‘Justice and
Peace’. They're hot words in the Church. Pope Francis says we must devote
ourselves to these works with patience and perseverance. The funny thing is,
these works don’t seem to canvass the most basic issue, named recently by the
Holy Father as ‘an absolute evil’: abortion.
Here’s
another funny thing. Because of my mother, who ‘had to get up on a chair’ to
address the NZ United Women’s Convention in the ‘70s (she was the only prolifer
there and ‘they were all such big women’) I was in on the ground floor of the
prolife movement in New Zealand. (It wasn’t until many years later that I
really became qualified to speak against abortion, when I was surprised by
motherhood for the fifth time at age 46.)
Back in the
‘70s that great New Zealander Professor (later Sir) William Liley, who
pioneered blood transfusions in utero, was an inspiration to those who
fought against legalising abortion. But Liley was an oddity in the
anti-abortion movement, as it was then called. “He’s not even a Catholic”, we
said.
But largely,
I believe, as a result of the Catholic Church's failure to preach
and teach the Gospel in this regard - See that you despise not one of
these little ones (Mt 18,10), for example - the face of the pro-life
movement in New Zealand has changed.
Its older
visage, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, was almost
exclusively Catholic. But at a recent Voice for Life event I counted
30 Protestants and 4 Catholics. I’m the only Catholic left on the VFL
committee.
Former
Planned Parenthood executive and Protestant prolifer Abby Johnson, who toured
New Zealand just over a year ago, says if there’s even one abortion clinic
operating and no one praying outside it, that implies Christians think killing
unborn children by tearing them agonisingly limb from limb is okay. Thank God,
there’s a weekly prayer vigil outside our local abortion clinic - but it’s
inspired and led by Protestants.
Johnson
tells about a woman given misoprostol to abort quadruplets who came to Planned
Parenthood in great pain.
“The first baby fell into the
toilet,” reported another PP worker. “The next two babies fell out of her. Two
perfectly formed little boys, who had their arms wrapped around each other. The
fourth baby was suctioned out in pieces.” She cradled the intact babies in her
arms and cried.
She left PP (since exposed for selling fetal body parts), the same day. Her story illustrates the need for healing and forgiveness for the 121 US abortion industry workers who’ve quit since Johnson led the way.
And there’s the need for healing and forgiveness
for the women who keep the abortion industry in business. Johnson says
that one in three US women has killed her own child and the stats in New
Zealand and Australia are probably the same.
“The
ones who can’t bear to hear the word abortion”, says Dr Theresa Burke, founder
of the healing ministry Rachel’s Vineyard, “they’re sitting in our churches.”
But
like homosexuals before that law reform, millions of mothers are now afraid to
‘come out’, not for ‘equality’ but for the healing they desperately need and
which is available. Duped or forced into choosing the evil of abortion to
‘solve the problem’ of an ‘unwanted child’ (more accurately, an unwanted
pregnancy), they suffer the physical, mental and spiritual consequences in
silence.
Perhaps
that’s because those whom Christ has ordained to heal and forgive say nothing.
But
on the other hand, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta says “abortion destroys the
conscience of the mother”.
This
is the work of the Father of lies, whom the Church must vigorously oppose.
As
Johnson says, “it’s time we stopped worrying about offending people and started
worrying about offending the heart of God.”
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