Greymouth Evening Star. MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 1948. Abortion Evil

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 August 1948, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 1948. Abortion Evil

THE Christchurch branch of the National 1 Council of Women is to be congratulated on its decision to support Air KG,. Gerard, M.P. for Ashburton, in the important question he has raised in die House of Representatives- regarding the sentences imposed in the Supreme Court at Christchurch on a man and a woman who had appeared on charges of the unlawful use of an instrument to procure abortion. It was stated in the report, of the court proceedings that the deaths qt two women had resulted; If such a thing as a public conscience remains in a country in which widespread disrespect for lav has been encouraged by the fostering ol pagan philosophy both in the moral and political sphere’s, then surely that conscience must have been shocked by the lightness of the sentences imposed. The prisoners were given terms of probation, three years in one ease and two years in the other. It, is not out of place to cite here, for purposes of contrast, the treatment meted out to a 74-year-old pensioner in the Supreme Court at Gisborne on the following day. Convicted on a charge of receiving a stolen handbag,, he was sentenced to IS months’ imprisonment with hard labour. The prisoner may have a “record” the press message did not say so —but acceptance of the view 7 that, he deserved the penalty imposed does not detract from the merit of the contrast.

The abominable crime of abortion is widely practised in New* Zealand. Over 10 years ago, the McMillan Report—the summary of the findings of an exhaustive inquiry—quoted evidence which disclosed that about 6000 abortions were procured in New Zealand each year. These were the knowm cases only, lhe report stated, and it was estimated that the total, known and unknown, could not be loss than 20,000. Owing, no doubt, to the difficulty of detection, few such crimes come before the courts. And when they do, few convictions result.

The notorious reluctance of juries to convict in such cases, even on the strongest evidence, may reasonably be taken as symptomatic of a growing acceptance of the practice of abortion as a human right. This deplorable trend is a matter of vital importance —far more so than seems generallv to be believed. A nation that puts obstacles in the way of the stream of new life coming into its world will go down, not merely because its numbers will decrease, but even more because it will fail in the spiritual and moral qualities that should be its real strength. The law of this land does not place abortion in the same category as murder, but it is undoubtedly true that there are many people who do —and who can quote a wellreasoned moral case in support.' Bui even those who shelter their beliefs under the wide awning of lhe law’, or who are -well-nigh completely pagan in outlook, cannot deny that the least possible view is that abortion means the direct prevention of the birth of an innocent human life. The logic of lhe question should surely suggest that no motive of love, of social fears, or fears of poverty and ill-h'ealth (so ollen illusions) can make abortion right any more Ilian they could make suicide morally right. In the' latter case, the life involved has the choice of destroying itself or not; it can exercise free will. In the former case, that of abortion, the life involved has no choice; it is destroyed by other hands —hands that destroy defenceless life, hands that slaughter the innocents.