David, Phillip can be wrong too. Would he object to calling a foetus a human?
Hm
I’m not saying Phillip Jensen is always right, or even right in this instance. I’m merely citing his careful comments for Craig and others to think through.
He is cautious about labelling a foetus as “human” but he is happy to call the foetus a human in development, or something similar. I don’t have time to watch the entuire 28 minute video again, but again I say, it is well worth listening to his comments, including on God’s forgiveness available to us when we confess our sins.
If he’s cautious about calling a foetus human then he’s already lost the battle. Which may be alright if it’s not a battle he wants to fight. But if he doesn’t want to fight the abortion battle then I don’t see how it’s too relevant what he thinks…
THE Uniting Church has backed a move to lift the ban on Australian foreign aid being used to give women in poor nations advice on and access to safer abortion services.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith is reviewing the ban after an all-party committee of politicians urged it be axed in a bid to save lives — citing estimates that up to 70,000 women die each year from botched abortions.
But conservative Christian groups have opposed any change, arguing foreign aid should not be used for any services related to abortion.
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson joined the debate yesterday, opposing changes to the ban first imposed by the Howard government in a bid to secure the support of pro-life independent Senator Brian Harradine.
Uniting Church overseas aid director Kerry Enright last night told The Age his church supported removing the guidelines, which ban funding for advice on abortion, termination services and training abortion doctors.
“We believe women should be given full information to make informed decisions, and without that information, lives could be detrimentally affected,” he said. “…Women in developing countries should have no less information than we would expect for women in Australia.”
Australian Christian Lobby chairman Jim Wallace, who has begun a lobbying campaign to convince Labor MPs to oppose the change, warned that churches would be aghast if aid funds went to such services.
“The effort to increase aid money towards the Millennium Development Goals was done anticipating that we would continue to fight disease, free people from hunger and improve health — not kill unborn children,” he said.
Mr Smith initiated a review of the ban when he referred the issue to a Labor caucus committee in March. The group met last month but has yet to hold a detailed debate. It is expected to report back to caucus on June 24.
Pro-life Labor MPs were incensed yesterday after the parliamentary secretary for international development assistance, Bob McMullan, described opponents as “people who share (Nationals senator Ron Boswell’s) reasonably extreme view of this”.
One branded the language as inflammatory and “deliberately offensive”.
But Democrats leader Lyn Allison argued that it was an extreme position to deny safe services to women in poor nations who were determined to procure an abortion.
“The majority of people in the world live in countries where abortion is legal, as it is in Australia, and our aid should reflect that,” she said.
“The price of pandering to a small band of religious extremists is thousands of women dying every year from abortions performed by people without medical training.”
Phillip and Kel both speak compassionately and thoughtfully in the conversation, clearly showing they are opposed to abortion in almost all circumstances. They also address those who have had abortions with Christian love and wisdom.
However, they say that some of those who have often campaigned the most vigorously against abortion have not always been helpful in their comments.
Phillip Jensen is carefully using language, and does not want to call a developing human a baby. But he is not accommodating to those who want us to think of this new life as something sub-human or part of the mother’s body either.
MP’s fetus image email outrages colleagues
By John Ferguson
June 05, 2008 Article from: Herald-Sun
AN anti-abortion MP has sparked outrage after emailing Victorian colleagues a graphic image of a fetus being operated on.
DLP Upper House MP Peter Kavanagh yesterday emailed all state MPs an image of a then 21-week-old fetus being operated on.
The fetus appears to be holding the hand of a medico, who was performing life-saving surgery. The fetus was not being aborted but was used by Mr Kavanagh as evidence that life does not start at birth.
Mr Kavanagh received several responses.
Liberal MP Ken Smith was furious the image was sent, adding that only “a very sick man” would use the operation to back his case.
“I just can’t believe he could send that stuff around,” Mr Smith said.
“It looks so awful. It’s no way to present an argument; it turns out it’s a premature baby. I just find what he’s done is despicable.”
Mr Kavanagh, who along with the Greens holds the balance of power in the Upper House, was a shock victor in the last state election under voting reforms.
The DLP has strong links with the Catholic Church.
Mr Kavanagh said there had been a strong reaction to the photograph, which is nearly a decade old.
He said the reaction from MPs had been divided, but he believed many did not realise the fetus was in fact alive.
“It isn’t an abortion,” he said. “ It was a powerful image and it was unfortunate that MPs did not engage in the debate.
“I think they’re required to debate and keep an open mind,” he said.
“It has relevance to the abortion debate.”
The email comes as Victorian MPs prepare to decide whether abortion should still be a crime in Victoria.
VICTORIAN women will have the freedom to have an abortion at up to 24 weeks gestation, but later terminations will be more heavily regulated under changes to abortion laws announced today.
Under the new laws, doctors will decide if an abortion is appropriate after 24 weeks based on the woman’s physical, psychological and social circumstances.
They must also seek a second opinion from another medical practitioner that supports their decision.
The details of the bill to decriminalise abortion in Victoria were unveiled by Women’s Affairs Minister Maxine Morand and Health Minister Daniel Andrews.
Ms Morand will table the bill in state parliament later today.
Re nomenclature, we try to avoid “foetus” as it dehumanises, using in preference “the unborn child”, or “developing human life/being”, etc, but not “baby”.
We (i.e. pro life Victorians) would very much appreciate your prayers as we try to impact the political process. You can be sure what is done in Victoria will come to your State, because at the very least an unregulated industry is about to get some regulation even if we don’t like the shape of the legislation.
Even though late term abortions are terrible they constitute well below 1% of all abortions. The legislation will have the effect of making an abortion up to 24 weeks possible upon the simple request of the woman concerned, no cooling off period, no mandatory referral to counselling, no anti coercion provisions, in short nothing that might reduce the level of abortions below the current one abortion for every three live births, nothing that might offer sympathetic support to a woman, all too often deserted by her sexual partner, who in rather more cases than people are prepared to acknowledge are liable to trauma that will extend for decades after an abortion: flashbacks, anniversary reactions, temptations to suicide, difficulties in maintaining and developing relationships, turning to drugs, increased susceptibility to breast or other cancers, etc.
There will be many amendments in Parliament put up by pro life MPS, both Labor and Coalition.
The 2nd reading speech is today, and the 3rd reading and vote is set for the 9th September. In other words the Government which believes the Bill will have the clear support of parliamentarians is being rushed through. (Today is also the day when we also have the 3rd reading speech and vote to give approval to euthanasia - we think this Bill will be lost)
The pro life camp (which is almost exclusively Christian) is divided into two camps, the Right to Life people (mainly Catholic) who make most of the noise and campaign exclusively against abortion and another group, the Ad Hoc Interfaith group which draws together persons across the Catholic Protestant Orthodox divide with some Jewish and Muslim involvement. This latter group also opposes abortion but in addition argues the plight of women as well, drawing attention – and trying to do so without detracting from the anti abortion message – to those measures which support women (remembering the old adage that what is good for the mother is good for the child)
The Ad Hoc group will be writing to every MP and is organising a meeting in Parliament House the day before the vote is taken and mobilising a big letter writing campaign.
I am a part of the Ad Hoc group led by Nicholas Tonti Filippini from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family – we have evangelical Anglicans, big church Pentecostals, confessing UCA types, Lutherans, SDAs, Catholics, Orthodox, Jewish, Presbyterians Australian Christian Lobby and we hope Family Values Australia (previously known as Festival of LIght) involved.
The Presbyterians will separately put in a submission as well, as will a number of other churches. Official Anglicans, UCA, Baptist and Church of Christ are either not helpful or too badly split on the issue or else uninterested to be any help at all.
Please remember us all and our politicians in your prayers.
Democrats are just as fixating on defending to the death the right to abort children.
No Alan, they are concerned for the provision of safe, legal, medically supervised terminations for those women who choose it. The vast majority of these people are against abortions, but are realistic enough to know that they will happen regardless of whether it is legal or not.
David stated:
Abortion is a part, a very ugly part of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s
WRONG! (Sorry, got a little emotional there)
My mother was a nurse at the Womens Hospital in the ‘50s. She treated hundreds of women who suffered complications as the result of backyard abortions. Many died. Most were left infertile and had severe life-long complications. All were pychologically traumatised - not by the actual abortion per se - but by its illegality, their inability to discuss it, the atrocious conditions under which they were performed, and the serious and life-long medical complications that resulted.
Do you know anything of the torture of a decision by a woman to end their baby’s life
I know a number of women who have had abortions, many at the time (and no, I wasn’t directly involved in any of them) and still know them. I’m not aware that it was ‘tortuous’ for any of them (although it might have been, were there someone such as yourself breathing down their neck). Most of them were simply grateful that they had the availability of a safe, medical procedure, an opportunity which had been denied their mothers. I still know most of them, and I’m not aware of any regret; on the contrary their attitude is remarkably similar to that at the time - a gratitude that the procedure was available.
Most of them went on to have families - a few did not (by choice).
Although the statistics are inevitably unreliable, it is probable that in many areas the number of abortions actually dropped when it was legalised, as it coincided with the introduction of widespread sex-education. My friends who worked as nurses in the newly established health clinics in the ‘70s were amazed at the level of ignorance among young girls - that if you showered / jumped up and down / vomited etc., after sex - you wouldn’t get pregnant!
And Palin is against sex education for children: She preaches abstinence!
(Well gees, it worked well for her family didn’ it!)
This is such a difficult area..so I am glad that i have an infallible Church tio make up my mind, and tell me what is the will of God. No abortion under any circumstance...although my human nature and reasoning responds to Rob Callendar, I must submit to the authority of the Church, which is the mind and voice of Christ teaching me as authoritatively as when our Lord physically walked the earth ... ( Mattthew ch 28).
How beautiful and simple is the plan of our Blessed Lord.
No abortion
No contraception
No embryonic stem cell research
No invitro-fertilization.
No euthanasia
No sterlilization
These are hard sayings but speak Lord, thy servant listeneth.
Allowing abortion for “extreme “reasons, opens up subjectivity...and that widens and widens....humans always equivocate sins. That is in fact how the homosexual issue opened up.
There is a pamphlet included with the latest Koorong cattledog which says that the abortion rate could be dropped considerably if women who were thinking of abortion were to firstly have an ultrasound.
According to the pamphlet, there is research which backs up this claim.
Abortion is a part, a very ugly part of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s
WRONG! (Sorry, got a little emotional there)
My mother was a nurse at the Womens Hospital in the ‘50s. She treated hundreds of women who suffered complications as the result of backyard abortions. Many died. Most were left infertile and had severe life-long complications. All were pychologically traumatised - not by the actual abortion per se - but by its illegality, their inability to discuss it, the atrocious conditions under which they were performed, and the serious and life-long medical complications that resulted.
Do you know anything of the torture of a decision by a woman to end their baby’s life
I know a number of women who have had abortions, many at the time (and no, I wasn’t directly involved in any of them) and still know them. I’m not aware that it was ‘tortuous’ for any of them (although it might have been, were there someone such as yourself breathing down their neck). Most of them were simply grateful that they had the availability of a safe, medical procedure, an opportunity which had been denied their mothers. I still know most of them, and I’m not aware of any regret; on the contrary their attitude is remarkably similar to that at the time - a gratitude that the procedure was available.
Most of them went on to have families - a few did not (by choice).
My turn to say WRONG!
On a number of counts:
1. The number of abortions Australia wide are about 10 times higher now on a per capita basis than back in the 50s, probably more - we don’t know for sure because of the lack of data.
2. In Victoria alone there are 9 Church based counselling services (note ‘church based’) for women who have run into difficulties as a result of an abortion. It doesn’t matter whether abortions were done as your Mum saw back in the 1950’s or as abortions are done today.
3. Rob you make it sound all so perfect today, couldn’t be happier situation, but it is not true, it is in your imagination.
4. Not only is the unborn child the victim in abortion, but the woman who has the abortion is often a victim as well – all too often deserted by her sexual partner, or else under pressure from her partner and even family; liable to trauma that will extend for decades after an abortion; flashbacks; anniversary reactions; temptations to suicide; difficulties in maintaining and developing relationships; turning to drugs; increased susceptibility to breast or other cancers, etc.
5. If you doubt me I invite you to purchase and read either Melinda Tankard Reist’s, “Giving Sorrow Words” which tells the stories of grief of 18 woman who went through an abortion plus draws on another 200 disturbing stories of real women or Anne Lastman, an Australian psychologist’s book “Redeeming Grief” based upon her counselling of in excess of 1,000 women who had undergone an abortion. These stories are only going to multiply and they cry out to be heard.
6. The Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK in March this year issued a warning that some women are encountering health problems following an abortion and recommended that women be given a leaflet explaining the health risks of having an abortion.
7. Last year The Independent, a left leaning broadsheet published a story about the problem the UK National Health Service was having in getting sufficient numbers of doctors to do abortions, citing the dinner table test:
Distaste at performing terminations combined with ethical and religious convictions has led to a big increase in “conscientious objectors” who request exemption from the task, the RCOG says. A key factor is what specialists call “the dinner party test”. Gynaecologists who specialise in fertility treatment creating babies for childless couples are almost universally revered - but no one boasts of being an abortionist.
Superb answer.....David Palmer. an unborn child is a human being made in the image of God and not a choice. How long God will allow this holocaust to continue, until he exerts his punishment.
I found this helpful:
Isaiah 5:18-21—“Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes . . . Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!”
When you vote in elections that will decide whether pro-abortion versus pro-life candidates will be elected to office, consider carefully this passage from Scripture and what it means, both for those evildoers in public office who promote abortion and for those citizens who knowingly and intentionally assist them by voting for them:
Isaiah 10:1-3—“Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey! What will you do on the day of punishment, in the storm which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth?”
Indeed, God is the one who creates each human soul and infuses it, at the moment of conception, in the unborn baby’s tiny body, just created by the physical act of his parents’ union. To intentionally destroy that unborn life is murder, no matter what it may be called in polite society. To be complicit in the continuation of the murder of unborn babies through abortion is to be complicit in that sin, no matter what it might be called in polite society.
The Catholic Church’s Declaration on Procured Abortion:
“It must in any case be clearly understood that whatever may be laid down by civil law in this matter, man can never obey a law which is in itself immoral, and such is the case of a law which would admit in principle the liceity [legality] of abortion. Nor can he take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it.” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; November 18, 1974; No. 22.)
Patrick Madrid is an author, public speaker and the publisher of Envoy Magazine. Visit his web site at www.surprisedbytruth.com
I think that abortion is murder. However, I don’t think it should be made illigal because,
a) I think that most people in this country want it to be legal. (Thats democracy)
b) If it was illigal then we wouldn’t have accurate stats on the issue plus it would also endanger the lives of the woman who is having the abortion.
c) I think that councelling should be done before and after the abortion and that adoption should be talked about more.
d) I think that the father should have more of a say on the matter (Yes I know that there are some dead beat dads who want nothing to do with the child)
e) I dont think the “pro choice” mob are are realy “pro choice at all. I think they should be called “pro abortion”
As you and Rob Callander earlier point out abolition of abortion is not going to happen - I mean if Hippocrates bound all doctors in his oath against procuring an abortion, that means abortion was being practiced in ancient Greece.
As Christians we reject abortion and the first place we reject abortion is in the church.
However we recognise the division between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to Christ. Again, however, we wish to proclaim the Lordship of Christ over ALL of life, not just religious or church life.
I think in view of the large numbers presenting for abortion we must understand the State will want to regulate the practice. As Christians I think we would say regulation is better than no regulation – even though the ‘backyard’ abortionist bit has been overdone, we don’t wish to outlaw a practice that will continue, albeit in less favourable circumstances if outlawed. (In 1969, the last year prior to the Menhennit ruling in Victoria liberalised abortion there were no deaths from ‘backyard’ abortions – they were no longer happening in backyards, blood transfusions were available plus antibiotics)
No one is going to argue against the (regrettable) need for an abortion if the mother’s life is at risk. However, the proposed assessment of risk in the Victorian legislation allows for no assessment whatsoever up to 24 weeks and a minimal assessment after 24 weeks on the basis of “a woman’s current and future physical, psychological and social circumstances”. I believe the Church/individual Christians are entitled to use their collective prophetic voice to denounce such a derisory and lamentably low level of risk assessment.
Furthermore on the basis of a) the woman more often than not being a victim and b) for the sake of rescuing as many unborn children from abortion as is possible, again I believe the Church/individual Christians are entitled to use their collective prophetic voice to recommend measures in support of women and their unborn children such as mandatory referral to counselling, mandatory information brochures covering risks to health, ultrasound information, moral issues, etc, compulsory cooling off period such as 72 hours, anti-coercion measures.
And this is basically what we in the Victorian churches (minus the UCA leadership) are doing.
I certainly don’t want the currently poorly regulated, undisciplined regime to continue. I want to see abortion regulated even though when the dust settles, the regulations will be a long, long way from being acceptable according to Christian principles. And we like Wilberforce will continue to fight for a more just set of regulations.
Now this is the reaction of a Catholic biishop ,Francis Cardinal George of Chicago to be printed in the bulletins of every Catholic parish in the Archdiocese:
The Catholic Church, from its first days, condemned the aborting of unborn children as gravely sinful. Not only Scripture’s teaching about God’s protection of life in the womb (consider the prophets and the psalms and the Gospel stories about John the Baptist and Jesus himself in Mary’s womb) but also the first century catechism (the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) said: “You shall not slay the child by abortions. You shall not kill what is generated.” The teaching of the Church was clear in a Roman Empire that permitted abortion. This same teaching has been constantly reiterated in every place and time up to Vatican II, which condemned abortion as a “heinous crime.” This is true today and will be so tomorrow. Any other comments, by politicians, professors, pundits or the occasional priest, are erroneous and cannot be proposed in good faith.
This teaching has consequences for those charged with caring for the common good, those who hold public office. The unborn child, who is alive and is a member of the human family, cannot defend himself or herself. Good law defends the defenseless. Our present laws permit unborn children to be privately killed. Laws that place unborn children outside the protection of law destroy both the children killed and the common good, which is the controlling principle of Catholic social teaching. One cannot favor the legal status quo on abortion and also be working for the common good.
This explains why the abortion issue will not disappear and why it is central to the Church’s teaching on a just social order….
No, it cannot disappear as long as human consciences remain humane. It also explains why the legal status quo, Roe v. Wade, simply must be destroyed. It’s a notice most of which could go in the bulletin of any Christian church, and if you need to change the word Catholic to Christian, I don’t think anyone would strongly object….
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