WHY ARE WE HERE TONIGHT?
Premier, the Hon Ben Carroll! Opposition Leader, Jess Wilson, MP!
Why are we standing here on the steps of our Parliament tonight?
Because this is a moral issue of the highest order. Human life is precious. All human life deserves protection. And because the life of an unborn child, sheltered in its mother’s womb, is no less precious than yours or mine.
What a staggering moral blind spot! We Australians pride ourselves on caring for the vulnerable, protecting the marginalised, defending the defenceless. We champion mental wellbeing in our schools. We insist that every life matters. But what about the smallest, most vulnerable human being of all – the unborn child?
We’ve had such moral blind spots before. Some 250 years ago, my own forebear, Granville Sharp – after whom my father was named – fought alongside William Wilberforce and others against the British slave trade. They had to awaken the conscience of a nation to something that should have been obvious: that African men and women were human beings of the same dignity and worth as everyone else.
How can a society be so blind to the humanity of those it refuses to protect? What an extraordinary contradiction we live with today! When a baby is born, we celebrate! We send cards! We rejoice! And every year thereafter we sing, “Happy Birthday!”
But what of the child whose life is ended before birth? No birthday. No celebration. No voice. Not even the opportunity to blow out a first birthday candle.
What a strange society we’ve become! We vaccinate penguins against bird flu. We spend fortunes protecting endangered birds. We’re sickened by images of seal pups being clubbed to death. And rightly so! But where is our compassion for the unborn child – one of our own human family?
Women’s health matters! Of course it does! But surely compassion ought to embrace both mother and child. Why must concern for women’s health be framed in a way that leaves the life of the unborn child without protection?
And that’s why we’re here tonight – to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves!
Now, you don’t have to be a Christian to recognise the moral gravity of deliberately ending an unborn human life. But as a Christian Church, we have particular reason to speak.
Jesus Christ himself was once an unborn child. Remember that remarkable account in Luke’s Gospel? Two pregnant women meet – Mary and Elizabeth. And John the Baptist leaps in his mother’s womb at the presence of the unborn Christ in Mary’s womb! Before either child was born, Scripture speaks of them as persons of significance and dignity.
And so, Premier and Opposition Leader, hear our appeal:
Protect the vulnerable. Defend the defenceless. Care for mothers. And do not abandon their unborn children.
Abortion is the deliberate ending of a defenceless human life.
Abortion is wrong. And we must not be silent.
Rev Dr John P Wilson
Moderator, Presbyterian Church of Victoria