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http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=25013&wf=rsscol

NZ Catholic: Child abuse linked to abortion mentality
By Gavin Abraham
8/13/2007
NZ Catholic (www.nzcatholic.org.nz/)

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (NZ Catholic) – The warranted outrage at the recent horrific cases of child abuse in New Zealand are the end result of a society that allows abortion, Right to Life New Zealand has asserted.

Rotorua three-year-old Nia Glassie died on Aug. 2 after suffering from prolonged abuse. Right to Life's Ken Orr said the community is "outraged" by the injuries Nia received, and by the fact New Zealand has one of the highest rates of child abuse among members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Orr said a $14 million campaign to prevent child abuse is "welcomed as a positive step; however it is doomed to failure.”

"As a society, are we really concerned about preventing violence against our children?" Orr asked. "We are suffering from moral blindness, for we are concerned about protecting born children from violence but not unborn children.”

"If we lose respect for the child in the womb, it is natural that we should lose respect for the born child,” he said. ”Should we be surprised that if we allow the killing of unborn children by abortion, it would follow that there is also going to be violence against born children?"

Bob McCoskrie, the director of Family First New Zealand, pointed out that the way families operate is indicative of how the country operates. He has joined with For the Sake of Our Children Trust and the Sensible Sentencing Trust to devise a five-point plan to address New Zealand's child-abuse problem.

Under the heading "When our families are messed up, our nation is messed up,” the three organizations call for:

- A non-political commission of inquiry to identify effective and achievable solutions to child abuse, and examine specifically the role of drug and alcohol abuse, family structure and breakdown, race-based issues, and poverty and stress;

- An increase of support and resourcing of grassroots community organizations that are working with at-risk families and those attempting to stop abuse in the first place;

- Increased investment in and availability of parenting and marriage programs;

- Media-based anti-child abuse campaigns, in the same way road safety "shock" campaigns are run, raising the awareness of and encouraging "positive" parenting and identifying what is abuse;

- Sentencing for those who abuse and kill our children to be substantially toughened to provide both a deterrent and a clear message of our community's disgust with the actions of people who abuse children.

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With permission from Gavin of NZ Catholic, New Zealand’s national Catholic newspaper.