Anne Lastman (2017)
I would like to write about something which I think is really important. In fact I got into a “serious and at times angry” discussion with this topic during the Christmas break.
I was talking to a really good friend (really prolife) and we came to an impasse over “the law” regarding abortion. Whilst I absolutely, completely, totally believe that we have some of the worst abortion laws in the world, and whilst we must try and reverse that 2008 law we have here in Victoria, Australia, and try to stop further of these laws throughout Australia. This law which in fact permits abortion to birth, even just prior to birth, so something definitely needs to be done about this. I couldn’t agree with my friend entirely about abortion and the Law.
Why? Because the Law will not protect the child for most of the time. Occasionally perhaps, but Law can be manipulated. What our laws says is not that the baby isn’t a human being or that it is too small to be seen as a human being but it says more than this. It says that a child has no protection at all because it is thought that if a child cannot breathe or take care of itself then it isn’t a human child and therefore doesn’t deserve the protection of the law, as even the worst of criminals are given.
This of course says further, that those disabled who need help to breathe to take care of themselves are also not human. A new infant is unable to take care of itself so therefore not human. Where on earth have we descended to!
These types of laws say that an in utero baby is at the mercy of the bigger one involved (mother/father/ others) resulting in the child having absolutely no voice, rights, meaning as a human being. This reasoning is very flawed so the argument is fallacious and should be utterly destroyed. This is what that 2008 law says. I am reminded of the “dog in the manager attitude” I cannot have you so nobody else can. This 2008 (Victoria, Australia) law gives permission and enshrines permission for this to happen. Not implies but legally states this that a child can be legally killed. Because even if a woman cannot keep the child then it is possible (without the need to kill it) to give birth to it and adopt the baby out to someone who has desperately wanted a baby and can’t have one, rather than demand its cruel death. This is the death of another human being. If this baby was killed out of the womb the murderer would be charged with infanticide but in the womb it’s called “choice of the woman.” So perhaps this is an area where “law” can be of particular use and benefit, for the possible protection for the baby.
However, and I guess I am always interested in the “however” I don’t believe that “the law” will change anything. If we are lucky (as pro-lifers) we might be able to rescue a baby destined for death using “the law” as reason for not aborting. However, again, it is not with the law with which we can make an all‐out attack against abortion. The law is another prong to the attack but I don’t see it as a huge help in stopping or even reducing abortions.
Remember, until recently, we have had abortion laws which at the time said that abortion was a crime. It was against the law, it really should not have occurred but we all know that “the law” was never adhered to or applied. “The police should be made to enforce the law” (said my friend) ensure the law is exercised and not ignored. As it was in the past never enforced. None of us know of any doctor, nurse or woman who was jailed because of carrying out an abortion. (Perhaps that American abortionist (Kermit Gosnells serving life sentence, who butchered both women and babies is an exception) whilst the law was set in statutes it was never respected or anyone had recourse to it here in Australia. Ways around it were found. Police turning a blind eye to the reality of what was going on in certain buildings, in certain hospitals, even in private places.
A letter written by a mental health professional which said that this abortion was required for the mental well‐being of the patient, even though he or she was not seen by the mental health professional before or after, etc. “The law” was there but it was never used to bring into question the purveyors of such dastardly thing called abortion.
So the way I see things is that while a law needs to be in place even as a backup it is NOT the law which will change the abortion culture. It’s an addendum, yes, but of itself in won’t change a culture of death. What will change this death culture? The way I see it, it is that we need to change the way we see and understand and protect women because society and women themselves have forgotten why she has been designed in a particular way. But before this, we need to understand that there is probably not a family in our human relationships which has not in some way been touched by abortion.
We need to start from this thought of earth’s population of approximately 7.5. Billion (7,500.000, 000.000, I think it’s the right number of noughts) every family somehow has been touched by or knows of the violent death of an in utero child intentionally carried out.
So what? You might say. Well I would answer that the abortion carried out on the woman and the demand by the father for the child has contributed to the change in the culture we all live in and are part of. Why life has become cheap. Why demands for other changes of the “norm” are being made. Why children are confused about who they are.
Between the wars experienced in 20th century and visually brought into living rooms, the meteoric rise of really violent movies and games, the disrespect for woman and man and sexuality via the medium of pornography, contraception and its developed mentality and the need/want/desire of women to work outside of the home, has led to babies and children becoming an optional extra, dispensable, without consideration for the emotional after effects of this developed death culture and society.
Every woman (millions of them) and man who has had an abortion is changed forever. Irrespective of the voices which say otherwise. Every woman who has undergone an abortion has had her design corrupted.
Every woman who has undergone an abortion, whether willingly or unwillingly, has registered in her inner being the reality of the violent death of her child. The violent death of part of her own being. Of having gone against her very design. Her raison d’etre.
Woman was never designed to carry cartloads, build houses, ships, aeroplanes, skyscrapers, Cathedrals or even lead a herd of cattle, even though she is capable of doing all of those things. These are external to herself. After all she is his (man’s) “helper” Yes she can do all the functional work he can.
However, her best work is something which he cannot do. Something for which her body was specifically designed. For which her emotional makeup was designed (a new mother’s breast will start leaking milk just before her baby awakes, there is an anticipation, a knowing her child will soon wake and want her to feed). She is very much attuned to her baby. She has an intuition which is reserved for her child alone from conception and for the child’s whole of life.
A mother has a connection to her child for her entire life. She knows when all is not right with her child because her body feels it. She can’t explain it but she knows. A mother always knows when she is needed and once a mother, her own self and beliefs intrinsically change.
She can no longer think as a woman does before pregnancy and childbirth. This because a mother’s work of creation is united with God’s work. She is a branch of the vine in His vineyard “every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more” (Jn. 15:1). She is the branch which continues to bear more fruit.
And He is constantly intuitive towards His child His “helper” and helps her also be intuitive towards her child because they work together to bring forth a new creation.
She has a knowledge that she has been attached to a greater vine of grandeur, and the abortion is like a vandal or thief who has slyly snuck in and broken her little twig. The little shoot which she tenderly fed from her own self. Her own body.
Her design is such that her body is able to understand the moment of conception. Her body responds to the changes, and I’m sorry to say this but the male/spouse/partner cannot ever feel the changes because his body is designed different. He is designed to be “external,” to be out there to be the protector of her and their little “shoot.” He is there for strong things.
Her body is designed for “internal” things for inner knowing and understanding and nurturing and feeding and hearing, whilst his is designed to spark the new “twig” and then protect it. This is why it is always understood that men and women are very equal but very different. Alone neither can create, together they make a future. They are designed for particular understandings and labours. One the outer and one the inner. One without the other cannot exist. Each depends on the other for life. She draws life invisibly from him and returns it in a more visible and beautiful way, a baby made from their very essences.
Why have I laboured so much on this explanation? Because unless somehow we begin to slowly bring “woman” to understand her design and to love her design and take back her design then abortion will always be a normal as we have in the last 30‐50 years made it a
normal. Abortion will be “the answer” (in difficulties) because the woman has not understood
her value, her design, her partnership in the ongoing work in creation.
She has lost the vision and unless somehow we resurrect this vision no amount of laws will do anything to change the idea that abortion (death of a baby, a twig, a shoot, a future) is only a small thing and then a return back to normal and to building castles.
I have heard these words thousands of times and thousands of times I have needed to explain that once there is a conception there cannot ever be a return to being a being a “maiden” there cannot ever be a return to being pre pregnant or feeling like a pre pregnant woman.
Once there is a conception even if the conception is for short time her design has been permanently changed and the thoughts about “baby of my womb” will never leave her. Even into old age when the memory of the loss actually becomes stronger.
My precious friend who led to this discussion, next question to me was “what about those women, girls who don’t feel anything about the baby in her womb? And women who after birth can’t bond with their baby, or even women who kill their babies after birth. What about them?” what about their design? And these are good questions because all of these things actually do happen. We read about them daily in our newsfeeds, and my answer to her and here is that wherever there are these things occurring then there has been a disconnection with her own feminine self. A distancing has occurred which has left her flailing and lost to her own self.
Something has occurred which changed negatively her design. Some deep wound from which her feminine being escaped to avoid the pain and she has not ever found her way back. This is when help is deeply needed. To feel nothing for the child she is taking to be killed says to me that there has been a total disengagement so that she can proceed with what she believes she needs/has to do. This is her self‐protection against her own emotional meltdown (which of course happens later). The answer to the question of why there is at times is no bonding with one’s own child, the answer is similar. Her feminine has withdrawn so as not to become attached and be hurt. In her being there is a hint of a memory of pain as child. Of deeply un understood loss. Of loving someone so much (Mum/ Dad/other) and love not returned or perceived as not returned or gone. Perhaps her own loss or perhaps another.
But for this mum there is a memory of pain of a child and possibly abandonment. And for the question why do some mothers murder their own children, this again has memory of pain linked to it. A memory of fear, dread, distortedness. disassociation, woundedness. A disconnection. An abandonment and even a long endured rage. Perhaps even a jealousy. A pain so deep that her own feminine essence has gone into recess not responding or recognising her feminine being.
Perhaps even a revenge against lost love of lost feminine. This, I say, because woman’s design is such that it is to be drawn towards her infant, and indeed other infants, So when there is such an aberration then the feminine has been deeply wounded, deeply buried, even absent through never having learned, identified or known about herself as feminine. Cold detached parenting ensures cold, absent, detached feminine and thus distance from her own feminine.
Not the physical or intellectual or even perhaps some aspect of the emotional but her feminine has been deeply wounded. So wounded that she does not know how to be the feminine of her design. She does not recognise her design. She is aghast at what she has created (her child). It’s outside of her own feminine understanding. It is alien to her. It frightens her and she wants to run from it and destroy it. This is why we at time read some horror stories about mothers killing their own children, and we are saddened and even horrified by them.
God doesn’t make mistakes in his designs, however human beings can corrupt the design. Children are designed to learn incrementally, that is, little by little, age correct, and by age correct I mean when something cannot be understood because cognitively the child is too immature for such information. It cannot be learned at this time, so when there is a negative interruption of the natural learning sequence an imprint of this negatively disastrous event/events are the consequences.
I started this discussion with “the law” and abortion and my understanding of abortion and why “the law” won’t really do much though it’s imperative to ensure that laws are in place to safeguard where and if possible. Indeed as part of a many pronged effort.
As I said earlier, I believe we (prolifers and people of goodwill) need to re‐educate, re tell the story of woman, to re‐educate, re tell the story of woman and help her believe that her own personal story is so magnificent as a woman. Not as a mechanical woman. Not as a woman called to do all the male tasks but as a woman who understands her design and the importance of that design. She has been entrusted with the enfleshing of love.
God has entrusted the future into her hands, into her care and for that to have happened he must have designed her with the capability of doing this work. Which is to love like He has loved and from that love to flow out another and continuous love. He trusted her. Every woman has a womb (no male has this). Every woman has built in her body the way to feed her child with nourishment she has made herself and which cannot ever be bought (no male can do this except through a bottle). This should bring woman to her knees in great awe. Not as a manager of a building site but that she can make the nourishment for her child from her very body. Awesome.
In her book The Eternal Woman Gertrude Von Le Fort writes about motherhood “to be a mother, to feel maternally, means to turn especially to the helpless, to incline lovingly and helpfully to every small and weak thing upon the earth.” (p78). Finally, those of us who work in this prolife vineyard we need to work together to help “woman” relearn who she is. The media, the feminist movement, the funded people, the hugely funded abortion industry have done a big work of confusing “her.” Of having blinded her to who she really is.
Von Le Fort has further to say “those who devote their loving attention to these victims of our decadent society know that the wound created in their souls is so deep that only God’s grace can heal it” p 78).
We who work in this vineyard (pro‐lifers in whatever way) know that the soul of woman is deeply wounded post abortion and some work to save the baby and save the mother, and some work to heal the soul of the woman after the fact. (People like me) knowing and understanding this fact of different wound and pain.
We each in our own charisms have many on our newsletter lists we need to begin with these contacts and help them to then speak words of encouragement to those we know need to know and understand who they really are. Help those who are feeling sick unto death (Jn11:4). Our priests, pastors, bishops, even Pope, Rabbis, need to speak to women and help them understand their magnificence.
Not the necessity to be employed to make up quotas of males and female staff members, but to help in the understanding of “male” and “female” in their original design. Abortion, is the last and cruellest attack against the woman and society. Society goes the way the woman goes. Woman deeply confused and lost and wounded, society confused, lost and wounded.
The way of the family which is nursed and cherished and nurtured by woman is a visible image of society and the Church. Woman wounded, family wounded, church wounded.
Woman confused, children confused and a hatred of parents, authority, love. Again into her hands He entrusted the future. A future which can either be healthy and beautiful or slowly self‐destroying.
It won’t be easy and it is not an “instant coffee” project. It may take several generations but someone said something about journey starting with first step. We need to set out on this first step. Together we set out to heal woman, and with that humanity will also be healed because the heart of humanity (woman) is again whole. It’s not divided in grief looking and weeping like Rachael for lost children and the lost generations. (Jer. 32:15, Mt 2:18).
The focus of our awareness becomes the reality of our world said Niels Bohr (Nobel Prize winner) in 1927, and Niels Werner Heisenberg (Physicists) in The Copenhagen Experiment.
Our awareness now is limited and disjointed and unsure and unclear, and we, as pro‐lifers, will not be able to tackle and defeat this aberration called abortion unless we focus on changing this awareness to a culture of life and love and generosity. This we must do because those who demand abortion are focused, prepared, clear, funded and secure in their beliefs, so they ensure that their beliefs become the reality. We must also work with the same clear determined focus of healing, restoring woman to her beautiful design and in the meantime trying to save her and saving babies. Indeed saving babies and their mothers who will grieve after the event or if not grieve run and hide from grief through the medium of the loss of her feminine self and self-destructive behaviours.
Why run from grief? Because there is pain, guilt, shame, regret and the knowledge that at the core of her being that her malaise and grief continues in order to hold the life story of the other (baby) in existence and in life. Grief can be a redeeming emotion. The knowledge that her baby was created to belong to the human family and has a place in life. So grieving maintains the life story of the child not here in existence but here in memory. Even those who profess not to feel anything about their abortion, in fact do feel and remember because even years after the event they still remember, date, time, place, gestation.
They still may be able to say “it hasn’t affected me” but indeed it has, because they still
remember and in this way maintain a connection with their baby. This is the reason why woman grieves because the life story of the other, her baby, has been destroyed and with her participation.
The new awakening and re telling of the story cannot be spoken and heard unless this story speaks of life, and we need to remember that no new story telling can be heard easily by the generations which have been nourished by the spirit of death. So the new narrators must speak first to the heart of woman who is the heart of humanity and speak in the language of the heart. The language that the woman was meant to speak and the language embedded in her being. Embedded in the mystery which is part of the team called male and female.
