Posted by cathy taggart I agree with you, Kevin, about the "right to life" of refugees, but I think we (all of us in the Church) also need to have a serious re-think about the Church's traditional teaching on matters to do with sexuality and family. Obviously, abortion is a more complex matter than Traditionally, the Church seems to have been more accepting of war than of abortion, (the "just war" idea), yet war is much more destructive of human life than abortion! Can we really believe that this has nothing to do with the fact that women have had little, if any, real input into the formation of the Church's teachings over the centuries? Women and girls don't usually have abortions lightly, and even if they have one because, for instance, having a baby might interfere with their career opportunities, they are not being as selfish and trivial as may seem the case. In our society, having a job or, better still, a "career", is what makes you a "normal" person, a fully-fledged member of society. When you have young children, especially if you find it too difficult to combine motherhood with a career, you can become very socially isolated and feel very marginalised. Trust me, I'm a full-time mother of several years' standing, I know what I'm talking about! Of course, what we really should be doing is to build a society which gives real support and recognition to parents. But this is not something we can just "do"; despite all the lip service (and despite the many joys which family life can bring at the personal level), the family is in reality in a very disadvantaged position in our society, and this will take a very long time to change. In any other social justice issue, we don't deny short-term solutions to people just because there is a better long-term solution, so why should this be any different? In the section of this web-site about the Marists, I was delighted to read that the founder of the Marist Fathers took the view that, while we should show loyalty to the Church, people, not rules, should be the main consideration (or something like that). I'm not saying here that we should ignore the Church's teaching on abortion, or that the Church should suddenly change its teaching. In fact, this is a plea from the heart: let's look at real-life experience, and let's reassess the Church's teaching in that light. Why should we be afraid of the truth? --Previous Message--
on January 22, 2005, 10:33 pm, in reply to "Tony Abbott, Abortion and Other Life Matters"
I've only just discovered your wonderful website, so there's a bit of a time gap between this response and the comments I'm replying to.
other aspects of this teaching, but please, let's start looking at even this issue honestly and realistically.
CATHY.
: Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott has been
: winning brownie points from Church leaders
: and others recently, for his forthright
: comments on the evils of abortion and the
: need to turn around this great wound in our
: society.
:
: He is rightly applauded for these comments,
: but his consistency is to be questioned.
: The stories of horror that continue to come
: out of oru Detention Centres here in
: Australia, beggar the imagination and are
: every bit as heinous as the abortion figures
: that Mr Abbott has been so strident about.
:
: Applying the same values for life to our
: refugees, should lead to a balanced and just
: policy. On the contrary, there is a huge
: contradiction between his statements on
: abortion and the policies he supports on
: refugees.
:
: Our moral principles need at least to be
: consistent to be credible. One can only
: wonder at the motivation then behind his
: anti-abortion sentiments.
:
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