The cry of an aborted child

This poem came to light recently courtesy of my nephew who found it hidden among the usual family documents.

It was written in 1969 by my late brother John who was a great influence on my own Catholic faith and whose example probably was the main guide to my own orthodoxy.

John wrote the poem following a newspaper report (22nd May 1969) regarding an aborted baby crying out while on its way to the incinerator - a thought that is hard and abhorrent to contemplate.

So, on the first day of the 40 Days for Life, on behalf of my nephew, Michael, I dedicate this to those attending vigils being held throughout the world.

Hear me O God.  Hear.
From the depths of my condemned cell I cry.
None will hear me but You because You see,
I have no vote.
I did not murder nor did I steal or wound.
Yet I am held here helpless before the sterile steel.
Or the poisoned needle.
A death too brutal for murderers is a death
reserved for me.
No comforting breast nor loving Mother's arms await me.
My body will be given to be burned.
What have I done? I have not earned
this sordid unlamented end.
In sin was I conceived. Unwanted I die
before I shall be born.
O when the metal enters my brain,
when I shall kick my last convulsive agony,
take me, take me to Your arms.
None will console me, none cherish me.
None hear my last suffocated
shriek from the traitorous womb.
Save You, save only You.
O love me God.

John Francis Collins RIP

Please help this poem gain coverage in the hope that it may reach into the hearts of the politicians, doctors, nurses and others who are involved in this barbaric practice.

The Back-Street Abortionists

The Back-Street Abortionists

There was a time you could go and see a back-street abortionist

A time you could go and see a back-street abortionist

Have your unborn baby killed by a back-street abortionist

But we left those 'dark days' behind!

There was a time you’d be imprisoned as a back-street abortionist

A time you’d be imprisoned as a back-street abortionist

Killin' babies was illegal while there were some who supported it

But we left those 'dark days' behind!

Lord Steele had an idea he said,

“Let’s move the abortionists!”

Said: “Here’s an idea! Let’s move the abortionists!”

So we moved the abortionists and for over 40 years

Let them kill babies noon, sunset, sunrise

Oh, whatever happened to those back-street abortionists?

Whatever happened to those back-street abortionists?

Maybe they just became the front-street abortionists

As they were told that they had ‘served their time’

Now you can go and see your front-street abortionist

You can go and see your front-street abortionist

Have your unborn babies killed by your front-street abortionist

 'Cos nothing’s sacred, not even your baby’s life!

Kill your babies at the front-street abortionists!

Kill your babies at the front-street abortionists!

Kill your babies at the front-street abortionists!

That’s the message of ‘Abortion Rights’!

Kill your babies at the front-street abortionists!

Say, “It’s my body!”

As they sling a bag of babies in!

Cry, "It's my body!"

As they sling another bag of babies in!

Into the bin outside!

Kill your babies at the front-street abortionists!

Kill your babies at the front-street abortionists!

Say, “It’s my choice!”

No, dear, its the choice of the abortionist

The one with the pills, hoover, knife

The one who takes your baby’s life

The ones who used to be 'inside'

In those 'dark days' when child murder was a crime

(Optional Extra Verse)

Lord Steele
Here's an idea!
Let's close the abortionists!
Here's an idea!
Let's move the abortionists!
Let's move the abortionists, back where they really oughta sit
In a prison cell for their crime
Until they've really 'served their time'
 Then we can say: 'We've left those dark days behind...'

Halliday Sutherland - the man who fought Marie Stopes in court and finally won!

HALLIDAY GIBSON SUTHERLAND RIP

June 24th 1882 - April 19th 1960

Halliday Sutherland was a learned medical Doctor, a great traveller and travel writer and, above all else, a defender of the faith.

In the early twenties, close on the heels of the Suffragette movement and the 'liberation' of women, one Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes was establishing herself as an authority on women's health and, most especially issues concerning sex. She opened her first Family Planning Clinic in 1921 in Holloway, North London.

Both the Catholic Church and the Church of England launched an attack on Stopes but it fell to Halliday Sutherland to make the main assault in his book 'Birth Control: A Statement of Christian Doctrine Against the Neo-Malthusians.'

The book carried a passage that Marie Stopes and her legal team were able to fasten upon:

 "Exposing the Poor to Experiment.

"Secondly, the ordinary decent instincts of the poor are against these practices, and indeed they have used them less than any other class. But, owing to their poverty, lack of learning and helplessness, the poor are the natural victims of those who seek to make experiments on their fellows.

In the midst of a London slum, a woman, who is a Doctor of  German philosophy (Munich), has opened a Birth Control Clinic, where working women are instructed in a method of contraception described by Professor McIlroy as 'The most harmful method of which I have had experience'

(Proceedings of the Medico-Legal Society, July 7th 1921.

Sutherland went on to slate the Government of the day stating: "It is truly amazing that this monstrous campaign of Birth Control should be tolerated by the Home Secretary, Charles Bradlaugh was condemned to jail for a  less serious crime"

Photo: BBC
Dr Marie Stopes

Marie Stopes took the case to the libel court and, after a battle involving some of the top lawyers of the time, she lost the case but immediately went to appeal whereupon the decision was overturned and victory was hers.

Sutherland, being a gritty Highlander was not given to losing and he took the case to The House of Lords and won.

He married Muriel Fitzpatrick in 1920 and the couple had five sons and one daughter. One son was killed in the war and one (Richard More Sutherland RIP) became a priest in Westminster Diocese and a personal friend of mine.

He was an authority on tuberculosis and built up a reputation for his medical knowledge, his wit and his writings that included a series of books. The most famous was 'Arches of the Years' but, in 'A Time to Keep' he covers a pilgrimage to Lourdes and makes several interesting insights on St Bernadette and Our Lady.

In 1954 he was made Knight Commander of the Order of Isobel the Catholic and was presented with the Pope John XXI medal in 1955.

Marie Stopes, when writing about the case some years later described him as:

"The most cocksure man in the British Empire"

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,

and let perpetual light shine upon him.

May he rest in peace. Amen