By Jamie O’Brien
More than 100 people from across Perth last weekend gathered to honour the work undertaken by the Right to Life Association Western Australia.
The 35th Annual Dinner, which was held at the Pagoda Restaurant in Como, served to support the independent, non-denominational group that lobbies the WA State and Australian Federal Government in defence of life of all human beings from conception until natural death.
Keynote speaker for the event, Senator for Western Australia, Joe Bullock, commenced his speech by quoting Paragraph 71 from St Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on the gospel of life, Evangelium Vitae, which sets out with clarity the obligation of the civil law to protect the right of life.
Mr Bullock went on to say that he is encouraged by the words of John Paul II, who said no single person or group has a monopoly on the defence and promotion of life.
“Human life needs to be defended from its first moment at fertilisation, that extraordinary moment in which each of us had our beginning and a new entity came into being instantaneously, a brand new human being,” Mr Bullock reinforced.
“It needs to be defended when it is in the womb, when it is most defenceless, unable even to cry out and be heard.
“It needs to be defended when it is old, disabled or sick – physically or mentally – and some, in the name of a false pity, not just agree that death would be better but offer to bring it about by a lethal injection or dose of drugs,” Mr Bullock said.
The former trade-union official, turned Perth-based Senator, also took the opportunity to speak about his own experience with abortion, which involved supporting his relative who was under pressure to have an abortion some six years ago in China.
“For 37 years, I have been engaged in negotiations. We have had some tough negotiations over the years with some of the largest employers in the country, and they tend not to take prisoners. Negotiations in the retail industry are tough.
“I had to engage in some negotiations in order to get to the Senate – and they were tough.
“The majority of the people who preselected me fully understand where I stand on issues, and do not support it. Yet I managed to negotiate my way through to get a seat here. But the hardest negotiations in my life took place over the next three days and nights.
“And if anyone says to me that that lovely little girl does not deserve to live because she is a girl, or that that lovely little girl does not deserve to live because some petty bureaucrat is committed to a plan of social engineering, then they are going to have to stop me.
“And when I make up my mind, I am a bit hard to stop.
“In my maiden speech, I said that, on issues like this, that were matters of life and death, I would always vote to support life. I support life,” Mr Bullock said.