Our State Attorney General, when Parliament resumes after the winter break in September, is due to present an abortion law reform bill following the recommendations of the South Australian Law Reform Institute. Abortion will be treated solely as a health issue and be allowed in some circumstances even up to birth.

Abortion must always be seen as a right to life issue for both the unborn child and its mother. We understand clearly from our faith that every human life is sacred to God from its earliest time in the womb.

Currently, abortion in our State is permitted up to 28 weeks of gestation and in 2016 there were 4346 abortions with 95.6 per cent of them for the reason of the women’s mental health. The denial of the dignity of the human life of the child in its mother’s womb is already the case in our State and is a tragic loss of life. Why on earth is there a need to extend this situation? At a time when the whole state is making such enormous sacrifices to save human life during this COVID-19 pandemic, it is totally incomprehensible that we would remove restrictions from the taking of human life in the case of abortion.

The categorising of abortion as a ‘health issue’ or a ‘freedom of choice issue’ or when ‘legalised’ cannot remove the moral responsibility involved in taking a human life. We must not be silenced by those who say that religious views have no place in the public sphere. Abortion, as with other issues of human life, will always remain a moral issue and the personal responsibility of all those involved as well as the whole of society.

Now is the time for all of us in the Archdiocese to be a ‘voice for the voiceless.’ Now is the time to act. Write to the Premier, write to your local MP, write to members of the Legislative Council, organise petitions, organise meetings and gatherings. For further information I highly recommend the ‘Loveadelaide’ organisation and the information video on their website at www.loveadelaide.org.au.

May God bless our efforts in witnessing to the inalienable right to life of every human being.

– Fr Dean Marin, Mount Gambier and Millicent parish priest