Answering Eureka Street
Catholic (and other) pro-lifers were disappointed to read a recent post supporting buffer-zones and the ‘right to choice’ in general, in the Jesuit online magazine, Eureka Street. Fatima Measham wrote this article about the introduction of 150 metre buffer-zones outside Victoria’s abortion facilities, and while she believes life begins at conception, she simultaneously holds that women have the right to bodily autonomy, aka the right to have their babies killed without being approached by anyone offering an alternative.
Richard Grant, of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants wrote this letter to Eureka Street in response to Ms. Measham’s uninformed and morally perilous article.
To the Editor of Eureka Street, from Richard Grant
Dear Editor
Fatima Measham’s article “Excluding Abortion Protestors is a Matter of Dignity” (3rd December 2015) is a gross insult to the hundreds of babies whose lives have been saved from a gruesome abortion death over the last 23 years due largely to the selfless daily witness outside Melbourne abortuaries by members of the “Helpers of God’s Precious Infants”.
The mothers of each of these babies turned away from abortion after being offered the financial, practical and emotional support the mothers felt they needed to keep their babies. These babies ( over 300 of them) would not now be alive if exclusion zones outside abortuaries had been in place 23 years ago. Further, there would not now be the hundreds of mothers who are eternally grateful that we were there for them at their time of great need. Only this week, one of these mothers, who was pregnant with her “saved” son 20 years ago, rang me to arrange a Christmas get-together.
I know one thing for certain- there is nothing “dignified” about being mercilessly torn apart limb by limb in your mother’s womb.
Where is Fatima’s compassion for the babies who meet such a terrible fate? In her article, Fatima rightly deplores the senseless murder of the security guard inside an East Melbourne abortuary several years ago. The perpetrator was a loner from New South Wales who had no connection whatsoever with pro- life groups. As such Fatima’s grossly misleading implication that this murder reflects badly on the pro-life movement is a disgrace. Make no mistake, an exclusion zone will do nothing to prevent isolated tragic events like this occurring in the future as there are thousands of people in the community who have been deeply hurt by the destruction of their own children inside abortuaries. THERE IS NOTHING MORE ALIEN TO MOTHERHOOD, FATHERHOOD OR HUMANITY ITSELF THAN TO DELIBERATELY HAVE ONE’S OWN CHILD MURDERED.
Fatima conveniently ignores the fact that inside the above very same East Melbourne abortuary another 350,000 human beings have also had their lives senselessly taken away from them since 1972. When is Fatima going to write an article for “Eureka Street” decrying this senseless wholesale slaughter of the unborn?
Fatima believes that “bodily autonomy is integral to the dignity of women” and that therefore ” being able to make a choice carries its own compelling morality”. This really is a fatuous position to hold when talking of a woman who is “with child”. How could it be compellingly moral for a woman to achieve bodily autonomy by the exercise of her alleged “choice” to exterminate the innocent child nestling in her womb?
How grossly discriminatory against unborn children it is for Fatima to argue that women should have access to ” safe, legal abortion” because ” the alternative would lead back to the scale of physical damage, mental trauma and lingering death seen by previous generations of women”. ABORTION IS NEVER A SAFE OPTION FOR UNBORN CHILDREN.
In what other sphere do we argue that a profoundly unjust, violent and murderous act should be made legal so that the perpetrators of that act are not subjected to an increased danger of being hurt (e.g. by a so called backyard abortionist) when the act is being performed? The only “compelling morality” when it comes to human rights is for all human beings, whether born or unborn, to be treated equally under the law, particularly in relation to the greatest of all human rights - the right to life itself. Without life, all other rights are meaningless. For this reason, an unborn child must be protected in law from those who claim the right to “choose” to kill that child by abortion.
“Choice” is a euphemism (like Hitler’s “Final Solution” euphemism) designed to sanitise, and indeed justify, the extermination of countless millions of innocent human beings.
The founder of the Helpers, Dave Forster, and I were both educated at a Jesuit College, St Patricks College, East Melbourne. Without doubt Dave is one of this college’s greatest alumnae. He has devoted the last 23 years witnessing daily to the truth about the sanctity of all human life and offering help to mothers with a crisis pregnancy. Fatima’s article constitutes a grave insult to one of Australia’s truly great citizens.
