Susan (not her real name) is in her 20s and told The Record why she took part in the Walk and Rally for Life on May 22.
What has been your personal experience of the issue?
Abortion was one of those touchy subjects that I tried to avoid and ignore until it just couldn’t be ignored anymore. One of my best friends, a Catholic girl who was engaged to be married, told a group of friends that she had an abortion … She just killed her baby. I couldn’t relate to this, but I could feel her pain at that moment. It wasn’t an easy choice for her, surely. So I asked her why she did it. It turned out that abortion wasn’t exactly her ‘choice’. She wanted to keep the baby but her fiancé was worried about the financial and emotional dilemma that would come with a child. Moreover, they’re in the middle of planning for a wedding. And, of course, there was the general cloud of shame and guilt that hangs over being a pregnant bride on the wedding day – her getting pregnant wasn’t exactly part of the plan. So together they’ve made the decision to abort the child in her womb. After I went home, I reflected on everything I’d been told and was confused as to what I was supposed to do? My friend just made a bad choice, but it was not unlawful. It wasn’t exactly a crime, or was it?
Why did you decide to attend the Walk and Rally for Life?
The issue that I have with abortion is that human life is not respected for its own sake but is treated as a thing to be acquired, or discarded, according to personal lifestyle and convenience.
Christopher West said, “If marriage is the fundamental cell of society, sexual union is the fountainhead of culture. “Oriented toward love and life, it builds a culture of love and life. Oriented against love and life, it builds a culture of utility and death.” Premarital sex may lead to unwanted pregnancy, and it may lead to abortion. Surely, this isn’t the way God wanted to reveal his life and love in the created world.
How did you find the Walk as an event? And how did you find the experience of public witness?
It made me feel connected to the Pro-Life community and it was inspiring to see Church leaders together with WA Pro-Life politicians at work together on this issue and, to my surprise, praying over the city of Perth and the State for an end to legal abortion. I think the Walk was an act of putting faith into action. As the group braved the cool evening chills to walk down Fraser Avenue in King’s Park and Malcolm Street to Parliament House, we showed strength in numbers. I pray that the Holy Spirit will move us forward, as we get bigger and bigger every year until our parliamentarians take notice and put an end to legal abortion.
Are you optimistic or pessimistic about changing attitudes towards life, and why?
Like I said before, abortion was one of those touchy subjects that I tried to avoid and ignore. Until it happened to my friend. So, as (people) begin to understand how victims of abortions are not only the children themselves, but also their mothers, fathers, grandparents, brothers and sisters who carry the hurts and wounds of the loss of the baby, hopefully [they] will start to reflect on this issue and, next year, join in solidarity with other Western Australians as we resiliently fight this ‘culture of death’ and choose life. The Walk and Rally for Life was organised by the WA Coalition for the Defence of Human Life.