Catholicism and Abortion

Once again the Catholic Church is embroiled in another unnecessary confrontation. As a non practising catholic, I continually ask myself why I stopped believing - each time the catholic church provides me with a good reason why. I have heard many believers in the faith telling me that children and pregnancy is something to be cherished - I quite agree with this BUT only if the woman concerned wanted the child !!!.

Secondly, I do not in the main, believe in ABORTION, BUT where a woman is brutally raped, I believe that a decision whether the baby should be born or not should be left with the woman concerned. Others, and this includes the Catholic Church should not meddle. The trauma of rape is heinous enough, but to subject and imposed an element of guilt on the victim of such crime as rape is incomprehensible.

It would appear that this victim of the crime of rape is being punished for being raped, made to go through the trauma of unwanted pregnancy, trauma of birth of an unwanted child, trauma of the possibility of rejecting a child who, in all reasoning did not ask to be born or have a rapist father, trauma of the possibility hate and finally, trauma of the rapist seeking access to the child under the guise of father's right.

The Catholic Church should see sense and allow women some dignity in how they deal with personal issues such as pregnancy -planned or unplanned, violently conceived or otherwise - this should be a woman's decision and it is men's or partners' role to support them whatever that decision may be. Sometimes, we as men forget that changes of the body is not on us - we feel that a less thanfive minutes roll in the hay is enough to guarantee us the right over women - it does not - our role comes AFTER the baby is born and how we play this role depends on our relationship with our partners.

Finally, before reaching any decision, in the case of those women who have not been raped and in a relationship, PLEASE talk to your partner and convince them why you either want or did not want the baby - it does not have to be WAR. GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL.