An almighty avalanche of anger has been unleashed in Australia since our state television broadcast a documentary into live-baiting in the greyhound industry last month. Trainers were caught on film using live rabbits, piglets and possums to instil bloodlust in dogs in order to improve their chasing and racing skills. I had the misfortune of watching the film.
It has sparked outcry towards those who pursue cruelty in order to benefit financially – and justifiably so. Life is sacred – even the lives of rabbits, possums, and piglets.
Similarly, there is a great howl of protest concerning the pending Indonesian government executions of Australian drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran – and justifiably so. Life is sacred – even the lives of drug traffickers.
And, what of those forgotten children in Australian immigration detention centres: again, there is much angst and chest-beating among people troubled by their plight – and justifiably so. Life is sacred – even the lives of “illegals” and strangers and those who get branded “queue jumpers”.
Perhaps one day the mainstream media and the public might dare to pursue, also with moral courage, the plight of the unborn; tens of thousands of whom disappear without trace each year. I’m especially concerned for those victims of late-term abortions, i.e. 16 weeks and beyond. Life is sacred – even the lives of the tiny and “unseen”.
In regards to late-term abortion, a notoriously emotive and neuralgic issue, it is vital we do not allow the bullying of religious nutters and moralists to justify a “we cannot afford to go there” approach, to justify shutting down debate.
Indeed, some of us, to counter such a rigid and unattractive polemic, have gone to great lengths to ensure I am not seen to be in their camp. We have, as a collective, tended to gravitate towards the more comfortable and acceptable narrative of the so-called “social progressives” – the one that espouses tolerance and individual freedom, the one that encourages a polite acquiescence. But at what price, and at whose expense?
Surely, in a world where whales and rabbits and old trees and heritage buildings are treated as precious, as of significant value – and rightly so, there is room for a mainstream and adult conversation about those other forgotten children.
I am not in any way suggesting yet another unseemly finger-pointing exercise, nor am I advocating criminalisation. Indeed, compassion compels one to want to walk alongside a woman confronting such a choice, even to cry with her.
Further, this issue cannot be reduced to simplistic labelling – telling someone they’re either pro-abortion or anti-abortion, pro-life or pro-choice. It’s far more complex and layered than that.
What I am advocating is a robust and reasoned, if sometimes heated, public conversation like those we have around the other conservation issues alluded to above.
Perhaps such a conversation might begin with a question: “What does it mean to be human?”
For now, at least, we seem to be mired in more of what Pope Francis called that “globalised indifference” which insists upon silence.
Fr Peter Day is a priest in the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn
Above: a media campaign urging Indonesia to convert the death sentences of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to life terms
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User comments (3)
Excellent point: only by admitting the complexity of this issue can real dialogue - and real change, freely chosen, come about.
I so agree that this debate needs to happen in the ways you describe, particularly in the context of late abortion. There is a deep moral inconsistency about the silencing of a serious and informed debate about abortion, and the emotive rhetoric that sometimes surrounds issues of non-human life (which is not to deny our appalling treatment of animals in the food industry).
Thank you Father, for a message that needs to be heard.