Letters

Abortion silence

Frank Mobbs

Contents - Mar 2012 - Buy a copy now Homily: Benedict XVI: the Annunciation and Mary's virginity - Pope Benedict XVI Year of Grace: can Australian Catholicism recover its unity? - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World The global financial crisis and the West's fertility decline - Babette Francis Extraordinary life of new Czech Cardinal, Dominik Duka - Peter Westmore Campion College's Summer Program on Christian leadership - Br Barry Coldrey Fulton Sheen Cause: progress report - Msgr Stanley Deptula The Immaculate Conception and the development of doctrine - Bishop Peter J. Elliott John Henry Newman on the Immaculate Conception - John Henry Newman Missions: Bringing hope to Nigeria's abandoned children - Madonna Brosnan Letters: Abortion silence - Frank Mobbs Letters: Social get-together - Richard Congram Letters: Atheism - John Gallagher Letters: Gay peril - Robert Bom Letters: Defending marriage - Mark Szymczak Books: Streams of Grace, by Bishop Julian Porteous - Fr Ken Barker MGL (reviewer) Books: The Spiritual Legacy of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, by Rev. Charles P. Connor - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT, by Thomas Howard - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: MISSA CANTATA: A Chant Mass for the Assembly, Accompaniments by Geoffrey Cox - Christopher Trikilis (reviewer) Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: The wonder of the Incarnation: Pope Benedict's Nazareth homily - Pope Benedict XVI

In December last, Eureka Street published an article, "Why I don't preach on abortion" by Father Andrew Hamilton SJ. He is a very able theologian whom I admire, so I was surprised at the reasons he gave for his silence on this important matter.

His main reason was that there might be members of his audience who were suffering trauma for having had an abortion or for having consented to some woman's having one, people who would be upset were he to mention abortion in disapproving terms.

I make two comments. First, there are women who have had abortions and lack any remorse or grief for what they did. The same applies to those who aided them by giving approval to the abortion. I knew a young German woman who told me she has an abortion about every 18 months. "I prefer abortion to using a contraceptive," she told me. Such people need to be convinced that they have perpetrated great evil.

Second, silence kills. Years ago in Fiji, a Catholic friend and neighbour told me that she and other women would, within the next few hours, abort the fetus of a young unmarried relative, using chemicals obtained from the bark of a certain tree.

I went home and agonised. What was I to do? I was reluctant to interfere with the plans of neighbours. If I advised them not to abort, my wife and I could be ostracised in a country where we had very few friends. Possibly my interference would have no effect on them, so why not let sleeping dogs lie?

But someone was about to die. I went to her house and told her that she was planning to commit a grievous mortal sin for which she would certainly answer to God. The sin is called "murder", the deliberate killing of a person who is not threatening to take another's life.

Days later I met her. She told me she had called off the abortion. Later still I learned that the girl had given birth to a healthy son. Presumably he is living today.

My silence would have killed that man.

FRANK MOBBS (DR)
Gosford, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 25 No 2 (March 2012), p. 15