There was a time when  thousands of ordinary people  flocked to the  Colisseum in Rome  to enjoy the sight of wild animals  tearing human beings to pieces. Civilization has made some progress because today such a sight would evoke horror and anguish for the victims.  Cruelty is no longer fashionable -  that is why our baby killers (ok, fetus killers) hide their grisly work from the  public eye.  Partial-birth (see p. 5)  abortionist, Dr. David Grundmann, declined to describe  his method when asked to do so on TV.  He said  non-medical persons would not understand.

 

What's to understand?  The baby is dragged out feet first, its skull is punctured while still in the birth canal, the brains are sucked out, the skull collapsed and the dead baby delivered.  Then there are also the born-alive victims of abortion.  Statistics from the Victorian Health Department for 2006 show there were 298 post-20 week abortions.  Of these 48 babies were delivered alive - and left to die.

 

The Rt Rev. Patrick O'Donoghue, Catholic  Bishop of Lancaster, UK, claims  that  casual recourse to abortion has cheapened the value of human life in the eyes of the public over the last four decades.  He said he was convinced that the 1967 Abortion Act (UK)  was a major cause of widespread violence among young people.

 

"All of us have seen in the news the frequent reports of young people killing strangers in the street, killing fathers defending their property, killing people with learning difficulties, killing other young people who are different to them," said the bishop in a report `Fit for Mission?'

 

"For 41 years we've lived in a state-sponsored culture of death that has killed five million children, and we're now surprised that some of the surviving children have turned out violent with no regard for the sanctity of life?  How many children know that their mothers have had an abortion? What effect will it have on them knowing that they have been deprived of a brother or sister through abortion?

 

"If a society holds human life so cheaply is it any surprise that young people will also hold life cheaply and engage in violence?   If the State was seen sponsoring 'crimes against life' is it any wonder that criminality in general thrives, and seeks to take advantage of the coarsening and darkening of conscience"?

 

The bishop's remarks come after a summer of bloodshed that has seen an escalation of knife crime.  Twenty-four young people have been stabbed to death in London in 2008.

 

Another heroic Christian, Dietrich  Bonhoeffer, victim of the Nazi regime,  said “Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of its life. And that is nothing but murder.”

 

There are many medical programs on TV with explicit pictures of complex surgery.  But neither abortion providers  nor our Premier, Mr. Brumby, have the guts to show an abortion on TV, to show the fetus  being torn limb from limb. Furthermore, in the US partial-birth abortion is banned, and there is legislation ensuring infants born alive after abortion are given the same care as other premature babies.  Why not in Victoria, Mr. Premier, or do you dance to the tune of Emily’s List?

 

We need to pray that the Victorian Parliament will not become even more complicit in the murder of the unborn than it is already.