Richard Ho Lung - Diary of a ghetto priest

"I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse, now choose life, so that you and your children may live."

(Deuteronomy 30:19)

In my article two weeks ago, the question placed before our readers is: Can morality be legislated? Today's modern world has it that all moral questions are irrelevant or must yield to economics and that the pragmatic concern for a more materially comfortable life is what primarily matters.

At the moment, Missionaries of the Poor (MOP) owns a building at Heroes Circle, and it will be implemented for women who are pregnant needing prenatal care - advice, as well as medical help, and we will run a free day-care centre, and an orphanage. Whatever the need might be, we will try to supply help, free of cost. We will even adopt the child permanently or temporarily. We have had success in having children adopted locally and overseas, even those who are challenged.

High priests of death

It is clear to all, including medical people, that abortion is murder of the unborn child. It would take a lot of rationali-sation to think otherwise; unfortunately, it is big business in the medical field right now. Medicine and medical people always were considered 'life givers', now with the event of abortion and euthanasia, by the cynical introduction of a twisted single-minded, one-dimensional idea in the medical field, medical science, which has customarily been miraculous in its invention, and closely linked to Christ the Healer, have become high priests of death.

"It is not a child, and giving birth to that thing in your womb will bring about your own destruction." Yet, virtually all medical texts and honest authorities agree that "the basic fact is simple: life begins, not at birth, but at conception".

The growth and development of the unborn child, especially in the early months, is nothing short of a miracle. Some milestones are the heart begins to beat as early as 18 days after conception, and by 40 days, its energy out-put waves can be detected. By eight weeks, all body organs are present, even though the tiny infant is only3cm (1 1/8 inch) long and weighs only one gram (1/30 ounces). The rapidly developing unborn child becomes extremely sensitive to sound, pressure, heat, light and pain.

The child before birth is a human being with potential, not a potential human being. Birth is not the beginning of life. It is only a change of residence for an already living, active person.

I believe that abortion would bring a curse upon our country. It is murder, and as John Paul II says, "any country that murders its children has no future". To legalise abortion is to make killing lawful; it will bring a curse on our land. It is no less than the slaughter of the innocents in the Scriptures.

Offer to care for infants

What should we do in the face of so many children being born out of wedlock or unwillingly conceived among the middle class? First of all, come to MOP or call MOP for Brother John Paul. Until we have our proper new home for pregnant women or women seeking after-care help, we will care for the infants. Second, the Government should join with the churches in stating that extra-marital activities are evil, against both natural law and the law of God; and that men must take care of their children and babymothers. Finally, family must be promoted as the only unit within which children are to be brought into this world.

Lifelong guilt

I have counselled women who have aborted, and they are scarred in a most terrible way by the experience. The guilt and sadness induced by the abortion is not false but the natural effect of having committed a most terrible crime. Educated or uneducated, the woman knows her sin: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." (Psalm 139:19). At the moment of her conception, Mary knew that she had conceived and she was most joyful : "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you suckled."

Doctors and nurses, I ask you to dissuade your pregnant patients from abortion. Thus, you will be saving lives. Do not kill them with kindness by giving them the advice to abort is out of compassion, as if it is an act of kindness on your part. I don't believe that deep in your heart you believe it is so.