Famous tenor Andrea Bocelli has made a video in which he says:

A young pregnant wife had been hospitalised for a simple attack of appendicitis . . . when the treatments ended the doctors suggested that she abort the child . . . because the baby would be born with some disability. But the young brave wife decided not to abort, and the child was born.

That woman was my mother, and I was the child. Maybe I’m partisan, but I can say that it was the right choice.

I hope this could encourage many mothers who sometimes find themselves in difficult situations in those moments when life is complicated but want to save the life of their baby.

* * *

Andrea Bocelli was born in 1958. At his birth, doctors diagnosed him as having congenital glaucoma, and by age 12 he was completely blind.

Despite this, Bocelli’s passion for music led to international musical fame, including eight operas and 70 million album sales.  

For years Bocelli was an agnostic, but returned to the Catholic Faith in 1994, partly due to reading the works of Leo Tolstoy which convinced him that life is not random chance, but has a purpose.

* * *

Here are a couple of quotes from Tolstoy:

God alone exists truly. Man manifests Him in time, space and matter. The more God’s manifestation in man (life) unites with the manifestations (lives) of other beings, the more man exists. This union with the lives of other beings is accomplished through love.  (from: Tolstoy’s Diary)

 Martin’s soul grew glad. He crossed himself, put on his spectacles, and began reading the Gospel just where it had opened, and at the top of the page he read: “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in.” And at the bottom of the page he read: “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren even these least, ye did it unto me”.  (Matthew’s gospel, chapter 28). And Martin understood that his dream had come true, and that the Saviour had really come to him that day, and he had welcomed him.  (from: “Where Love Is, God Is“)

In 2008, more than 200 girls aged 15 and under had abortions in Victoria.

Some without the parents’ knowledge.

Some were aged 12.

One abortionist told reporters the biggest increase has been among 14-year-olds “copying what they see on television”.

* * *

When asked by abortionists, ‘Did you agree to this?’ such girls tend to say, ‘. . . I didn’t really want to, but I didn’t know how to say no’.

The spokeswoman for one abortion business commented, “One third had their first experience at age 14 years or younger, yet almost one in 10 say they have not been taught sex ed at school.”

One shudders to think what kind of sex education such a person thinks they ought to have.

Can you imagine what kind of message would be in sex education approved of by organisations specialising in aborting babies?

* * *

The Federal Government is said to be planning a new national sex education curriculum for primary and secondary schools, but the package is some years away.

With Julia Gillard in charge, we can only hope it never happens at all.

Recall how, when Tony Abbott said last January that women should not give away their virginity too easily, Gillard said, “These comments will confirm the worst fears of Australian women about Tony Abbott.”

How could any sane human being say such a thing?

Or any insane one, for that matter?

* * *

It is embarrassing to live in a country which has this person as Prime Minister.

It will be doubly so if, after her being dumped on us without our having any choice, we are gormless enough to vote her back in.

It’s a worry to think that one lives in a country where people with her views can get pre-selected.

And to think that she would get even one vote — let alone enough votes to be elected.

J Gillard doesn’t believe in God.

With such an ostrich-like view of the created world in general, how could she have a balanced opinion about anything?

(Source: Herald Sun, 21/11/2009)

Last Tuesday, West Australian Member of Parliament, Peter Abetz, proposed that women seeking an abortion should be required to view an ultrasound picture of their unborn child.

No other medical procedure is done without obtaining informed consent based on provision of the maximum possible amount of available relevant information.

Seeing a 3D colour ultrasound of the baby could be a big forward step in letting mothers know who and what exactly is the nature of the candidate for termination.

* * *

Anyway, WA Premier, Mr Barnett , opposes the idea and has ruled out any support for what he calls “such drastic measures”.

A spokeslady for Marie Stopes International, worldwide abortion-provider organisation which does abortions in 40 countries, described the suggestion as “dangerous for women” and “impeding women’s choices”.

Yet figures quoted by Mr Abetz show that, in the USA, when women who requesting abortions were shown a 3D colour ultrasound of what was actually in their womb, 89 percent changed their minds and decided against being aborted.

Mr Abetz says, “Once you see the little heartbeat and the tiny little fingers and feet . . . the reality that this is life really hits home.”

* * *

The argument has been raised repeatedly that babies unplanned are likely to be mistreated when born and would be better off killed, so as to avoid becoming victims of child abuse.

As though killing them in the womb is not abuse . . . .

If we can kill unborn babies to prevent them being abused after birth, perhaps we might consider preventing abuse of 5-year olds by killing them at the age of 3.

* * *

The idea that a human life is sacred only when he/she is wanted is not sustainable. Yet many politicians and abortion lobby activists still try it on.

Difficulties associated with unplanned pregnancies are real enough. But our society is morally obliged to find responses better than killing.

Therese Rein, wife of Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, wants Australian families to give their mothers a UNICEF maternal health kit for Mothers Day this year.

She told ABC Radio that, while one in 13,000 Australian women die in childbirth, in some developing countries it is as high as one in 8.

This blog is not questioning Therese Rein’s motives.

But there are always questions every time UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) gets involved in anything.

* * *

These UNICEF kits contain items needed to make childbirth away from a hospital safer. They include sterile dressings, equipment to cut umbilical cords safely etc.

UNICEF plans to provide these kits to lots of pregnant women in developing countries.

All of which sounds good.

But it’s always a worry when abortion-promoting agencies like UNICEF start diversifying into areas that are good.

Nobody wants women to continue being deprived of medically-safe childbirth.

But can we trust UNICEF not to tie availability of these excellent kits to a poor community’s willingness to promote abortion, sterilisation, contraception and other ethically-loaded forms of non-help?

* * *

In January 2010, Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, President of the G-8 group of nations, announced that G-8-funded maternal health care would include only positive assistance  – clean water, inoculations, nutrition, training health workers in safe childbirth etc.

Then what happened?

Feminist and other population control groups set up an organization called “White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood”, specifically to lobby G-8 countries to include “sexual and reproductive health and rights” (which, in English, means abortion), in their maternal health care plans.

* * *

UNICEF repeatedly asserts that access to abortion reduces maternal mortality — and that mortality rates haven’t decreased in decades.

However, British medical journal, Lancet, in April 2010, reported that maternal mortality has decreased by 35% globally since 1980 — and that UN agencies significantly overstate maternal mortality rates.

* * *

To include abortion in maternal health care proposals is to impose western anti-child values and practices on developing nations, contrary to their cultures and religion.

A policy perhaps best described as “elitist western imperialism”, in that it imposes population control ideology under the disguise of maternal health.

Democracy breeds mediocrity.

In a democracy we get the politicians we deserve.

In a democracy we choose leaders whom we suspect will be cowards:

 *  leaders too weak to lead

 *  leaders who make all decisions on the basis of “will it be a vote-catcher?”

* * *

The latest cave-in from idealist to cringing, media-intimidated, feminist-browbeaten robot is Australia’s federal Opposition leader, Mr Tony Abbott.

On the television show, 60 Minutes, the other day, Liz Hayes asked him, “Do you approve of abortion?”

He replied, “I guess in the end I’m a bit like Bill Clinton on this matter, who said that it should be safe, legal and rare – and I underline rare . . . .”

So is Mr Abbott not a Catholic after all?

* * *

It doesn’t matter much who runs the government — after they’ve been in parliament five minutes they’re all the same.

What DOES matter is how the Church sticks to its guns.

If Australia’s bishops speak with one voice — and speak only what God teaches – the people of Australia will respect them, listen to them and believe them.

Australia’s politicians will come to fear and tremble each time they open their mouths.

The Catholic Church has blown its credibility often enough – but, like its Founder, it can rise from the dead.

* * *

Mr Abbott’s best chance of surviving politically (and of surviving Judgement Day) is to make a public retraction.

He must say, “What I told the media about ‘safe’ and ‘legal’ abortion was wrong. I am against all abortion.”

Abortion is always wrong. But abortion, like every sin, is something that God will forgive if the sinner repents.

Making cowardly statements when cornered by anti-Catholic journalists is also a sin. But that, too, is forgivable.

* * *

God is very merciful, as well as very just, in his judgements.

It isn’t too late yet for Tony Abbott — who has thrown himself into the rubbish-bin of compromised, fortitude-deficient has-beens — to climb back out again.

We must ask God to help him.

We should all pray for him.

A court in Poland has ordered a priest, Father Marek Gancarczyk, to pay a fine of $11,000 because the Catholic paper, of which he is editor, described a woman seeking an abortion as “wanting to kill her child”.

He has refused to pay.

The judge, in passing the sentence, treated Fr Gancarczyk to a lecture on theology. “Christianity is a religion of love and this is what the language used by Catholic press should be like,” she said.

* * *

Polish law permits abortion only in cases of rape, serious handicap in the baby, or serious health risk to the mother. In this case, the mother had an eye condition. She was denied an abortion because her doctors decided the pregnancy would not seriously damage her health.

The local archbishop, Father Damian Zimon, said, “No state law can undermine God’s commandment and the order of Jesus Christ . . . . Recall the words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta: ‘The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion . . . if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?’ ”

The Catholic Association of Journalists in Poland commented, “We consider this verdict an attempt to gag Catholic media, also directed against freedom of speech in the wider sense . . . .We call on all journalists who hold Christian values not to be afraid to write the truth about abortion, about abortionists and about the supporters of this Holocaust of the 21st century.”

* * *

Two points that Australians might ask themselves:

(1) is our law permitting any woman, any time, to have an abortion, simply by telling her doctor she wants one, good enough?

(2) at least one priest, somewhere, is willing to suffer imprisonment, or whatever the court comes up next time, rather than compromise the Church’s teaching of love and respect for all human life, including the unborn babies.

Father Marek Gancarczyk