CHILDREN OF "FRIGHTFULNESS."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11359, 10 April 1915, Page 4

CHILDREN OF "FRIGHTFULNESS."

(By ULLDA THOMPSON, m the " Clarion.")

1 waft much interested i.n an article by Mr Max Pemherton. v lueh appeared in the. " Weekly Di.-tpateh " ot February 14. In thai article Mr I'ejiilverton wrote about the plight of many women —among whom are counted young girln and nuns--who are now expectant, moth erst through German " frightJ'ulno&s " in Franco and Belgium. He quoted the advice attributed to some unnamed and unknown Belgian priest. This priest is said to have advised all such women to destroy the babes thus born to them, and assured them in the name of his church that no blame could be attached to them for such an act. Th.iti priest has since been repudiated by Father Yaughan, who says, that inquiries have failed to trace him or to locate the convent whose nuns are said to have been violated. But we are assured from other sources that groat numbers of women in France, and Belgium arc* facing the prospect of motherhood' as the effect of ruffianly outrage, and Mr Peniberton in his article dwelt upon the horror and suffering and. agony these women have already been through, and on that, which is istill in store for t.hem. And lie jusked that in this great difficulty the cllurches should give a lead a:nd show a light upon the thorny pathway. This the churches to some extent, .have done, and if Mr Pemberton's article proved interesting, the replies of tho church dignitaries prove oven more so. The " Dispatch " for February 21 contains tho opinions of the Bit-hops ot Oxford and Chelmsford. .Bishop Wolid'on of Manchester, Archdeacon Wilberforce, Sir Oliver Lodge, tho liev F. B. Meyer, the Chief Rabbi, Father Bernard Vaughan, Hev G. Campbell Morgan, etc., etc. And tho opinion of these notables is that the sanctity of human life must be preserved. Tho women shall bear their children, and. says Dr Gore, Bishop of Oxford, " T have no doubt a-s to what is their duty, viz., in every way to promote the life anil' hen Ith of their offspring." Yes, at such a time as this, when the whole civilised world is gone mad and is reeling under the greatest wholesale murder ever committed, we still prat© glibly about the sanctity of human life. The sanctity of human life, forsooth! When the papers are full of murder hoi Tors; when every woman is exhorted by the State to do her duty by sending her men folic out to murder or be murdered; when every man is cajoled and coerced and forced' from sense of shame to go willingly to the slaughter and not to wait until the State compels him. Y\ e believe we are murdering in order that such murder in the future shall bo impossible. We must, believe it, else we are like to go mad with the horror and despair of it all. And for the same reason., perhaps, wo must still believe in that time-worn formula, the sanctity of human life.

Therefore, as I eipected, the church upholds the old view. Young girls, nuns and women of all ages and classes must bear the scourge put upon them, oven as our helpless men are bearing the scourge and horror of a war they do not desire. It is very interesting. If the whole question were presented to ua as a story, we should be intensely interested, but we should look upon the question as fiction. Probablv, too. sequels would be written to show how the children turned out who were born under _ such extreme circumstances. Educationists aJid' engeimts, too, would probably write tomes upon heredity and such like, and the question would become red-hot for a while. But there seems to me on© side of the question which might bo overlooked—one which go far has been overlooked in this discussionof the roal thing. And that is the point of view judged not from the mother's standpoint nor from the Church's ideal standpoint, but merely from the standpoint of tho child itaelf. My question ia not whether we have the right to destroy life-—we have too often proved that right—but have we the right to permit life under certain conditions'!' What of the child born, uuder these present-day "certain conditions"? What of its future? The Bishop of Oxford says tho mother's duty is to promote the welfare and health of a babe which perhaps not even tho innate mother instinct can teach her to.love. What sort of mother can she then prove to the helpless, hapless babe? This natural mothering instinct may prove the salvation of both babe and mother, in some cases. But if not, what sort of future is there for tho poor little creature born without lovo and living in hate? Suppose, as is suggested by some, a foundling hospital shall be the futurehomo of tho now-born babe; or that some sort of State aid be devised for such babes as their own mothers cannot care for. What then? The question I ask myself as I do in many other such cases, is: By what right do we permit a poor, wee, helpless, unwanted creature to be born to such a life,

A foundling hospital. State control. Care of religious bodies. A form of charity these all must bo, and arc, even if arrangements bo of the very best—the sort of thing uo tenderhearted mothor would wish for her loved chill could she save it from them. Have we the sight, has tho Ohuroh, the right to decree that lifo shall be bom to such adverse conditions? I cannot hold with such an opinion. To say this is. to lay myself open to long and bitter argument. .But the faith that, rightly or wrongly, is in me says that no child should be born to a life of predestined woe. My belief in the sanctity of human life is ve.rV different, and I hold that the right of every child to a welcome birt.n ajid mother's lovo and ca.ro is tho highest and most sanctified right of All. .1 cannot conceive a more barbarons, more mistaken, and hideous law than that which keeps a, condemned woman nlive until her child is bora and then hangs her—mistaken, barbarous, and hideous from the mother's point of view, but n thousandfold more s'o for the hapless weo babe. And so I am dead up against the Churches and all the learned men and—God bless my soul!—women, too. who believe that these present-day hapless babes .shall willv-nilly suffer birth. But as a matter of fact, the right to decide should lie not with outsiders, but with the women themselves. Theirs is the horror and suffering. Theirs also the right to decide. I had it on tho authority of two sad-faced Belgian officers that this disgracing of tlie women of France and Belgium was a pre-conceived plan and official command to German soldiers in order that a raco of Germans might bo left in the conquered countries. Also that the command held good for English women when "The Day " arrived. This I told to a charming woman of my acquaintance, ono who is a happy wife and mother of two fine children. She flushed, then spoke her thought. And what this womanly British mother said was: "I should kill myself or the child." And I feel that one of the two courses ' would bo mino. But in any case the deeison lies with tho wo men themselves. No ono else has any right to judge for them. According as tlieir decision is, so shall our help and sympathy and the best aid of science be guaranteed.