Tasmanian PM: Students “haven’t lived long” enough to protest abortion
I think that people will look at that and think that’s a step too far…. I find it really abhorrent to see the sort of campaign that’s been raised now on a really sensitive issue.
I’m concerned to see young kids involved in a debate like this.
There was a good point made in some of the commentary that I saw, that these young people are at an age that they haven’t actually lived long in the life to experience the competing issues that adults have to confront in their lifetime.
~ Pro-abortion Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings (pictured above right; click to enlarge), commenting on silent protests at the Parliament involving “more than 200 people… [including] young children – some in school uniform… rall[ying] against proposed changes to the state’s laws to allow abortions up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy,” as quoted by ABC News, April 10
Video at link.

I wish people would stop letting their kids go to protests.
But everyone should talk to their kids about abortion (at the parent’s discretion on age, of course). Does this person think kids should never learn about it until they are faced with a situation where someone could try to influence them to have one?
I really hate to see young kids involved in abortion.
Especially the ones that lose their lives.
Yes Jack. Kids can have their own abortions but NOT stand up for life!! OY.
Yeah, I’m concerned about the young kids involved in this, too – the ones who die. Some of those young protesters have probably lost siblings or friends’ siblings. Abortion touches everyone and it’s a tragedy.
Personally I’m proud of those kids for actually taking a public stand on an issue they care about – it doesn’t happen enough these days.
And Jack, I do get what you’re saying. However, there are also some young kids (moi when I was younger) who actually *wanted* to go to protests because they care about issues. Do you have a problem with that or is it just parents dragging their young to protests that you don’t like?
My daughter wants to go with me. She wants to stand with her mom. She knows that others don’t appreciate my I Regret My Abortion sign and she stays by my side. She has also offered to hold my sign for me. :)
She wants to pray even though babies are dying and mothers are being wounded in the mill behind us.
She is the future of the prolife movement.
Jack,
What about Maggie? She WANTS to be involved in this, and I think she has the right, too. I mean, frankly, I think she has more of a right than I do to stand up for and speak for children whose lives hang in the balance. She was on those scales, once. I don’t see why someone has to have lived through a certain (amount of) event(s) in order to speak out about this. If anything, I’d think one’s perspective could be skewed by self-serving rationalizations over time and distort one’s reasoning the longer they’ve been away from having been “the clump of cells” whose life is in question. What better perspective to protest the killing of these people than as someone who was recently among their number themselves?
Does this person think kids should never learn about it until they are faced with a situation where someone could try to influence them to have one?
Of course! It’s a lot easier to get someone in the stirrups if they’re uneducated about the subject, and once they’ve had their abortion, facts are going to be irrelevant to them from that point forward, because the denial/anger/misery-loves-company mindset will take over and then she can take her place as the one trying to get someone in the stirrups so she can join “The Sisterhood”. They’ve lost the debate. They know this. They lose when it gets down to the facts of the matter. So now, their only hope is to play a numbers game and try and get as many people as possible to participate in this barbarism so that their conscience is killed and facts become irrelevant to them, as well.
Because the people who say “Well, *I* had an abortion, and it was the best thing since sliced bread because I *HAD* to!! YOU DON’T KNOW ME! DON’T YOU DARE JUDGE ME! YOU HAVEN’T LIVED IN *MY* SHOES!!!” (or, “My sister/mother/aunt/girlfriend/friend had an abortion, and she had to! It would’ve ruined her life if she didn’t! I love her, and she can do no wrong! I can’t look at this objectively, because otherwise I’d have to come to terms with the fact that someone I love isn’t perfect!!! WHY DO YOU HATE SO MUCH?!”) aren’t going to listen to facts, nor do they care about facts, anyway. They’re just trying to get more Germans in the church so they can sing louder.
Children have the sort of moral clarity that we lose along the way. It’s refreshing, actually. As one of the very few pro-lifers in my community, I am obligated to explain to my 3 kids why Mom has a Choose Life license plate on the van, why we often pray in church for the unborn and their parents, why Barack Obama and anyone who supports him are complicit in 3500 deaths a day, and why we will continue to rally around our local CPC.
Abortion as a social justice issue is an important idea for our youth to embrace. Because as soon as you get home from a vigil or protest with them, they are going to be hit with an agenda that is antithetical to one you are trying to instill. More kids at protests!More kids praying! This will mean more kids are sent out into the world with mercy in their hearts for the least of us.
xalisae
April 11, 2013 at 9:40 am
Your last two paragraphs just made my day.
I just think protests are dangerous, I just think it’s safer to keep kids out of it. I see people bringing their toddlers to protest clinics and stuff and I think that’s dangerous. If people want to bring their kids it’s their business but I wouldn’t bring mine.
Hey Jack,
I only bring my daughter to the Good Friday Prayer Vigil. Thousands throughout the day come to pray. Not protest.
There is a police presence and barricades set up between the pray ERS and the PP partiers dressed in pink.
I hear you though about safety. Some of those proaborts are VIOLENT!!
Especially the ones inside the mills.
Dangerous, how?
I don’t know when I was a kid I was spit on and shoved and all that at clinics. If people are killing children in the womb I don’t see how it’s unreasonable to think some of them would hurt a child outside the womb. Plus it’s an emotionally charged environment, people lost their heads easily. Protests in general can devolve to violence pretty quickly
Yeah Carla I don’t see a problem with a kid being at a prayer meeting or whatever. I am concerned when it’s actually protest.
Lol, Carla, you’re too quick! Yes, I know the risks because I’ve been flipped off and worse. But I wanted to see if anyone would say out loud from whom the danger comes. Though pro-abortion defenders are strangely comforted by the murders of abortionists, the real blood runs inside the buildings and plumbers can attest to that.
I am willing to bet if these kids were “protesting” for her side of the debate she would give them high 5’s for being there.
Thanks, Kel.
its these kids GENERATION that is being wiped out! My generation is the one that already has lost 1/3 since I was born in 1979. And its amazing how some children can see the baby on the truth truck and see the truth but the adults can NOT.
I think by 10 years old, if a child knows where a baby comes from (but NOT the “details”) they can protest abortion!
Knowing where babies come from protects children from protest violence how?
I am torn about taking my children to vigils (I don’t do protests honestly, seen enough violence to last a lifetime as a PO back in the day).
Plus mama bear pregnancy hormones aren’t a good mix when trying to show nasty people Jesus-like behavior and they are talking about hurting your children…esp since I was also trained as a PO to take down people a lot bigger than I am….ok so I’m going to wait a while before going to one probably!
In our tiny little-big town our local pregnancy centers (4 going on 5) kick our one lone abortion mill’s heiny though and we do pray with 40 days for life during our family time as well. Our church is also extremely dedicated to supporting our local PCs (pastor is on the board of one) and the PCs are dedicated to supporting the mom’s as long as they need (so they get taken advantage of but hey so did Jesus)
On another note completely, I’m going to look up the history of Tasmania, I had no idea they had so many whites! I guess colonial history?
”I’m going to look up the history of Tasmania, I had no idea they had so many whites! I guess colonial history?”
Tasmania is a province of Australia, so yes it is because of colonialism that they have so many whites.
I don’t know when I was a kid I was spit on and shoved and all that at clinics. If people are killing children in the womb I don’t see how it’s unreasonable to think some of them would hurt a child outside the womb. Plus it’s an emotionally charged environment, people lost their heads easily. Protests in general can devolve to violence pretty quickly.
Okay, I can respect this, actually. I don’t agree with it for various reasons that I won’t go into, but this is a valid concern and you have personal experience to back it up. Props for that.
Thank you Alice. I don’t normally have opinions that are totally out there with no basis for them people! :D
Why shouldn’t these young people exercise their constitutional rights? How else are they going to gain real life experiences and come to understand the competing issues adults face? The kids in Tasmania were outside the Parliment building. I would hope it is safe enough there.
Sometimes it is the baby and child’s presence outside the abortion mill that spurs the mother going in to change her mind. I expect parents to use their discretion, knowledge of the neighborhood and their child to decide whether or not it is appropriate for their child to take part.
“ these young people are at an age that they haven’t actually lived long in the life to experience the competing issues that adults have to confront in their lifetime.”
Sometimes living longer just doesn’t make you smarter.
So these young people are not old enough to “get it” about abortion, but they are old enough to have an abortion?
How convenient for a greedy abortion industry that thrives on lies, deceit, misinformation, lack of information and not offering choices and options. Such hypocrisy.
I don’t know how long abortion has been legal in Tasmania or just what the laws are, but in the USA it has been a 40 years since Roe v Wade and everyone growing up now has grown up with legalized abortion on demand. A large portion of their generation, their brothers and sisters and fellow students, have been lost. They have as much invested in the abortion “issue” as any of us, if not more.
If they want to protest and their parents want them to, I think they should by all means protest. Yes there are safety concerns but that’s up to the parents and the children. It’s also up to governments to make sure pro-life protestors are kept safe and allowed to exercise their rights without fear.
Personally, I probably wouldn’t bring a small child to a protest, but it depends on the type of protest, the location, the crowd etc. And I don’t know for sure because I don’t have a small child now.
Of course I have actually only participated in one protest, years ago. My participation is in prayer vigils with 40 Days for Life. I think I would bring smaller children to these. In fact, my pregnant daughter brought my grandchild to the last one during Lent!
Certainly anyone old enough to have an abortion should be able to protest abortion.
Can someone tell me what people have their kids do at protests? I have really just avoided all videos, etc, with children at these things forever because bad memories and all. I’m just wondering why people would think it’s appropriate. I know most of you are reasonable people and there must be something I’m missing here. I remember my mom would push me in front of people and have me tell them that they were murdering their babies and yada yada, I doubt that’s what everyone does but I am curious what usually goes on.
At the walk for life, this year, I saw a family that included a boy of about 7 or 8. He began to start a chant of ‘we love babies..’ and the crowd around him took it up. He was so empowered by that! I bet he remembers it for a long time.
@Jack: I didn’t think you had no basis. But the usual “too young” objection is founded on the idea that children can’t possibly understand what abortion “really means.” Now I can agree that children under the age of ~10 are not moral authorities. When it is a matter of course that you have to explain to someone that it is wrong to hit other people just because you want their things, clearly their grasp of right and wrong needs tweaking. But young children are the targets of abortion, and therefore involved, and are perfectly capable of understanding what abortion is when it is explained. And the fact that children nearly universally hate the very thought of abortion is actually incredibly damning. Because if even the people who aren’t 100% solid on the not-hitting-people thing all agree something is wrong, it’s got to be really bad.
The vast majority of the time, you only hear how children are not involved in the abortion debate and couldn’t understand it anyway so they shouldn’t be there. To hear you put forward safety concerns backed by reasonable argument that in no way impugns a child’s involvement or ability to comprehend what is going is fairly unusual and actually pretty refreshing.
Jack,
I would probably just have my daughter work with me to come up with a sign that she’d feel comfortable holding, alongside my own, and stand there holding it. Although, I wouldn’t have to hold up a picture of her with her standing there. I’d be able to tell the people going in that her father wanted me to abort her. She’d do so much by just standing there with me.
(I was signed up to do a Saturday w/her last 40 Days for Life, but my grandmother passed away and we were called out of state, or else we both would’ve been there. But, the above was what I had planned. And the second it became too much for her or she said she wanted to go home, we would’ve left immediately.)
Jack, I understand your concern. Because I have been threatened with rape outside of my local abortion clinic and been cursed at etc…
But this past Tuesday I took my one year old. I took him mainly because I felt so compelled to go there and pray and offer help to the women and I didn’t have child care. But yes I was concerned. I would get out of there in a minute if I thought my children were in danger. I also took him because he is just so darn cute and though I can’t get really close to the women to talk to them they see me standing there by the drive holding my cuddly baby and yes I want their hearts to be pricked when they see my son’s chubby arms clutching my neck. I want to speak to that maternal spark in them.
When a woman is going to a clinic to have her child killed it can really prick at her heart to see other children standing there. Thats why I do it. But my husband really doesn’t like me to do it. Sometimes I leave them home.
I am full of stories about young children, pre-teens, and teenagers who bravely insist they they want to be part of whatever it takes to help the mommies and the babies.
I have a dear friend who is five years old. The sidewalk is not a fun place for him. But he sometimes asks his mom to take him there, to “pray for the babies.” His parents have tried to shield him from the horror of abortion, but his kindergarten mind has gathered that “Obama wants to hurt the babies,” and that this is where it happens. And somehow, his presence there helps to stop the torture.
Five years old. But he was born into a world of abortion, just as our forefathers were born into a world of slavery. Eventually, we find out about the injustices of the world we live in. And when we do, we want to change it — even while we are too young to fully grasp the horror of it.
I was twelve years old in January of 1973, when the word abortion was first uttered in my home. I remember feeling helpless — I wanted to do something, anything, to prevent this. It took me over thirty years to find my way to the sidewalk. I am genuinely jealous of the kindergarten prayer warriors.
My oldest son was 19 when the first 40 Days campaign was held in Madison. I didn’t know it at the time, but every day he hopped on to his motorcycle at some point and visited the vigil to pray with whomever was standing there. He didn’t know it, but he became a bit of a hero and source of encouragement to the older, retired folks who kept the daytime hours. I learned all of this later, as stories spread through the pro-life community that had developed on the sidewalk.
There’s a special community that grows on the sidewalk. A “church community.” My parental sense of protection tells me that children should not be exposed to the sidewalk — but a higher sense hears the voice of Jesus saying, “Let the children come to Me!”
I whole-hearted support having children, teens, and young adults at the sidewalk. But I am extremely vigilant while they are there — the pro-aborts are vicious and dangerous.
Eleanor Cooney wrote her article, “The Way It Was,” partly because there’s a generation that has grown up post-Roe and she believes many younger people don’t know what it was like in the illegal abortion days. She also wrote it because many articles had been written detailing the horrors of the “Intact Dilation and Extraction” or “Partial Birth Abortion” so she thought “some balance is needed.”
I have asked Cooney if she believes the time will ever come in which abortions aren’t sought because the women who get pregnant are those wanting to have babies. (This is something I believe will happen.) She does not. She believes, “We don’t have sex. Sex has us.” She thinks girls and women will inevitably have impulsive unprotected impregnating sex, inevitably have unplanned pregnancies, and inevitably have abortions.
I’m a bit more optimistic.
Sounds like your friend has impulse control problems. Does she realize that’s not exactly a sign of mental health?
xalisae says:
April 13, 2013 at 3:06 pm
Sounds like your friend has impulse control problems. Does she realize that’s not exactly a sign of mental health?
(Denise) In Cooney’s article, she noted that “there wasn’t even anything interestingly sordid about the sex that led to the pregnancy.” She wasn’t raped or coerced, wasn’t madly in love, or drug, or anything else with drama. She was 17 years old. The boy was a little younger. They were alone together and the sex “happened almost by default.” Just two horny teenagers.
Personally, I hope and believe pregnancies like this will be prevented in the future. She was 4 at the start of her 4th month when she aborted. She had a saline abortion. That’s a pretty gruesome procedure. I’m considerably more optimistic than Eleanor Cooney is.
I’ve read that Norplant can be almost 100% successful in preventing pregnancies and in some studies it actually came off as 100%. However, many of you don’t want teen girls and young women on Norplant or any other effective contraception. Some fear side effects or encouraging irresponsible and destructive partnered sex.
I also believe that teen girls and young women should direct their energies and talents in non-sexual areas. Partnered sex is destructive, spreads diseases, and is often joyless and dull for the female. However, young people often are impulsive and have poor judgment. Contraception should be preferred to tiny arms and legs ripped apart or second trimester fetuses burned and poisoned both inside and out.
Yes. I’ve read the article. Your friend sounds unhinged. But like seeks out like, I suppose, and birds of a feather flock together.
In 1959, when I was a precocious smarty-pants still in grade school, I wrote a fake letter to Doris Blake, theNew York Daily News advice columnist. I pretended to be a teenage girl “in trouble.” I spun a tale of a liquor-soaked prom night and passing out in the back of a car. I included a cast of entirely fictional characters—a worthless boyfriend, a mentally unstable mother, a strict, brutal father. I ended my letter with: “Now I think I am pregnant. Please help me. I am desperate.”
Sane grade school children do not formulate such scenarios, and they certainly don’t ruminate on such a thing long even if concocted by someone else.
She seems to be a damaged attention-seeker, possibly even molested in some manner as a child, I’d wager, to be so absolutely sex-obsessed and possessed. Sex doesn’t “happen by default”. One does not trip and fall on a penis on the way to the store to pick up milk.
That you give what this woman says any sort of consideration is telling.
@ xalisae: We became friends after I wrote to her upon reading the article. I asked the question that seems to mystify so many people: why didn’t she just carry to term and place for adoption. Indeed, this is a bone often chewed over by folks at this blog. I asked: If there was more honor given to birthmothers, would she have carried to term and placed for adoption? She wrote back that I was making a common mistake. It was the “pregnancy itself” that was the problem. She “just wasn’t going to complete the pregnancy.” Thus, adoption was “quite irrelevant.”
She also said that, in “some hypothetical alternative universe” in which she HAD carried to term, there would have been no placing for adoption and “no stigma.”
As far as sex happening “by default”: when people are in the teens and early 20s, they are often quite hormone-addled. Sex is the “natural” thing to do when they are alone together — which is why they shouldn’t be alone together. They often have powerful sexual desires and their judgment isn’t as well-developed as it will be when they mature.
Denise, I’m barely out of my early twenties and it’s always been possible for me to be alone with some woman without having sex. And I’m a dude, and I know you think that we’re all sex-driven animals but that’s not true lol. Teenagers and people in their early twenties (even the males!!) are not sex-crazed animals, they make choices just like older people. Sure, they haven’t learned to handle their hormones all that well, and need to use a bit of caution, but seriously. You act like rationality doesn’t exist and that teens and young adults have no capability of controlling themselves without mom and dad holding their hand.
I haven’t taken my children to protests, but they have prayed with me in front of the abortion clinic. I felt pretty confident in their safety because we have no contact with anyone going in or coming out of the clinic. I leave the talking to the sidewalk counselors and my family just prays.
I did ask my kids if they wanted to participate in a Face the Truth Tour, which involves graphic signs. I drove them by one of the Tour locations first so they could see what it involved. They decided not to participate with me.
@ Jack: I’m trying to be realistic. The fact is that pre-mature partnered sexual activity doesn’t just cause problem pregnancies and spread STDs. It also works against marriage because it short-circuits the “getting-to-know-you” that is vital to marriage. Young people are apt to automatically start at least “necking” to use an old-fashioned term.
This doesn’t help them get to know about the other person’s values, attitudes, beliefs, hobbies, interests, etc. These are what people need to form long-term relationships, especially marriage. Part of the purpose of including a chaperon on a date is to ensure that the people actually learn about each other in important and substantive ways.
Jill Stanek had a previous post in which she noted — correctly — that abortion is linked to not being married and that people are marrying at older and older ages in this culture or not marrying at all. Decreasing sexual temptation may increase the number of marriages in this culture.
People marry because they find someone to be compatible in the ways mentioned above. Sexual compatibility can be worked out on the honeymoon!!!!! That is traditionally part of why you have a honeymoon!!!!!
I asked: If there was more honor given to birthmothers, would she have carried to term and placed for adoption? She wrote back that I was making a common mistake. It was the “pregnancy itself” that was the problem. She “just wasn’t going to complete the pregnancy.” Thus, adoption was “quite irrelevant.”
Aaaand…you were duped by the rationalization she uses to delude and comfort herself. Why am I not surprised? *sigh*
xalisae says:
April 13, 2013 at 10:24 pm
I asked: If there was more honor given to birthmothers, would she have carried to term and placed for adoption? She wrote back that I was making a common mistake. It was the “pregnancy itself” that was the problem. She “just wasn’t going to complete the pregnancy.” Thus, adoption was “quite irrelevant.” Aaaand…you were duped by the rationalization she uses to delude and comfort herself. Why am I not surprised? *sigh*
(Denise) Do you believe that if birthmothers were more honored, Eleanor Cooney would have carried to term and placed for adoption?
A question that often comes up is why girls and women seek abortions. After all, a girl or woman who has a baby and can’t raise or doesn’t want to raise, may place for adoption. So why seek abortion?
When I put this question to Eleanor Cooney — who unlike myself has aborted — she gave me the answer I quoted above. It is not a matter of my being “duped.” I was trying to find out why she aborted when, if she had carried to term and given birth, she could have placed for adoption. Again, this is a question that often comes up in discussions about problem pregnancies. Her answer was that adoption was “quite irrelevant” because she “wasn’t going to complete the pregnancy.”
There is no question of my being “duped.” I simply related why SHE said adoption was irrelevant to her seeking an abortion.
I myself have never had an abortion.
You have to admit that — at the present time — adoption can’t be performed unless the pregnancy has been completed.