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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

600 Anglicans in Melbourne write in protest against the Abortion Position

Yes, you read that correctly. Six hundred!

Here’s the letter at Melbourne Anglican Media:

We the undersigned members of Melbourne Anglican churches strongly disagree with the position on abortion outlined in the ‘Submission to the Victorian Law Reform Commission Inquiry on the Law of Abortion from the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, 9 November 2007’ as posted on the Melbourne Anglican website and referred to in TMA December.

We do not hold the ‘gradualist’ position with respect to the moral value of developing embryos/foetuses. We believe that the Bible teaches that all human life has absolute moral value irrespective of race, gender, wealth, education, age (including the unborn) or level of disability. We are therefore generally opposed to abortion as it seems to us to be a form of killing – and killing of the most vulnerable members of our society at that. We believe our view is in line with historical Christian teaching and the official position of the worldwide Anglican Communion as expressed at the 1930 Lambeth Conference, a position that has never been overturned.

We do understand that occasionally the moral considerations are more complicated – eg., when a mother’s life is directly placed in immediate and exceptional danger by a pregnancy or birth (not being merely the normal dangers of pregnancy or childbirth) but could be protected only by destroying the unborn child. Because of such complex cases where a decision to terminate may be morally justifiable, we do not advocate a blanket-ban on abortion. Nevertheless, we believe that such situations are exceptional, must be addressed with appropriate gravity and do not cancel out our general opposition to abortion.

We agree that abortion is an extremely sensitive issue that must be discussed with great discretion and care. We recognise that in a fallen world many people, including Anglicans, will have personal experiences of abortion. We affirm that in Christ there is unqualified forgiveness for all who repent and that the Church must proclaim and embody that message.

We accept the responsibility to deal lovingly and compassionately with all members of our Church and society, including those who have been party to abortions.

We are seeking to make our strong objections to the content of the original Submission, including its moral position and recommendations, known to the Victorian Law Reform Commission.

The Revd Tim Patrick
Carlton
and over 600 Anglican signatories.

And some others:

Abortion against God’s plan
As ambassadors of Christ we are obligated to speak the word of God into the social situations in which we find ourselves. When the Victorian Government announced the review process of the abortion laws we had a magnificent opportunity to shine the light of Christ unequivocally on this issue by proclaiming that God is for life in every circumstance, and none more so than in this issue of abortion. God says “do not kill”; the Anglican church recognizes selfhood from conception, so it is logical to believe that the “Anglican women” on the Archbishop’s committee could have spoken with one voice to declare to women in Victoria “do not kill your babies”; and to the government “do not change the law regarding criminal sanctions against doctors who perform abortions”. In the submission process there is opportunity to also discuss compassionate options for care for women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant or worse and as the body of Christ we should also proclaim our defence of these women and care for them. This includes care for women who have undergone abortions, recently or in the past. Christ’s love is to bind up the broken hearted and surely, there is no one more broken hearted than a woman who has knowingly or unknowingly cut short the life of her baby. As Melbourne Anglicans, we need to speak to these social situations clearly, so as young women know unreservedly that abortion is against God’s plan for their lives. This submission does not do that. By removing criminal sanctions for doctors who perform these operations we are effectively condoning abortion in the eyes of future young women.

Kerrie Ternes
Wantirna South

Gradualist approach dubious

It is interesting to note that the authors of the recent submission on behalf of the Diocese of Melbourne to the Victorian Law Reform Commission on abortion have adopted a dubious gradualist approach as a measure of assigning moral value.

God knits and moulds us in the womb pulling the thread of our life through this world and into the realms beyond death. It would be foolish to presume that we can arbitrarily delineate the point on that thread at which a person has more or less moral value. Regardless of how vulnerable or small that person is, they are a thread in God’s larger tapestry, valued and created by our Lord. Hopefully the authors of the report will reconvene and reconsider how a sliding scale of moral value actually devalues the vulnerable person being measured.

Luke Isham

Camberwell

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