Life Matters By Bronia Karniewicz, Archdiocesan Respect Life Office
In the Rally for Life last week, over 400 people walked from St Mary’s
Cathedral to Parliament House. This impressive turn out has the
community discussing our abortion laws again. It’s a fantastic thing.
At present, the law in Western Australia states that a woman considering an abortion has to see a doctor.
Doctors are then required to give counselling about the medical risks of termination and carrying a pregnancy to term.
A referral to further counselling is offered and women are informed that post-abortion counselling is available. A woman is also required to sign a consent form, maintaining that she has been offered counselling.
At the rally, Liberal MP Peter Abetz made a call for some changes to these present abortion laws, including the viewing of 3D colour ultrasounds and a 48 hour cooling off period to be given to women considering an abortion.
In the response to these suggestions, there has been a return of the familiar slogans and harsh rhetoric which prevents us from debating this issue with clarity and respect.
Regardless of how people feel about abortion, there is general agreement that counselling should be made available.
It is misleading to believe that women take the decision of abortion lightly. Yet discussing the impact of abortion has been difficult, as the results of various studies are often hotly debated.
There is growing international research linking induced abortion with increased rates of psychiatric illness, depression, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Very often, any experience of post-abortion trauma goes unrecognised, and is instead attributed to pre-existing circumstances.
Yet we still have women in our communities struggling to cope with the effects of their abortion.
In 2008, at a congress on Marriage and Family, Pope Benedict XVI said about abortion, “Yes the men and women of our day sometimes truly find themselves stripped and wounded on the wayside of the routes we take, often without anyone listening to their cry for help or attending to them to alleviate and heal their suffering. In the often purely ideological debate, a sort of conspiracy of silence is created in this regard. Only by assuming an attitude of merciful love is it possible to help victims to pick themselves up and resume their journey through life.”
While good discussion and debate is needed about scientific research, most importantly we should be reaching out with compassion to grieving women and men who feel traumatised by their abortion experience and offering greater support options to those with an unexpected pregnancy.
These are the people who can be, as John Paul II said in the Gospel of Life, “the most eloquent defenders of life.”
Bronia@perthcatholic.org.au