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Letter
to the Editor | Herald Sun,
19/08/2008.
Much has been in the news recently regarding decriminalization of
abortion. This to me has not come as a surprise. What has been a
surprise is that it has not happened sooner. It had to come because
society has set up the conditions for this legalized baby killing to
happen, and if I am not mistaken we are only seeing the beginning of
the decriminalization of violence and death with the worst yet to
come.
Abortion by its very nature is a violent act. It is the intentional
destruction of a very small child, by a so-called doctor and with
the compliance/insistence of one or both of its parents or
significant others. We now know that there are psychological
sequelae to abortion. The woman experiences life long after effects
whilst the male is also affected but differently, generally through
his sense of impotence in the matter. For the male it is often the
sense of helplessness at being unable to do anything to protect his
child and this anger is then turned inwards to self punish.
Prior to the birth of the baby the father has absolutely no rights
in respect of the child. He cannot do anything to protect the life
of his child and if the mother of that child does not want to
sustain, keep, or give birth to that child then there is no one who
can prevent the abortion from happening. No-one, including the
state, because the state has purchased into the argument by
legislating that the life of that new individual whilst in utero is
a nonentity, and therefore dependent upon the whim of the host body.
Legislation has not decreed that the relationship between woman and
infant is mutually life enhancing, but at the same time both are
independent and each deserving of the utmost respect. It has in fact
decreed that the life or death of that infant is dependent upon the
vagaries or goodwill of the stronger of the two parties.
The violence we are daily fed through all forms of media is
symptomatic of the “just below the surface” violence within the
community and part of this violence is the violence of abortion.
There is a tension, which must be released and will not evaporate
without leaving in its wake a disaster.
Perhaps an explanation of the response to abortion may shed some
light on this episode. Since the onset of the culture of the “pill”
and “me-ism” the woman has progressively taken control of her
fertility and her body. And indeed to be able to understand her body
and to guard and protect her body as inviolate is a good thing.
However, this is not what has happened. The woman has demanded
control over her body in as far as her fertility is concerned, and
has progressively removed from her husband/partner any rights and/or
responsibility towards an act which has resulted in a conception.
This, whilst ostensibly “good” as far as some men and women are
concerned has ultimately failed all.
Today, whether he chooses or not, a man can walk away from his
responsibility towards a child he has engendered. Conversely should
he choose not to walk away from the responsibility it can be
forcibly wrenched from him so that he cannot do anything to change
the situation. The removal of responsibility has not spelled equal
rights,between the genders, as has been suggested, but indeed
unequal suffering. The woman suffers lifelong anguish. Yes post
abortion trauma, grief, its real. It happens even for those who
blithely believe that it hasn’t affected them. The man suffers loss
of something of his essence, of his fatherhood, of his fathering, of
his manhood. Multiple losses for both sides.
For the woman, in her very being there is a rupture unlike any
other. There is a grief quite unlike any other. The kind of
wrenching grief which is the result of guilt. The kind of grief
which is the result of the intent behind the loss. The kind of grief
which says, powerlessness, hopelessness, utter despair. That is the
kind of grief which abortion leaves in its wake and is the legacy
for the woman and man (either short term or long term) who have
acceded to the abortion experience.
For the state and nation which has decreed that the killing of its
future citizens is lawful, there is to be other losses which cannot
ever be recouped. For this state or nation the beginning of its end
is in sight.
All of its citizens begin their life as zygotes, embryos, fetuses,
babies, young ones, adolescents, youth, and mature individuals.
Citizens of a nation have not just been deposited there from outer
space. They have been conceived and permitted to be born and to be
members of the state, nation, and above all humanity.
Sadly what the state of Victoria and presumably all other states
following (as is the intention) is doing, is to enshrine in its
statutes, a law which says that most infants/citizens are not really
wanted only the select few which escape the scalpel.
What a great tragedy that the women themselves have demanded their
own extinction because at least 50% of infants killed in the womb
are little baby girls.
Anne Lastman,
Victims of Abortion (Aust)
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