Time to get mad, really mad – By Paul O’Rourke, CEO of Emily’s Voice. The anger isn’t new, but the recent intensity of my rage has shocked even me. It’s always there, sitting just below the surface, rising and falling like the molten rock in an active volcano, bursting to life in response to seismic shifts in society. I like to think it’s u…

2 hours ago

Time to get mad, really mad

by ACL Team

By Paul O’Rourke, CEO of Emily’s Voice.

The anger isn’t new, but the recent intensity of my rage has shocked even me. It’s always there, sitting just below the surface, rising and falling like the molten rock in an active volcano, bursting to life in response to seismic shifts in society. I like to think it’s usually a controlled and measured righteous indignation, but sometimes my white-hot anger is out-of-control, fuelled by my utter frustration and a despairing disbelief that society can be so blind to the damage that abortion causes women, children, relationships and, ultimately, society. Our colossal stupidity to this fact constantly astounds me. Abortion is a national tragedy; it’s by any objective measure inhuman, disturbing, barbaric, illogical, unjust and a crime against the weak and vulnerable, the very ones a civilised and caring society is meant to protect. 

Don’t tell me to settle down, that it’s none of my business, a woman’s right, not really a baby, is necessary to prevent child abuse, save a relationship, stop overpopulation, ensure every child is a wanted child, and prevent women having backyard abortions using coat hangers. The debate has been reduced to these clever and yet false catchphrases; another being: “If you don’t like abortion then don’t have one.” Substitute any other crime for the word “abortion”, and you realise the stupid and sinister nature of the rhetoric.

We want to tax, encourage or scare smokers out of their filthy habit, end the whale hunt, protect the rainforests, save the orangutans, protect the planet, and ban factory farming, while equally defending and promoting the right of any girl or woman, independent of any man, to kill her child, damage herself, as well as current and future relationships. We’re rightly outraged at the annual deaths of 15,000 Australians from smoking-related causes, but blindly accept the annual deaths of 80,000 little Australians through abortion as somehow unavoidable. Why? It makes no sense.

How is it that we can we see through the Japanese claims that they need to kill lots of whales to study them, but fail to see that abortion is wrong because it ends the life of a human being and wounds many others? Whales have rights, but not unborn children.