Listening to the news and the panic coming from our politicians and activists over the last few weeks, you would think that Australia is a very violent place and that women are being killed by the millions by out of control partners.
Official statistics from the Australian Institute of Criminology tell a different story.
Firstly the rate of murders in Australia per population is declining, and has been for many years.
Well maybe the rate of death in domestic violence cases is exploding. After all those feminists must be jumping up and down about something. While every death at the hand of a partner is tragic, there is no need for the kind of moral panic we have been seeing in the media and governments lately. Homicides by domestic partners or even by friends is on the decline.
What about women then? Are they more likely to be killed by toxic masculinity in the home?
It is the case, and probably always has been, that more men are murdered than women. Why are we not seeing the media jumping up and down about that?
Murder is evil. Domestic violence is evil. But when the stats are so obviously out of kilter with the hype you have to wonder what is going on.
It’s been said, the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. In our society today, none are more vulnerable than a newborn babe — and yet under the guise of “healthcare” and “human rights,” none legally suffer worse treatment.
A senate hearing in Canberra was told that within the span of a decade, between 2010 and 2020, more than 700 babies were left to die after botched abortion attempts in Victoria and Queensland alone.
Sky News host James Macpherson said the revelation should be a “national scandal.”
Currently, there exists no obligation for abortion providers to offer any assistance to a baby who survives a failed abortion attempt. Infants born alive are left to die, with their time of death eventually documented when they stop grasping for life.
Senator Alex Antic, Senator Matt Canavan, and Senator Ralph Babet put forward the Children Born Alive Protection Billin November last year requiring abortionists to provide medical care for all babies born alive.
Senator Canavan suggested Australia is in violation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, of which it is a signatory.
Article 6 states, “every child has the inherent right to life,” while Article 24 says governments must “ensure the provision of necessary medical assistance and health care to call children.”
Senator Antic said, “A child that survives an attempted termination of pregnancy should be entitled to the same level of medical care and treatment as any newborn child.”
Former Federal MP George Christensen attempted to introduce a similar bill to Queensland in 2021 that would ensure children born alive during botched abortions would receive the same life-sustaining medical treatment afforded to any other baby.
Christensen sounded the alarm in February 2021, warning Parliament that hundreds of babies are being born alive and left to die as a result of abortions.
“I have recently watched the testimony of a midwife who was present at the birth of a baby after an abortion,” Christensen told his colleagues. “She was told to take a photograph for hospital records and when the flash went off the child started breathing.”
Christensen said no medical intervention was provided and the baby was left to die.
“This happens in hospitals and abortion clinics across the country on more of a regular basis than we would like to think, and what the abortionists would like to admit,” he added.
Christensen had the Parliamentary Library undertake further research on the matter, and found:
According to the publication Victoria’s Mothers, Babies and Children, there were a total of 1,626 late-term (20 weeks or later) abortions in Victoria, resulting in 198 live births between 2012 and 2016 (approximately 12%).
In Queensland, an ABC report stated there were 204 terminations with live birth outcomes between 2005 and 2015.
In Western Australia, as of 19 May 2017, a total of 27 cases of abortion procedures resulting in a live birth have been reported between July 1999 and December 2016. Of these, 21 were at 20 weeks gestation or later.
Christensen said his statistics do not paint the full picture as the matter is under-reported. Tasmania, the Northern Territory, New South Wales, and the ACT do not publish abortion statistics.
“What is very clear is that this is not rare, as abortionists have claimed,” he said. Adding, “We are in breach of some of our international obligations.”
On 9 February 2023, the Senate referred the Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill 2022 to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 1 July 2023. On 16 June 2023, the Senate granted an extension of time for reporting until Thursday, 31 August 2023.
As Lincoln Brown recently put it in The Spectator: “Our elected officials will soon vote on a question that everyone knows does not require a vote – the question of whether an innocent and helpless, though unwanted, baby must be saved, or whether it may be discarded in the name of ‘wellbeing.’”
We cannot understate the importance of the outcome. The vote will reveal whether our elected officials regard human life as an immutable right bestowed by our Creator or a privilege that is granted and revoked at the arbitrary will of those in power.
The Way of Jesus vs. The Way of the Zealot (Allan Bevere)
Last Friday, the world witnessed the way of Jesus Christ in Charleston, South Carolina. The family members of the victims in the horrific shooting at an historic AME Church in Charleston, SC spoke to the racist young man that perpetrated the crime of killing nine people during a Bible study. Their words were nothing less than moving; and to a world that so often believes violence is the answer to violence, they were almost shocking.
Those who spoke to Dylann Roof did not speak in anger telling them they hoped he would burn in hell for his crimes. Instead they spoke through tears of grief and pain, not only telling this young racist how he had devastated their lives, but they did something that their faith demanded they do– they forgave him.
A daughter of one of the victims said, “I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul,” she said. “It hurts me, it hurts a lot of people, but God forgive you and I forgive you.”
A sister of one of the pastor’s killed stated, “We have no room for hate. We have to forgive. I pray God on your soul. And I also thank God that I won’t be around when your judgment day comes with him.”
The way of Christ was seen in those moments on Friday through his grieving disciples. Anyone remotely familiar with the Gospels could hear in their words the voice of Jesus on the cross– “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” Those moments on Friday were holy moments, when the way of the cross was demonstrated to be a real and viable way for the followers of Jesus to live. Many, including Christians, have expressed shock in the midst of their admiration, that forgiveness was the subject of their words to Roof, and not words of hatred. Most people wouldn’t have blamed them if words of hatred were expressed. There is something sad about the fact that even Christians seem more accustomed to responding in hate than with love and forgiveness. I suppose that is because we have far more of the former and too little of the latter.
We Christians like to talk a good line about how important the Bible is to us. Many of us tout the fact that it is our central and final authority. But it seems to me that all too often we spend more time talking about the authority of Scripture than actually seeking to live it in our lives. We have reduced the Christian moral life to just being nice and decent. Our morals are more reflective of our culture than the Bible we claim to cherish, as several Pew studies have shown. We know what the Bible says about forgiveness, but how many of us really take that radical forgiveness and put it into practice in the way those family members did on Friday? How many of us Christians were focused more on revenge and hoping this twisted young man gets the death penalty, than even imagining that forgiveness is possible? What we witnessed last Friday was the followers of Jesus taking the Bible so seriously, that they had the strength and the courage to put its words into practice.
The Wall Street Journal pundit, Peggy Noonan has written a fine editorial on this, but I take great exception to one thing she wrote– “What a country that makes such people. Do you ever despair about America? If they are America we are going to be just fine.”
I do not doubt that there are good and noble things about America and its values, but it wasn’t America that made these people; it was Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. What we witnessed on Friday was not American, it was Christian, plain and simple. They embraced the way of Jesus Christ in all of its difficulty and did what seems so counter-intuitive to the way things work in the world and in America. They opted for forgiveness instead of revenge.
What makes their actions last Friday so powerful is that even Christians in America do not think in this way. As I said, we say how much the Bible means to us, but then we find ways to opt out of its demanding ethic. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, to go two miles with the Roman soldier carrying his equipment instead of the one that Roman law allowed. Such demands make us uncomfortable, and since not even Jesus’ followers can imagine how that might work in the ways of the world and in America, we water it down, we treat his words as metaphorical, or we put such restrictions on it, that turning the other cheek amounts to nothing more than not responding when someone insults us verbally. We take the punch out of such words making them easy to follow, which means we don’t have to take them seriously either. Thus, actions like we witnessed on Friday are a surprise, even to most followers of Jesus. Noonan writes,
As I watched I felt I was witnessing something miraculous. I think I did. It was people looking into the eyes of evil, into the eyes of the sick and ignorant shooter who’d blasted a hole in their families, and explaining to him with the utmost forbearance that there is a better way.
But there are those who disagree that this is a better way.
The better way– the answer to what happened in that church in Charleston– as some Christians have stated, is not to for Christians to offer the way of Christ– the way of hospitality and forgiveness, but instead the way of the Zealot– let’s arm the pastors. Instead of treating strangers who come into our midst as friends, let’s assume that first and foremost they are suspects to be watched. After all, the way of Christ results in the cross, while the way of the Zealot, fighting violence with violence, is the only thing that is effective in the ways of the world. Such zealotry is not the way of Christ, but all too often it seems to be the way of America, and Christians have unwittingly accepted that way and baptized it.
And until Christians take seriously the Scriptures they claim to cherish, radical forgiveness will always be be the exception and not the rule… because the way of the Zealot is easier to embrace than the way of Jesus Christ.
It would be good for us to remember that the way of Christ continues to this day; the way of the Zealot ended violently and in defeat in 70 A.D. in Jerusalem. Apparently, the latter turned out not to be the better way.
Let me start by saying I abhor violence in general, murder in particular and domestic violence above all.
I am sickened by the statistic that already in 2015 35 women have been murdered in Australia, many of them by an intimate partner or ex-partner.
But surely all people murdered should count. When organisations like Destroy the Joint, ably supported by the ABC, just put up one side of the story we get a skewed picture. They deliberately muddy the waters by suggesting that all those women were victims of family violence.
The true story is this: men are much more likely to be murdered than women.
In 2006-07 the Australian Institute of Criminology reported there were 55 women murdered in Australia which is bad enough. But there were 244 men who were murdered in the same year. In other words more than 80% of murder victims were men.
Common sense tells us that if you want to make any change in any field you tackle the big figures first because a change at the margins makes a big difference. But the feminist activists just want us to look at the women who make a much smaller part of the overall violence picture.
In the particular issue of family violence, it is not just a story of men beating up women. About 1/3 of all victims of DV are men, and child killers are roughly split between men and women.
According to AIC, 78 men were killed by “Intimates” and “Family Members” compared to 37 women.
Family Violence is not a women’s issue. It is a people issue.
By putting out figures of how many women have been killed, with no context, activists risk diverting resources away from areas that would make a big difference to satisfy a narrow objective. That is always a Bad Thing.
New Life Narrabri 