The Life Shop

210 Victoria Avenue, Whanganui

For any advice or enquiries, please contact Helma Vermulen

Photo of Helma holding a baby she helped save from abortion

As a Voice for Life Committee, we were always very interested in a pro-life window display in the middle of our town. It was suggested we open a second-hand shop with a pro-life window, and use the proceeds from the shop to help mothers with crisis pregnancies, with our focus on the Māori community.

A sympathetic property developer heard this and allowed us the use of an empty shop on the main street of Whanganui. After moving in, we realised we were opposite the Family Planning Clinic which refers women for abortions. This confirmed for us the Lord was with us as our Landlord had not realised this.

The majority of the women we help are Māori. We are very thankful for this because the current abortion rate among Māori is 23%. This is so sad and against the Māori culture that strongly embraces the sanctity of life.

We have found a lot of Māori women are coerced into an abortion by being confronted with statistics on imprisonment, domestic violence, poverty and child abuse. While these statistics are not good, it is a tragedy to deny these children the right to live in a country they are indigenous to - and the highest statistic of them all is the Māori abortion rate!!

Through The Life Shop many Māori babies are saved and their mothers are helped. We introduce mothers to the House of Grace in Wellington or Hamilton where they are able to stay for up to three months and receive support and guidance with their pregnancy. We also help mothers with securing housing, vehicles and everything needed for a newborn baby.

The Life Shop sends baby necessities throughout Aotearoa. It is better to be a giver of life than a taker. We are all created in the image of God. This is one of the most important reasons for The Life Shop in Whanganui.

Abortion is Against Aroha

Ihu Karaiti said “By this everyone will know you are My disciples: if you aroha one another.” (John 13:35). Unfortunately, in our modern world, aroha has become little more than a mere good feeling instead of what it should be: the will to do good to another person, beginning with the unborn. It welcomes the stranger in the womb; it clothes the developing child with flesh; it visits the imprisoned babe with a lullaby; it feeds that tiny eternal soul with material nourishment. But the act of abortion turns away from all of this. Aroha gives, abortion takes.

Abortion is Against Language

Pro-abortionists must call it a “procedure” or a “fetus” or a “women’s choice” because they dare not describe the gross reality of it - we do to a human baby what we would not do to a mouse. Abortion survives by causing people to lie to one another, to evade the truth, or to silence opponents altogether. It is against language because it refuses to do what language was created to do: communicate. And its paradoxical effect is that those within society who clearly communicate what abortion is are soon excommunicated from society.

Abortion is Against Justice

According to the Natural Law, there is no other basis for justice except by appealing to the immutable rights of a human being. If, then, abortion is the unrestricted killing of inncoent human life (which it is), then it is the primary issue of injustice in our nation. By all measures of Justice, abortion is a crime, and it is a crime not only against our fellowmen, it is a crime against ourselves. By killing our tamariki we are killing our conscience, and by killing our conscience we are killing any ability to discern between right and wrong.

Abortion is Against Sexuality

The primary reason for the social prevalence of abortion is to prevent the punishment of promiscuous sex. Abortion encourages our society to continue its sexual degeneracy. It encourages men to treat women like meat, and women to treat children like disease. Abortion has proven to regard childbirth as a contemptible curse, rather than as a miraculous blessing, a divine co-creation, a fresh Free Will added to the world, and an eternal soul - made in the image of God.

- Points by Gabriel Finochio