The 2008 “Respect For Woman Rally” was a great success in raising the awareness in the community of the need for woman to respected as wife, colleague, mother.

Below is an overview of the speakers, Madonna McLindon, Dr Graeme Cumming and Teresa Martin, and their inspiring talks from the Rally.

Watch videos of the Rally here.

Madonna McLindon, married and mother of 4 small boys, was born without the lower part of her left arm. Madonna said what the world perceives as a disability has provided her with many random acts of kindness from offers of help when out shopping to friends offering to help at home. These people would not have had the opportunity to step up to the mark if Madonna was not here.

Due to Madonna being alive and kicking, another baby with a similar disability was allowed to live and kick too. Madonna related how a couple whose ultrasound results showed the baby they were carrying would be born without a hand were considering abortion. A friend suggested they go and observe Madonna dealing with the business of living – they did and due to this, decided their baby too would live. If Madonna was not here, perhaps that other child may not have had a chance either. We may never know the impact our acceptance of our “disabled” child has on the rest of the world.

Madonna stated that “there is something wonderful in hardship” – to forge ahead against all odds and discover strengths that you never knew you had makes you a stronger person, in turn, becoming more equipped to help others not so strong.

Madonna believes that women have been sold short – that whilst they can do the work of a man, they are being pressured to do the work as a man. Madonna believes that women should always keep their special female qualities of care and nurturing to the fore.

Finally Madonna mentioned how when happily goo-gahhing with her small baby, his little fist came flying out of nowhere. One minute it was all loves and smiles and then kapow. Life is like that – it is how we act and react to the kapow in life that is totally up to us.

Dr Graeme Cumming spoke on the issue that has been largely sidelined by society – adoption. Adopting is the gifting of a child to a childless couple. It is the generosity of heart of those relinquishing the child, that they realise for whatever reason, they are unable to have that child live closely with them, that kindly allows another couple to experience the happiness of having a family.

Dr Cumming spoke on this from a personal perspective – many years ago his child was gifted via adoption to a couple who lovingly brought his son up. Wonderfully for Dr Cumming, his son made contact with him a number of years ago and they have been forging a relationship since then. They have two sayings – in relation to things they agree on, that saying is “some things are genetic”, in relation to things they disagree on, the saying becomes “some things are not genetic”.

To build a relationship is so healing of past hurts and losses and Dr Cumming treasures this as so many men will never know this experience as their babies are aborted.

In his role as a doctor, it is upsetting to find so many girls given misinformation about how medication affects the unborn child. One young woman who can to him for a check after having had an abortion some weeks earlier. When discussing with this woman the reason for her abortion, it was discovered that the referring doctor had told her the medication she was on would create abnormalities in her unborn child. The information this woman had been given but the other doctor was quite incorrect - the medication would have only caused smaller teeth or discoloured teeth if the pregnant woman continued to take it after Week 18 of the pregnancy.

Dr Cumming spoke of his great admiration for woman who have difficult pregnancies but go through it all for the great self-sacrifice of birthing their babies. He is also very encouraging of women to discern what they truly want to do as so many bow to the pressure of boyfriends, husbands, friends and sadly sometimes their own mother.

There is great work being done to support pregnant woman and girls on the north coast with a house being set up to provide accommodation and care for those needing it.

Teresa Martin spoke about the impact fathers have on their daughters – that the first love of a little girl’s life is her dad, and he is the blueprint of a man that she takes with her into her life.

If you do provide the correct love and validation for your daughter, this will put at least some distance between her and a predisposition to an abortive decision. A daughter looks to her father for an appropriate affirmation of her femininity and her womanhood and if she doesn’t get it from him, she will look to other males for it, and often this desire for affirmation turns sexual accidentally if these males are her own age. So to all the fathers out there, please tell your daughters they are turning into beautiful young women – if you don’t someone else will, and they may not have your daughters’ best interests at heart. This is turn will sometimes create a pregnancy, and then the pressure to “fix the problem” via abortion.

Deep in a woman’s heart, the words ‘nurture, love, protect’ are written. These are a woman’s most innate senses that she must fight to keep down when deciding on abortion. Bowing to pressure from those around her, often from the very ones that should be nuturing, loving and protecting her – the boyfriend, the husband, her mother.

If women respect themselves they will be less likely to place themselves in a situation whereby they have an unexpected pregnancy and therefore be pressured into abortion.

This “Respect For Women Rally” seeks to help women understand the place they should rightly hold in society, that is a place of respect. And women themselves are also responsible for engendering that respect for themselves in others. This means that women should not dress in a fashion that shows they do not respect themselves nor speak in a fashion that is disrespectful of their worth and value.

Our society has rejected traditional moral norms – the natural and normal and traditional care and concern of parents towards their child, of a mother towards the baby she is carrying. A society where children are only valued if they are “planned”. Our message is this – each and every life, planned or unplanned, is to be valued and cherished. Life is a gift and noone has the right to destroy that gift.

Those providing abortions play on the fears of these women and that is basically emotional abuse. These women, young and older, are in fear that their boyfriend or husband will leave them. They fear they can’t manage on their own as a single mum. They fear their parents reaction. They fear the loss of career and status. They fear the loss of their independence. The abortion places play on those fears. Fear becomes the all-consuming motivating emotion that takes over. These women disengage their hearts – a necessary prerequisite to going ahead with an abortion. We are here today to say give these women the freedom to follow their hearts. Women do not truly want abortion. They want a different circumstance to surround their pregnancy. So instead of removing the baby, let’s give these women the support services that they need to help their situation so they truly can make real choices.

So we say – women: stay strong and follow your hearts.