Just Grounds Community

For Like minded people who like to see-

Australian Father of Seven to Spend 8 months in Jail for Protecting Unborn

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/australian-father-of-seven-to-spen...

A father of seven children will spend 8 months in jail starting Wednesday as a result of his efforts to the defend the unborn.

It is the longest jail-term ever received by an Australian pro-life activist.

Graham Preston, 56, was called by police last week to arrange a time for his arrest. He negotiated to move it back from 8am to 9am this coming Wednesday, May 2, so he would have enough time to get his children to school.

Mr. Preston will serve 232 days in prison - seeing him out just in time for Christmas - for refusing to pay roughly $8000 in fines that have accumulated after ten years of non-violently blocking the entrances of four abortion clinics around Brisbane.

Since beginning non-violent direct action with the group Protect Life almost exactly ten years ago (April 16, 2002), Mr. Preston has endured more than ten months in jail over five separate jail-terms - mostly in Brisbane’s maximum security Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre.

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rory Donnellan on April 30, 2012 at 8:54pm

Here is what his wife, Liz Preston has written, entitled "My husband went to jail this week"...

If a child is about to be killed, everyone should try to save that child. Right? Now, hold that thought for a minute.

My husband went to jail this week. For eight months. His crime? Sitting down. Yes, I know, sitting down is not usually regarded as being a crime and especially not one you go to jail for eight months for. But it depends on where you do it and how often.

My husband, Graham, along with a few others at different times, has sat down on dozens of occasions in recent years in front of the doors of Brisbane abortion clinics, and refused to move. He has not been charged with "sitting down" of course, but with things like trespass. But sitting down and refusing to move is all that he actually does.

I know that at this point some readers, when they see that he is opposed to abortion, will say that being sent to jail for such sit-ins is just what he deserves. But let's try and think about this for a moment.
Graham, like myself and others, believes that when a woman is pregnant she is carrying a baby. There is surely nothing too controversial with that belief - I've carried a number of babies to term myself and I have no doubt that, yes, they really were babies that I was carrying.

Indeed, I would venture to say that every woman who is happily pregnant has no doubt that she is carrying a baby and there is always much delight in viewing the ultrasound images. If the baby should be lost through spontaneous miscarriage, then there is usually considerable grief at that loss.

Further, Graham, like myself and others, believes that abortion deliberately ends the life of the baby that is being carried in the womb. Again, this should hardly be a controversial claim: as noted above, pregnancy involves the carrying of a baby in the womb, so if an abortion is carried out, that means a baby's life is deliberately taken.

So back to where this article started: if a child is about to be killed, everyone should try to save that child's life. Right? Well, yes, normally, but apparently not if the child we are talking about saving is a child that is scheduled to be killed by abortion.

In the minds of some, if the mother or parents of a preborn child decide that they want to have an abortion, then their child loses absolutely all right to have their life protected. But not everyone is prepared to simply turn away and abandon such children to death. And not without good reason either.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Australia is a signatory, states in the opening paragraph of the Preamble: " . . . recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world" (emphasis added).

Article 3 of the Declaration reads: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person." (emphasis added).

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990), to which Australia is also a signatory, reaffirms in the Preamble the following statement from the earlier Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959): " . . . the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, both before as well as after birth." (emphasis added)

However the reality in Australia today is that, regardless of Australia being a signatory to the above documents, there is effectively no legal protection given to the child before birth. If a woman wants to end her child's life by abortion, so long as she has the money to pay for it, she can visit an abortion clinic and readily get it done. About 90 to 100 000 babies are killed by abortion in Australia each year.

Yet here in Queensland, if a person should assault a pregnant woman and subsequently her child dies, the assailant can be punished with life imprisonment - the same penalty that is given for killing a born person.

So we have a situation where a preborn child's life is regarded as being as valuable as anyone else's life - if the mother wants the child - but if the mother does not want the child, then somehow the child, apparently, loses all value and rights and can be killed by abortion.

But it is a well-recognised injustice for the value and rights of one human being to be made dependent upon the say-so of one or more other human beings. At other times and places sub-sections of humanity, such as those who are Jewish or who have dark-coloured skin, have been deemed by others to be less than fully human and so could be made subject to death and enslavement.

Those attitudes are now almost totally rejected in our society, yet, incongruously, we live with the greatest of discriminations being openly practised against another sub-section of humanity - the preborn children. (Not to mention the harm that abortion can do to women.)

Well, not everybody is prepared to just live with such double standards.
Yes, my husband and the others have been found to be breaking the law in their efforts to come to the defence of children who are scheduled to be aborted. It is clearly no small thing for them to defy the law and do so over and over again. Yet laws, which allow for the wholesale destruction of innocent human life, cannot be taken to be absolute.

As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his famous letter from Birmingham jail, " . . . there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

Yes, if a child is about to be killed, all of us should try to save the child - even if we are sent to jail for doing so.

Written by Liz Preston: Phone for more information (07) 3892 5349

Email: contact@protect-life.info

Website:www.protect-life.info

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rory Donnellan on May 1, 2012 at 9:09pm

Here's an excerpt from Liz Preston's letter, which could easily become the Just Grounds battle-cry.

Every farmer, every Australian, nay every person alive, has a moral responsibility to oppose unjust laws.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Linda Campion on May 2, 2012 at 9:32pm

And people who do worse 'crimes' get out in less. There is no justice.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rory Donnellan on May 2, 2012 at 9:36pm

Too true Linda. The baby-killers in the clinic should be serving time behind bars, not this peaceful protester.

Linda Campion said:

And people who do worse 'crimes' get out in less. There is no justice.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phillip Watson on May 2, 2012 at 9:43pm

With few exceptions, I would imagine, abortion is not a decision taken lightly by a prospective mother. In the couple of instances I personally know of, it was the most traumatic decision the woman had ever made, and was done for (what I would consider) very good reasons. To this day, these two woman are still haunted by the decisions they had to make.

Knowing how much heartache these two women experienced, I can't think of a worse act that some guy sitting down and obstructing their path into a place that they have no desire to attend, but must do so due to circumstances beyond their control.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rory Donnellan on May 2, 2012 at 9:51pm

Phillip,

If there were more courageous men like Mr Preston, those very unfortunate women you mentioned may have been prevented from tremendous trauma.

Phillip Watson said:

With few exceptions, I would imagine, abortion is not a decision taken lightly by a prospective mother. In the couple of instances I personally know of, it was the most traumatic decision the woman had ever made, and was done for (what I would consider) very good reasons. To this day, these two woman are still haunted by the decisions they had to make.

Knowing how much heartache these two women experienced, I can't think of a worse act that some guy sitting down and obstructing their path into a place that they have no desire to attend, but must do so due to circumstances beyond their control.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Linda Campion on May 2, 2012 at 10:01pm

Everyone has a choice. And think of the women who can't even have children and who so desperately want to have them. Too often, the argument of 'protecting the mother's health' or the child's health is used, or they 'can't afford' the child. Use protection. And the waiting lists are long for those who want to adopt. Why can't some of these children be given to the women who actually want them, so they are loved and cared for? Are we that selfish?

Rory Donnellan said:

Phillip,

If there were more courageous men like Mr Preston, those very unfortunate women you mentioned may have been prevented from tremendous trauma.

Phillip Watson said:

With few exceptions, I would imagine, abortion is not a decision taken lightly by a prospective mother. In the couple of instances I personally know of, it was the most traumatic decision the woman had ever made, and was done for (what I would consider) very good reasons. To this day, these two woman are still haunted by the decisions they had to make.

Knowing how much heartache these two women experienced, I can't think of a worse act that some guy sitting down and obstructing their path into a place that they have no desire to attend, but must do so due to circumstances beyond their control.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phillip Watson on May 2, 2012 at 10:16pm

Linda Campion said:

Everyone has a choice. And think of the women who can't even have children and who so desperately want to have them. Too often, the argument of 'protecting the mother's health' or the child's health is used, or they 'can't afford' the child. Use protection.

Rory Donnellan said:

Phillip,

If there were more courageous men like Mr Preston, those very unfortunate women you mentioned may have been prevented from tremendous trauma.

Yes, they did have a choice. I think that's the point, isn't it? Mr Preston wants to remove that choice.

In the cases of which I wrote, neither lack-of-contraception nor finance were factors in the decisions, by the way.

I have no issue with religious belief Rory, so long as the rules of that belief are not imposed on those who are not of that faith. Australia is quite a secular nation (and becoming more so all the time), and I don't believe that the strict rules of one religion (let alone one denomination of that religion) should be dictating what can or cannot happen in the rest of society, especially when it conflicts with the law.

Mr Preston certainly has the right to protest against abortion if that is his belief, however I don't think causing further trauma to women who are already suffering does his cause any good, and almost certainly causes further emotional harm to the women involved.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rory Donnellan on May 2, 2012 at 11:07pm

Phillip,

You mention Mr Preston's conflict with the law. Martin Luther King (and Liz Preston) both make the distinction between just and unjust laws. In another discussion, I have previously been accused of ignoring "inconvenient" legislation relating to the control of parthenium by someone who doesn't seem to understand that not all state laws are necessarily just laws. So how do we distinguish between just and unjust laws? When a state's laws and God's laws are in conflict, either the state law is wrong, or God is wrong. Please don't ask me how atheists decide which laws are just and unjust.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phillip Watson on May 2, 2012 at 11:26pm

Rory Donnellan said:

Phillip,

You mention Mr Preston's conflict with the law. Martin Luther King (and Liz Preston) both make the distinction between just and unjust laws. In another discussion, I have previously been accused of ignoring "inconvenient" legislation relating to the control of parthenium by someone who doesn't seem to understand that not all state laws are necessarily just laws. So how do we distinguish between just and unjust laws? When a state's laws and God's laws are in conflict, either the state law is wrong, or God is wrong. Please don't ask me how atheists decide which laws are just and unjust.

Well Rory, I am an Athiest and I make a judgement on right and wrong based on my own moral compass, just as people of different religions or no religions do all around the World. To date, that compass has served me well.

To me, the Bible is just another book. Yes, it is an interesting one and proffers many good moral values. However it also contains many dubious moral values and some horrendous advice (the old testament in particular). So just as with State laws, I make a call on what I think is right and wrong about the 'laws' in the Bible. Surely you must do the same thing, as to take the advice in the Bible literally would mean killing everyone not of the Christian faith, for example? (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

When deciding between the laws of the State versus the laws of God, I ask you...Which version of God's laws? Which interpretation? Which God? How can you be sure that your interpretation of God's laws is correct, and that the equally certain person of another faith (or even denomination) is incorrect?