A great pro-choice response from a pro-choice Southlander to an anti-choicer who has quite obviously not experienced childbirth himself.
Letter to the Southland Times 27/7/12
So many letters have been written to your paper recently about abortion and the cut and thrust of that very important discussion has been played out in front of a mostly pre-convinced audience.
Don’t you think all of us need to celebrate together the beauty of the human in it’s earliest moments?
The beauty of a baby as it takes shape in its mother – hands slowly forming and reaching out – the face already taking on character and expression – the beautiful fluid filled cavity it occupies inside its mother safe and snug as she carries it forward to that historic day when the child bursts into our amazing world on that day that will forever be remembered as its birthday.
The wisps of hair, and thoughts. What thoughts are racing through its tiny mind as powerful forces propel it towards the hands of the waiting physician and into the arms of the overawed parent/s.
The emails and messages go out, often globablly – It’s a girl – or a boy – hearts start racing somewhere else when the grandparent realises that despite what the mirror says something, something of who I am is carrying on and generations from now that child will continue that which was started and begun in me.
Soon the circumstances of the child’s beginning and the persuasive, dated weak philosophy left over in the pending file from the 20th century are relegated to the rubbish bin in the astounding beautiful face of the newborn filled with promise and hope for the future.
Who would dispense with it now?
Psalm 139:13 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
John Gullick
Minister
Riversdale-Waikaia Presbytarian Community Church
Letter to the Southland Times 31/7/12
John Gullick wants us to celebrate the beauty of the human in its earliest moments, but let’s not forget to celebrate the women involved.
He talks of “the beautiful fluid filled cavity it occupies inside its mother safe and snug”. Putting aside the fact that the womb is probably the least safe place for a baby (given that the US National Institutes of Health state that 15-20% of known pregnancies miscarry, and up to 50% of fertilized eggs spontaneously abort), let’s not forget that the foetus depends entirely on the woman for life. Everything she does, everything she eats and drinks, every choice she makes while pregnant can affect the foetus. That’s a lot of pressure over many months – stressful when the pregnancy is wanted, let alone unwanted.
And then, according to Mr Gullick, “the child bursts into our amazing world”. Rather an odd description of an event that usually involves a lot of hard work and pain on the part of the mother, and sometimes medical support and/or intervention.
Highly amusing that Mr Gullick chooses to talk of “dated weak philosophy … from the 20th century” and then goes on to quote from a book based on 2000 year old beliefs, which approves the subjugation of women, slavery, and capital punishment.
Thanks for giving us the traditional Christian viewpoint, focussed on the unborn child, with almost complete negation of the woman. God creates the child – women are just incubators.
Please trust women with their “beautiful fluid filled cavities”.
K Perwick
Invercargill
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