Abortion is never a real choice

By Massimiliano Menichetti

There are images and stories that go viral, that underscore truth, beauty, communion, that give hope, such as the sequence filmed in Colombia, showing a mother under the rubble protecting her newborn son with her own body after the collapse, due to the 7.4-magnitude earthquake, of a five-story building in the Ciudad Capri neighborhood of Cali. The images circulating on social media and news broadcasts show the horror of the devastation, the rescuers searching and racing against time and the rubble, the woman and the little one being brought out alive and now out of danger.

The image captures, in all its drama, an entire fraternal, supportive society, intent on saving, taking care of, taking responsibility for the other, saving itself. It does not matter how many resources are required: the aim is to preserve life, even if it is only one.

About 4,300 kilometers away, in Massachusetts in the United States, the scene is completely different: it is that of the signing of an act. And the life of a child, in this case in the mother’s womb, is no longer seen in the same way; something else prevails.

Here, the “Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act” was signed, a law that eliminates the limit of the twenty-fourth week for the voluntary termination of pregnancy and gives greater discretion to the doctor’s professional judgment. Within this law is the word “care,” and yet here it is synonymous with death.

Now in the USA there are ten states that do not provide general limits on abortion. In this case, it was not life that triumphed.

Around the world, step by step, in the silence of political correctness or in the din of ideological confrontation and opposition, winds of death against man are spreading. This year alone, for example, Luxembourg included in its Constitution the freedom to resort to abortion—the second country after France to have an explicit reference to it in its fundamental charter—and the United Kingdom decriminalized it when carried out outside the regulatory framework.

In almost all the countries of the globe where laws have been approved that allow a child in a woman’s womb to be killed, there are articles aimed at preventing this killing: through assistance, care, closeness, support. But these provisions remain, in fact, unimplemented in almost all or the vast majority of cases. Because they are too burdensome.

People speak of choice for the woman, of care, and yet a real possibility of choosing is never provided, because the apparently easier path is proposed, which then is anything but that. It is proposed to intervene immediately, remove the problem, close one’s eyes, deny every scientific finding showing that from the moment of conception an unstoppable process begins that determines the person.

It is proposed to kill without ever saying so.

Allowing, instead, a woman a true choice would mean activating pathways, psychological, economic, and spiritual support, but this has an infinitely higher cost in terms of money and resources, and therefore it is better to remain silent.

A State shows all its foresight and breadth of vision when it takes care of its citizens, guarantees peace, equality, freedom of expression, protects life; when citizens build a society capable of recognizing the other, helping him, supporting him, accompanying him, loving him, laying in the present the roots of the future.

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Abortion, then, becomes confirmation or distortion of what is right and what is wrong, of what is against life and what is in favor of it.

The distortion lies in wanting to hide suffering, difficulty, and pain, instead of wanting to embrace those who find themselves in extreme situations and cannot find a way out.

It is here that humanity is measured: a humanity that does not kill, but loves and takes responsibility; that is willing to move through the rubble in order to save a life and to rejoice fully when this happens.