Should the Church change tactics if it wants to reduce Abortion?

Dear Friends,

Is there any woman in the world who would deliberately put herself in the position of requiring an abortion? As a man I can't answer that question but I find it very hard to believe that any woman takes the matter of having an abortion lightly. I suspect the vast, vast numbers of abortions that occur in the world arise because of misjudgment or error in another domain of human behaviour. Abortion, it seems to me, is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a way of correcting another mistake.

The questions I am raising in Catholica today are serious: Have the tactics that Catholics have adopted over the last 40 years — during which time the incidence of abortion in society has escalated dramatically — helped or hindered women? Have they helped reduce the incidence of the killing of the unborn or have the tactics contributed to the general societal indifference and possibly even helped increase the incidence of the killing of the unborn?

These questions have come up today because one of our readers kindly sent in a submission that Antony O'Brien has made to the Victorian Law Reform Commission which is looking into the question of Abortion Law Reform in that State at the moment. Antony has given us permission to reproduce his submission on Catholica Australia and you will find it as a pdf document HERE or see the link at the end of this commentary.

I have to confess at the outset that I am not up-to-speed on what is happening in Victoria on this issue other than what I have read in Antony O'Brien's submission. Perhaps readers of Catholica who are more familiar with the particular situation in Victoria might like to comment on that in our forum? Readers of Catholica who are knowledgeable about the present debate going on in that State might like to bring us up-to-speed and also perhaps comment on the merits of the arguments Mr O'Brien puts forward in his submission.

My interest in this subject is a little different to Antony's. Somewhere in this house I still have my "Right To Life" badge which I wore when marching in Anti-Abortion Rallies in Melbourne in the 1970s. Today I frankly have to admit that I wonder if the Catholic attitude to abortion in society has not actually led to an increase in the number of murders of the unborn? I do happen to continue to agree with Church teaching that abortion is morally wrong. I still believe that. I believe if I was responsible for causing an unwanted pregnancy my moral responsibility would be to endeavour to care for the child conceived as a result of my error whatever the personal cost that might impose on me — and that cost is huge. In recent days I read in the paper that it now costs something like a quarter of a million dollars to raise a child to the age of 18 years. (That, incidentally, is the cost that daunts so many people and probably contributes so heavily to the incidence of abortion in society today.)

I would like to see the incidence of abortion reduced in society. I think the only way that is realistically going to occur is by reducing the possibility of unwanted or accidental pregnancies. As I see it the increasing incidence of abortion in modern society is another of the outcomes of the flawed thinking on the Church's attitude to artificial contraception. Furthermore the Church has a new problem on top of that that it needs to deal with today. The whole matter of "Abortion" has become some sort of litmus test issue in the eyes of a sector within Catholicism who seem to see their religion as some kindergarten-level game of running around demonstrating how well we know God's laws and how bad the rest of society is because they're not observing those laws.

Ironically, but I think this is a very real phenonomen, many in the Catholic and Christian Anti-Abortion lobbies actually want and need the incidence of abortion to be increasing in society. They desperately need some "big statistic" like the indicence of abortion to point out how wicked the rest of society is so that they can draw attention to their own sanctimonious behaviour without actually being seen to be pointing to any particular individual. "Look at me, I'm against this terrible sin, not like all these millions of others in society who couldn't give a toss about God or God's Laws".

Honestly, to a significant degree I think that sort of behaviour has been encouraged by some of the leaders in our Church. In some ways this behaviour has become part of the culture within Catholicism. In the eyes of wider society, many who might be influenced to more rational arguments that might lead to better education and better forethought that reduces the mistakes that lead to abortion, hear Catholics and Christians "carrying on about Abortion" and they just "shut down mentally", I am sure many people hear the words "Catholic" and "Abortion" and automatically shut down their listening mechanisms and how they process information in their brains. If anything it possibly even induces in some people a sense of defiance and if they ever found themselves in a position where they might need to give counsel to someone caught in the dilemma of abortion there might even be a slight inducement to encourage that as a solution, not on the medical arguments, but simply "to shove one up the kyber" of all these Catholics and do-gooders in society who seem forever intent on running around and ordering people how to live their lives or how much more "holy" and "sin-free" they are than anybody else.

For reflection today I seriously put forward two questions to you, our readers, and through you to our spiritual leaders, and bishops and cardinals:

Is it not a time to seriously re-examine the damage that this "nerny-nerny" game in Catholic culture has created in wider Western Society?

Is it not time we seriously re-examined our tactics and the ways in which we communicate our messages if we are seriously of a mind to reduce the incidence of abortion in the Western world?

Please contribute your thoughts in our forum and we would also welcome your feedback on Antony O'Brien's submission to the Victorian Law Reform Commission. <Click HERE to read Antony O'Brien's submission to the Victorian Law Reform Commission>

Image Credit: The image used in the headline has been borrowed from the Abortion Recovery International website: www.abortionrecovery.org

Best wishes for a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life or in our world!

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher