With an estimated 250 pre-born babies killed by abortion in South Africa daily, Christians are urged to stand for life by participating in either the National March for Life in Durban or a life chain in Cape Town, East London or Bloemfontein.
Sunday October 7 is International Life Chain Sunday, a day on which pro-life Christians in SA join pro-life believers around the world in protesting against abortion. As many as a million Christians in approximately 1 600 locations worldwide have previously participated in life chains (peaceful prayer and placard protests against abortion).
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The National March for Life is organised by the National Alliance for Life (NAL), an affiliation of pro-life churches and organisations.
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The Christian pro-life stance, that abortion is murder, is based on the fact that the Bible and medical science make clear — life begins at conception.
Rejecting informed consent
Developments in parliament this year have not been encouraging for pro-lifers.
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On May 9 the Parliamentary Health Portfolio Committee’s formally rejected ACDP MP Cheryllyn Dudley’s Private Member’s Bill to Amend the CTOP (Abortion) Act. This Bill would have stopped some abortions and saved some mothers lives by providing for ultrasounds and informative, mandatory counselling for all women considering abortion.
It is interesting to note the pro-abortion bias of the Parliamentary Health Portfolio Committee in rejecting the Bill. Their report stated that routine pre-abortion ultrasounds can “bias the content of counselling (which should be non-directive)” and “put pressure on the woman to change her decision, by facilitating feelings of guilt”. In other words, they were saying that many women choose not to have an abortion after seeing their pre-born baby’s developing body on the screen.
It should be noted that non-directive counselling is actually, by default, pro-abortion counselling, because not to explain the reality of the development of the baby in the womb and the physical and psychological risks of abortion for the mother, is to deliberately lie,
Promoting euthanasia
A Bill that would also exacerbate the culture of death in South Africa was released in August by COPE MP Deidre Carter. Carter’s euthanasia or “Advance Health Care Directives” Private Member’s Bill, if accepted by Parliament, would be a stepping stone to legalising euthanasia.
Carter’s euthanasia Bill was pushed by pro-euthanasia lobby Embrace Dignity. Carter also spoke at their International Federation of Right to Die Societies Conference September in Cape Town last week.
The deadline for comment on the first draft of the Bill was August 22, but there will be further opportunity to make submissions.
Sanctity of life
Both euthanasia and abortion target the weak and defenceless. Legal euthanasia puts the lives of the elderly, terminally ill and those with disabilities under threat.
The pro-euthanasia lobby claims that the vulnerable would not be targeted, however evidence from countries where euthanasia is legal, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, shows that thousands of patients have been euthanised without their consent by nurses or doctors.
Pro-life groups uphold the sanctity of life – that every life is valuable to God, from conception to natural death. More than 70 crisis pregnancy centres, mothers’ homes and baby homes across South Africa provide women with loving alternatives and practical support, not just one choice – abortion – that pro-abortionists often coerce women into choosing.
Doctors for Life and many other Christian groups each care for hundreds of orphans.
Stand for life
Abortion is also the violation of the most basic constitutional right – the right to life of the pre-born. When a nation devalues it’s most helpless and innocent citizens and allows them to be slaughtered in their millions, it is no wonder that all other life is treated as cheap.
It is an urgent priority for the Church to expose, oppose and end this mass killing of children made in the image of God.
National March for Life and countrywide life chain details:
Durban: Sunday, October 7, National March for Life, 2.30 – 5pm, corner of Centenary Blvd and Zenith Drive, near Gateway Mall, Umhlanga. Contact: mail@dfl.org.za , 032 – 481 5550.
East London: Saturday, October 6: 11am – 12 noon, corner of Oxford Street and St Matthew’s Roads. Contact Frans: 082 774 6649.
Bloemfontein: Daily protests and prayer vigils from 6.30am to 10.30am outside the National District Hospital and Marie Stopes. Contact Faan Oosthuizen: 083 265 9395, sdoosthuizen@xsinet.co.za.
Cape Town: Sunday October 7, 2pm – 4pm. Traffic island in Buitengracht Street, near entrance to Waterfront. Contact: Africa Christian Action: 021 -689 4480 or info@christianaction.org.za.
