LOST

"My hands were stained with blood, my heart proud and cold, my soul is black with shame."
"When you have played with creating life a space, you flung it back into God's face and thought you did a noble thing."

Yesterday I was in attendance at a public forum exploring the historical perspective of abortion. It was organized as an acknowledgment of the release of Lost: Illegal Abortion Stories by Jo Wainer, whose late husband was the force behind abortion law reform in Australia. It was ironic the venue was the basement of the Royal Women's Hospital, while a few floors above were pregnant mothers waiting to give birth and premature babies fighting for life. Again according to its website the hospital, which commemorates its 150th anniversary this year, claims to have a rich and proud history of caring for the women and newborn babies of Victoria.

While the speakers did not speak of the morality of abortion but sought merely to narrate medical practices over the last hundred years, there were a few comments which I thought merited to be posted:

1. Women having abortions show respect for motherhood because they are acknowledging either their inability to provide for the child or intention not to have children.
2. Only the Catholic Church has consistently opposed abortion.
3. The provision of and right to abortion is entirely a medical issue, churches, governments and law courts have no claim or competence to interfere.