Babies - RodneyOlsen.net

This Sunday, the 23rd of November, marks a National Day of Mourning and Compassion in Australia.

People all over the country will be meeting to grieve the growing incidence of abortion in our nation. Australian churches are also being asked to remember those who have been affected by abortion.

The National Day of Mourning and Compassion website states the mission of the event as follows:

* Join together in compassion with ALL who’ve been affected by abortion, enabling the expression of mourning within a safe a supportive social forum.

* For all those with faith in Jesus, to pray in repentance for acts of abortion. To feel and acknowledge his grief over this sin of humanity.

* Raise awareness in the community of the thoughtless daily disposal of life.

* Bring into the light the grisly reality of what the new Victorian Abortion Reform Bill means to our society – in particular as it relates to late term abortion.

* To acknowledge the intrinsic value of every human life.

It’s not a protest and people will be asked not to carry placards or try to force their point of view, rather that they simply meet to mourn and support those whose lives have been touched by abortion.

I know that there are intelligent, thinking people on both sides of the debate and I don’t want to turn this into an argument over the rights and wrongs. I would simply and with respect say that I believe that a life begins at conception and that the taking of innocent life through abortion disturbs and saddens me.

I know that many women have abortions for many different reasons and I would never want to condem them for what they’ve done. It’s not my place to condem others even when I disagree strongly with their actions.

Here are a few words from Dr Lachalan Dunjey who is coodinating the Perth event on Sunday.

Why does abortion concern me?

Why would I take part in a gathering together of people nationwide this coming Sunday who are grieving because of abortion in our nation?

Why am I involved in the abortion issue when I didn’t want to be? When I knew it would be divisive? When I knew it would also be divisive amongst Christians and even Christian doctors? When I knew it would put me in conflict with others and cause me personal pain? When I had a vague idea of how much it would cost in terms of time and putting myself forward?

I think we just have to remind ourselves of what is really happening here – what has really, without our full realisation, happened.

Yes, there have been many who have been awake through the whole process but most of us have been asleep.

Who would ever have thought that abortion would be promoted as just another aspect of contraception?

Who would ever have thought that medical personnel would deliberately turn the ultrasound away so that the mother-to-be would not see the beating heart and know that the child she was carrying was not just a clump of cells? Who would ever have thought that this action would be recommended by a NHMRC committee?

Who would ever have thought that killing would be a solution for misery?

In Senate hearings in Canberra three weeks ago it was acknowledged that abortions were being carried out for fetal abnormalities some of them quite minor and surgically correctable e.g. cleft lip, as well as 90% of Down Syndrome babies. Further, it was argued that taking away the Medicare item for mid-trimester abortion would have the effect of increasing the cost to the community of disability services. Thus we have an argument for selective abortion on the grounds of disability – with implications as to how we view people with disability – that is not only justified by maternal choice as to whether that baby should live or die, but also by economic rationalism.

Mothers who refuse abortion for disability have been labelled “genetic outlaws” because of the implied extra cost to the community.

The implications are huge – including economics being applied to other aspects of health care and also euthanasia vs palliative care.

So we need to look at the actual direct effects of abortion
• What it means in terms of actually taking a real human life where its 46 chromosomes have already determined how it smiles.
• How that human life is actually taken in terms of gruesome techniques.
• How this is done without any consideration of pain to the baby especially in later pregnancy.
• Consequences to the mother – physical, psychological and spiritual.

And then to the wider implications to society that is coming to view life as expendable depending on its value and the implications for
• Experimenting with the origins of life.
• Cloning.
• Mixing of human and animal genetic material.
• Eugenic selection in our society for elimination of anything considered less than perfect.
• Physician assisted suicide.
• Euthanasia – voluntary and involuntary.

At root, of course, are the questions
• When does human life begin?
• What does it mean to be human?
• When is human life of value?
• If it does not have intrinsic value from conception then when does it have value and on what basis do we ascribe that value?

Lachlan Dunjey. November 2008.

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Author Mem Fox has opened up a controversial debate by claiming that childcare for very young children is child abuse.

According to this article at News.com.au, Mem believes that society will look back on the trend of allowing babies only a few weeks old to be put into childcare and wonder, “How could we have allowed that child abuse to happen?”.

“I just tremble,” she said. “I don’t know why some people have children at all if they know that they can only take a few weeks off work.

“I know you want a child, and you have every right to want a child, but does the child want you if you are going to put it in childcare at six weeks?

“I don’t think the child wants you, to tell the honest truth. I know that’s incredibly controversial.”

It’s a topic that we often choose not to talk about because no one likes to be criticised for the way they bring up their children.

I must admit that I get concerned with the age at which some children are handed over to others for care. I also wonder if career is so important to some people, why they choose to bring children into the equation.

There are always circumstances that will mean that a child will need care from those other than parents at a young age but the care of the very young in childcare centre is becoming a big industry. Parents are planning to have children and then be back at work within weeks.

Whichever side you’re on in the debate, I think it’s a good thing to be discussing. We need to decide if this is the way we want our society to go. Is Mem right? If we haven’t got the time to put into bringing up our kids should we really be having them?

She said a Queensland childcare worker had told her earlier this year: “We’re going to look back on this time from the late ’90s onwards – with putting children in childcare so early in their first year of life for such long hours – and wonder how we have allowed that child abuse to happen”.

“It’s just awful. It’s awful for the mothers as well. It’s completely heartbreaking,” Fox said. “You actually have to say to yourself, ‘If I have to work this hard and if I’m never going to see my kid and if they are going to have a tremendous stress in childcare, should I be doing it?’

“Babies have much higher levels of stress in childcare.”

I’d be interested in your point of view.

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