children. On average, one mother and her baby were saved from abortion every month. That number has dwindled significantly, thanks to the totalitarian "Safe-Access Zones". But Richard Grant explains how God continues to provide for vulnerable mothers and their preborn children:  

Published in Abortion
Monday, 19 February 2018 16:27

Adoption Versus Surrogacy

Many people arguing for the moral and social legitimacy of surrogacy will rather recklessly throw out the issue of adoption, believing that the two are quite similar things. But the truth is, they could not be more different. This is especially noticeable when we focus the discussion on children and their wellbeing. The main difference certainly involves the children themselves. In adoption there is a need for children to be looked after, so substitute parents are brought in to look after them. In surrogacy there are no children involved – at first. They are deliberately created, or manufactured, to satisfy adult desires. As one relinquishing mother put it, “In adoption, a family sought a child in need of a family. In surrogacy, you are creating children for adults’ needs.” Moreover, in adoption legislation, the interests of the child are clearly paramount, something which is not the case in surrogacy. As one bioethicist puts it:

Adoption standards and practice have been constantly revised and refined in the light of new understandings developing in the field. . . . It is illegal to take a consent to adoption prior to the birth of the child, for the reason that a woman cannot be expected to make a lifelong decision for herself and her baby in the vacuum of the non-existence of the child.
As Kevin Andrews has remarked: “Adoption is a community response to the necessitous circumstances of a child already conceived and born, which differs markedly to the circumstances of a child conceived and born for the purpose of transfer to another couple”. Ethicist Leon Kass says this: “We practice adoption because there are abandoned children who need good homes. We do not, and would not, encourage people deliberately to generate children for others to adopt.” Or as Maggie Gallagher has put it:
Surrogate contracts and adoptions are not comparable. Adoption is the fulfilment, not the negation, of parental responsibility. Especially in a country where abortion is cheap and easy, when a woman gives her baby up for adoption she has thereby acknowledged her obligations to her child. Almost always, adoption is part of a conscious attempt to do what is best for the child. The surrogate mother does not admit she has any special obligations to her child; she does not admit that it is hers. The child cannot obligate her, she obligates it: It is a product, conceived for sale and use.
David Blankenhorn also adds his voice to the fundamental nature of adoption:
Adoption is a wonderfully pro-child act. Adults respond to a child’s loss with altruistic, healing love. . . . Adoption does not deny but in fact presupposes the importance of natural parents. For this reason, despite all the good it does, adoption is ultimately a derivative and compensatory institution. It is not a stand-alone good, primarily because its existence depends upon prior human loss.
Natural parents of course largely disappear in surrogacy arrangements. Ethicist David VanDrunen discusses the differences found between adoption and surrogacy. He speaks about the moral question we must face as to “whether we ought intentionally to create situations in which biological links between generations are attenuated, confused, or even ruptured. In essence, third-part-parenthood arrangements intentionally create adoption scenarios.” But this is how they differ. Adoption, he says, is “a charitable act that rescues abandoned and orphaned children.” He continues:
Surely it is a charitable act – precisely because we recognise these children’s tragic circumstances. In an ordinary adoption situation the adoptive parents are responding to a child’s tragic situation and seeking to bring good out of it. In a third-party-parent arrangement, however, the parents are creating a child’s tragic situation, a situation in which he will be taken away from his birth mother or be raised by someone other than his biological mother or father.
And Jessica Kerns, a product of surrogacy, whom I mention above, also explains why we are dealing with apples and oranges here:
It really is the buying and selling of babies, and the commodification of women’s bodies. There’s a huge difference between the adoption world and the donor-conceived world. [The] institution [of adoption] was not … created for the parents, to give them a kid. It was created for the opposite, to put children in a home, because they’re here already and we’re responding to a catastrophe. Donor-conceived [children], we’re creating them with the intent of separating them from their biology, and you know … it’s vastly different.
Bioethicist John Ling offers us the big picture on all this, and is well worth quoting from here. He says:
Should we view surrogacy not only as the commissioning mother wanting a child, but also as the surrogate mother – and in law, she is the legal mother – not wanting her child? She has deliberately embarked on a pregnancy with the clear intention that she will abandon her baby. The birth of any child is surrounded by a spectrum of emotions, perhaps none stronger than that of the mother’s love for the child she has carried and delivered. The surrogate knowingly sets out to ignore these natural instincts. Furthermore, can a commissioning mother develop this maternal love without the psychological and physical springs of this bonding, namely, pregnancy and childbirth? Surrogacy is not like adoption. The great difference is that adoption seeks to enhance the love for, and security of, the child. Surrogacy has the long-term, premeditated intention of just the opposite. It should be shunned.
One lobby group, Them Before Us, is quite concerned about this and the other new reproductive technologies. Katy Faust reminds us once more what the core issue is here. It is all about the child. The interests of the child should always be paramount here. As she says in an article highlighting the differences between surrogacy and adoption:
Them Before Us supports adoption, when it is properly understood. Adoption must always be viewed as a child-centric institution, not simply as a means for adults to have children. No adult – heterosexual, homosexual, or single – has a “right” to adopt. Rather, every child has a right to parents. In adoption, the intended parents are not the clients. The child is the client.
Published in IVF & Surrogacy

It never ceases to amaze me that comments such as "keep your legs closed" or "keep it in your pants" still pop up under articles about abortion in this day and age. Last week's article by Richard Grant about Tanya Plibersek, and her calls for uniform laws to make abortion more readily available, attracted many comments like this. Obviously, I can see the hypocrisy and share the outrage of our readers, but honestly, can't we come up with more constructive comments that express the reality of the situation, and not just one crudely-worded aspect related to unplanned pregnancies? [The same goes for such comments as "They (abortion advocates) should be aborted" or calls for 'retrospective' abortions.]

Published in Abortion
Wednesday, 07 February 2018 22:18

"Do You Really Want to Do This?"

With bubble-zones in two Australian states and two territories, and abortion advocates lobbying for their introduction in other states, it’s important to realise just how many babies are saved through the intervention of sidewalk counsellors. This story is about one such baby, named Ava. Ava’s mama, Nancy, suffered for many years after her two abortions. She wasn't told there could be side-effects, such as severe emotional disturbances or subsequent miscarriages. Nancy is now a very strong advocate for life and is active on social media exposing abortion and encouraging mothers to choose life. 

Published in Abortion
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