Hi, I'm Laura, I'm 19,
and I'm finding out whether abortion is right for me.
If someone came to you and they found that they were pregnant
but they weren't married and they weren't
in a really serious relationship with someone.
What would be your advice to them?
Well the first thing is that I know that if somebody
came to me who was pregnant, a young woman like yourself, late teens.
If they were pregnant and they
come to me, what that would probably mean would be
that they had already been advised by several people
to have an abortion.
If they go to the doctor, if they go to the practice nurse,
if they talk to their family, they'll all be saying
well, you can terminate your pregnancy.
Therefore if they came to me I would normally expect,
and it would normally be the case that they want a further choice.
I would say, the right thing to do
is to have the baby and to celebrate in the joys
and the life of that child.
Do you think there's a scenario where abortions are okay?
I wouldn't say there is any situation where abortion is okay.
Because if one believes that the child in the womb is
is a human child, is a baby, then there's no situation
in which you can say that it's okay to kill that baby.
Anymore than, for example, for a 6 month old baby.
When somebody's had an abortion, they might think that
the Church is going to condemn you.
No, actually what we really want to do
is to bring you back, and to bring you
the forgiveness and healing that's there.
But I also see people who've had an abortion 30 years ago
and they're still troubled by it. So what can seem to be an easy choice
here and now often turns out to be, not such
a kind of quick solution maybe.
What are your feelings on ladies that get pregnant from rape?
In most countries which has an abortion law
which generally prohibits abortion, there's usually an
exception made in the case of rape.
In terms of the law
and what would be imposed on people I would think
that's probably a prudent thing to do.
Still, I would say if someone is clearly aware
that this is a child, this is a baby, well, that's probably not
a choice that you want to present to people.
I think of the example of the women in Bosnia,
who were raped.
Some of the Serbian soldiers raped some of the women in areas that they went to.
It was a kind of bizarre and ghastly form of
extension of ethnic cleansing.
They wanted to have Serbian children growing up in these other areas.
And the women who were raped said,
this is an act of violence that's been done to us,
we're not going to perpetuate this with another act of violence.
We will bring up these children.
Do you think that abortions should be illegal?
Or do you think that they should be harder to get?
Or, what would you...?
Personally I think it would be better if abortion was illegal.
Just as a murder is illegal, the killing of young infants is illegal.
I would say the same should apply to abortion.